The operation in which the young woman died was captured by security cameras, recording the shots fired by the uniformed officer.
the policeman of The Angels who accidentally killed a Chilean teenager when shooting a suspect in a store in December 2021, was wrong to shoot more than once, the Police Commission of that Californian city ruled, local media reported this Wednesday.
Officer William Dorsey Jones Jr. shot three times at Daniel Elena Lopez24, who had brutally attacked two women at a clothing store in the North Hollywood area.
The officer’s shots killed López, but also Valentina Orellana Peralta14 years old, who was in a dressing room with her mother, Soledad Peralta.
Videos from officers’ body cameras revealed that the interior of the fitting room at the Burlington Coat Factory store was out of sight of officers and directly behind where Elena Lopez was standing when she was shot.
The Police Commission justified that Jones fired once, but that his two subsequent shots were outside of Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) policy, the newspaper reported Wednesday. Los Angeles Times.
The commission also ruled Tuesday night that the tactics used by five officers and a supervising sergeant in confronting the assailant were inappropriate.
LAPD chief Michel Moore had described in his report that Jones’ tactics were misguided, in part, because he had not learned from other officers on the scene that the suspect was not armed with a firearm, as reported by one of the 911 callers.
However, the report submitted to the commission revealed that at least one of the callers said a man was shooting inside the store.
The decision of how to punish Jones and any of the other officers now rests with Moore.
The family of the Chilean teenager sued the LAPD last July alleging negligence. The legal complaint stresses that “within the Los Angeles Police Department there was and is a custom, policy and practice… that fostered an environment that allowed this shooting to occur.”
The suit calls for a jury trial and seeks an unspecified amount of damages.
The death of the young Chilean, who had emigrated to the United States six months earlier, sparked a wave of protests over the actions of the Police. The California Attorney General’s Office is also investigating the incident.