Burlington store shooting: Teenage girl killed by Los Angeles police identified by coroner
Los Angeles police have killed two people, including a 14-year-old girl trying on new outfits in a dressing room, after opening fire inside a clothing store.
The Los Angeles County coroner identified the teenager as Valentina Orellana-Peralta. Police also fatally shot the suspect- whose name has not been released- on Thursday morning at the Burlington store in the North Hollywood area of the San Fernando Valley. Officers had responded to a report of an assault and others of shots being fired, police said.
Witnesses told local media that a man began acting erratically, threatening to throw items from the upper floor of a crowded store full of holiday shoppers, and that he attacked a woman with a bicycle lock shortly before midday.
Local media appears to show a woman with a bloodied face - who seems to be the assault victim - being taken away from the store in an ambulance.
The suspect was shot and died at the store but one of the bullets went through drywall behind the man and killed the girl, who was in a changing room with her mother, police said. Officers found the teenager dead after seeing a hole in “a solid wall that you can’t see behind,” LAPD Assistant Chief Dominic Choi said. Investigators have not found a gun at the scene and didn’t immediately know whether she was in the dressing room before the violence began or ran in there to hide, he said.
Investigators were trying to determine whether the assault was random or targeted.
Mr Choi said they don’t believe the teenager was related to the person who was attacked.
“This chaotic incident resulting in the death of an innocent child is tragic and devastating for everyone involved,” Police Chief Michel Moore said in a statement.
“I am profoundly sorry for the loss of this young girl’s life and I know there are no words that can relieve the unimaginable pain for the family.”
California Attorney General Rob Bonta said he would carry out an independent investigation and refer his findings to a team of special prosecutors.
LAPD officers have shot at least 36 people-17 of them fatally- in 2021, according to analysis by the Los Angeles Times.
Those figures mark a dramatic rise in cases where officers shot or killed people in either of the last two years- 27 people were shot and 7 of them killed by LA police in 2020.