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LOS ANGELES — A jury has ruled the city of Los Angeles doesn't owe potentially $100 million to the family of a teen girl who was killed by a stray bullet amid a police shooting at a department store, as a majority of the jury agreed the officer was justified to fire at a violent suspect, despite the tragic outcome.
The jury in Los Angeles County Superior Court rendered its verdict on May 7 after a nearly three-week long trial.
The jury verdict was 9-3 in favor of defendants including the city of Los Angeles and L.A. Police Department Officer William Dorsey Jones Jr.
The lawsuit had been filed in 2022 by the family of Valentina Orellana-Peralta.
That lawsuit had been filed in L.A. County court about a year after Orellana-Peralta, then 14, was struck and killed by a bullet fired from a rifle wielded by Jones, which had been aimed at a violent suspect, but went through a wall at a Burlington store in North Hollywood into a dressing room where Orellana-Peralta had taken cover to hide from the suspect.
According to court documents, Jones was among a group of LAPD officers who responded to 911 calls from store employees, seeking assistance when a man entered the store and began attacking customers with a bike lock.
According to court documents and published reports, Orellana-Peralta sought to protect herself from the attacker and the resulting chaos by hiding in a store dressing room.
However, as officers responded, court documents say Jones armed himself with a department-issued AR-15 semiautomatic rifle. He ultimately fired three shots at the suspect, asserting he did not know the suspect was only armed with a bike lock and not a gun.
Further, Jones claimed he believed the suspect was standing in front of a brick wall, not only a thin wall made of drywall, which bullets can easily penetrate.
However, one of those three shots reportedly struck the assailant, but then ricocheted through the wall behind him, striking and killing Orellana-Peralta.
In the complaint and at trial, plaintiff lawyers argued Jones had acted recklessly and in violation of LAPD policies and procedures when he reportedly rushed past other officers to "take point" and then fired three shots.
Plaintiffs were initially represented in the case by attorneys with the firm of Panish Shea Boyle Ravipudi, of Los Angeles.
However, at trial, the family was represented by attorney Nick Rowley and others with the firm of Trial Lawyers for Justice, with offices in cities throughout the U.S., including locally in Los Angeles, Irvine, Santa Barbara and San Diego.
At trial, attorneys for the city and Jones told jurors the girl's tragic death was an accident, as Jones was faced with a life-and-death, split second decision, and Jones feared he and other officers could come under gun fire from a potentially armed suspect who had already proven violent.
They told jurors Jones was focused only on neutralizing the violent assailant.
Following the verdict, L.A. City Attorney Hydee Feldstein Soto issued a statement saying "the City shares" the family's grief over the girl's death.
"Society calls upon our police officers to risk their own safety to protect others and run towards danger when others run away," Feldstein Soto said. "Officer Jones answered that call in pursuit of a violent man threatening bystanders and beating a woman inside the store. We stand by him, knowing that he has carried the burden of Valentina's death with him for many years.
"... This event was a horrible tragedy and every parent's and every law enforcement officer's worst nightmare."
In statements published in an article by Courthouse Viewing Network following the trial, Rowley, the family's attorney, asserted the court limited the family's possibilities of success at trial, by not allowing the family's legal team to tell jurors that L.A.'s police chief had reportedly determined Jones' actions weren't justified under LAPD policies.
Rowley said he was "devastated" by the verdict.
It is not known if the family will attempt to appeal the verdict.
