LAPD Chief Moore says 2021 fatal shooting of teenage girl inside a North Hollywood Burlington was out of policy
During a closed-session meeting, Los Angeles Police Chief Michel Moore declared that the officer that shot and killed a 14-year-old girl inside a North Hollywood Burlington did not adhere to police policies.
In December 2021, officers responded to the Burlington store near Laurel Canyon and Victory Boulevards after receiving reports of gunfire and multiple reports of a possible active shooter.
Officers arrived at the store, began their search and eventually found the suspect 24-year-old Daniel Elena Lopez shortly after he beat a woman with a bike chain.
Within seconds of finding Lopez and the bloodied woman laying below him, Officer William Jones opened fire.
He shot three bullets and killed Lopez. However, one of those rounds pierced the wall of a nearby dressing room and killed 14-year-old Valentina Orellana-Peralta.
She and her mother had just arrived in L.A. from Santiago, Chile, about six months before the shooting.
The family's attorneys said Orellana-Peralta died in her mother's arms.
In a closed-session meeting of the Los Angeles Police Commission, Moore said that all three of those shots did not adhere to police policies.
The commission had a slightly different opinion on the shooting, believing that the officer's first shot was within policy but the last two were not.
Moore has not made a recommendation for any type of disciplinary action yet.
