(RoyalPatriot.com )- Last Thursday, Los Angeles police officers shot and killed a 14-year-old girl who was inside a store where police opened fire on a suspect who assaulted a woman. The suspect was also killed.
According to the LAPD, the girl was struck by a stray bullet that passed through a dressing room wall. She was identified as 14-year-old Valentina Orellana-Peralta.
The woman who had been assaulted was taken to the hospital where doctors say she suffered moderate to serious injuries to her head and face.
The incident began when officers were called the Burlington store in North Hollywood after a man, acting erratically, struck a woman in the head with a bicycle lock. 911 callers also reported hearing shots fired.
Officers arrived at the store which was crowded with Christmas shoppers shortly before noon and began a search for the suspect. It was as police encountered the suspect assaulting a woman that one of the officers opened fire.
The suspect, 24-year-old Daniel Elena Lopez was killed and one bullet went through the drywall behind him striking Orellana-Peralta who was in the changing room with her mother.
Police found a heavy metal bike lock near the suspect’s body, however, no firearm was found at the scene.
LAPD Assistant Chief Dominic Choi called the shooting of Orellana-Peralta “tragic and unfortunate.”
LAPD Chief Michel Moore said that a “thorough, complete, and transparent investigation” into the shooting will be conducted. The officer who shot Orellana-Peralta was placed on administrative leave.
Unsurprisingly, the news media descended on the 14-year-old’s family like locusts. Her father, Juan Pablo Orellana Larenas, who is from Chile, said all his daughter wanted was to become an American citizen. He said he wanted to leave the US, but she told him that America is “the safest country in the world.”
Orellana Larenas told reporters that now his daughter “is dead at the hands of the state.”
The California Department of Justice is investigating the shooting.
