On Monday, the Los Angeles Police Department released bodycam footage from a shooting Thursday in which an officer killed a teen girl inside a clothing store after firing at an assault suspect. The LAPD also released store surveillance video and 911 calls.
As reported by the Los Angeles Times, Valentina Orellana-Peralta, 14, was fatally shot while inside a North Hollywood Burlington clothing store’s dressing room with her mother, trying on dresses for her quinceañera. Officers fatally shot the suspect, later identified as 24-year-old Daniel Elena Lopez, and struck the wall behind him. Orellana-Peralta was on the other side.
One 911 call is from a store employee who described Lopez as a “hostile customer” who was going around the store, searching for people to attack with a bike lock, The Washington Post reports. The caller said the man may have been under the influence of drugs or alcohol. Another 911 caller said Lopez had a gun; others were unsure, according to the calls.
Footage of the incident inside the store shows Lopez entering the premise about 11 a.m. on a bike, wearing a black sleeveless top and shorts and looping his bike lock around one of his shoulders. Later, he is wearing a coat, pants and different shoes.
Store and body-camera footage show at least 11 officers responding to the scene with weapons drawn as Lopez attacked shoppers, LAPD spokesperson Capt. Stacy Spell said, according to WaPo.
As police climb the escalator, bodycam video shows an officer asking his peers to move out of the way so he can get by with his rifle.
“He’s hitting her now on the right side,” one of the officers calls out. Within seconds, the officer with the rifle raises his weapon as a trail of blood enters view, leading to a woman on the floor.
“She’s bleeding! She’s bleeding,” he tells his colleagues.
Then the assailant comes to view at the end of an aisle filled with picture frames and calendar items. He ducks to his side as the officer fires three shots, causing him to fall to the ground.
Only after the shooting, as they searched the store for additional victims or suspects, did officers find Valentina, who had been struck by an officer’s round that had pierced a wall near Elena Lopez and struck her in a changing room, police said. She was pronounced dead at the scene.
Watch the report below from local station ABC7, via YouTube.
