Jury finds LA not liable for police shooting of 14-year-old girl

LOS ANGELES (CN) — A jury on Thursday found the city of Los Angeles not liable in the killing of 14-year-old Valentina Peralta, who was hit by a police officer’s stray bullet during a shootout in a department store.

Jurors deliberated for a little more than a day before siding with the city in a 9-3 verdict, finding that LAPD Officer William Jones was not negligent in firing the fatal bullet.

Plaintiff’s attorney Nick Rowley appeared dismayed by the verdict, calling it “the most devastating loss of my career,” adding, “I’ve lost cases and I understand why. I don’t understand this one… It’s nonsensical to me.”

One of the jurors, Kyle Rivera, spoke to reporters after the verdict.

“Based off of the evidence they gave us and the body-worn video I just believe the officer had followed all the rules and regulations,” Rivera said outside the courthouse. “I do believe he was right to fire the shots at the suspect.”

Police were called to the Burlington Coat Factory in North Hollywood two days before Christmas in 2021, after an apparently mentally disturbed man was swinging around a heavy bike lock, smashing a window and hitting customers. Jones arrived at the scene with AR-15. When he spotted the suspect, 24-year-old Daniel Elena-Lopez, he immediately opened fire, squeezing off three quick shots in less than a second.

The first bullet hit Elena-Lopez in the back, killing him. One of the next two bullets ricocheted off the ground and cut through a thin door of a changing room. Inside the room was Peralta and her mom, who were hiding from the violence. Peralta was hit by the bullet and died in her mother’s arms.

Her parents’ attorneys argued throughout the monthlong trial that Jones had rushed onto the scene late and pushed his way to the front of a tightly organized police formation and hastily fired his military assault rifle at a pantsless suspect who held nothing more than a bike lock and a Superman poster. Attorney Nick Rowley said Jones had ignored his fellow officers when they shouted “slow down” to him, some 22 times.

“Judge, jury and executioner, all in one — that’s what Officer Jones was that day,” Rowley told the jury during his rebuttal argument.

Even if the first shot was justified, he said, the second two surely were not.

Jones testified that he thought he was responding to an active shooter situation, and when he first laid eyes on Elena-Lopez, he thought though the bike lock was a gun, and thought he was about to fire it again. The most senior police officer at the scene, Michael Mazur, who was among those who ordered Jones to slow down, defended Jones’ actions as well. While his initial plan was for an officer holding a less-than-lethal weapon to fire on the suspect, Mazur said that the sight of a bloody-faced customer lying in the aisle of the store changed the equation, and that Jones had acted appropriately.

In his own closing argument, Assistant City Attorney Christian Bojorquez praised Jones for “trying to help people, putting himself in a position of peril."

In a written statement, City Attorney Hydee Feldstein Soto thanked the jury “for their professionalism and for setting their sympathies aside to follow the law.”

“Society calls upon our police officers to risk their own safety to protect others and run toward danger when others run away. 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.”

Superior Court Judge Frank Tavelman made the early decision to bifurcate the trial into two phases, for liability and damages. That meant the parents never got a chance to testify at trial. In fact, Tavelman wouldn’t even let the jury see body camera footage after the shooting, in which Peralta’s mother could be hear shrieking in agony. It made for a rather antiseptic trial, devoid of emotion or sense of loss, focusing largely on police tactics.

In another key decision, Tavelman did not allow the plaintiffs to play body camera footage in which Officer Mazur could be heard saying, seconds after the shooting, “That was fucked up … we tried to slow it down.” Tavelman said he did not think “the subsequent debriefing is relevant.”

The Peraltas’ lawsuit against the city went through seven different law firms before landing with Rowley’s firm, Trial Lawyers for Justice, a month before the trial began. Rowley blamed some of the earlier plaintiff’s firms for the defeat.

“The lawyers who had the case before us did not designate the right experts,” Rowley said. “They screwed up.”

A key omission, he said, was former LAPD Chief Michael Moore, who had found the three shots fired by Jones to have been unjustified. The plaintiffs were prevented from telling the jury about that finding, but if Moore had been called as an expert witness, he could have been asked about it.

“The jury didn’t get to hear that,” Rowley said.

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