Funeral Monday For 14-Year-Old Girl Shot, Killed By LAPD Officer In North Hollywood Burlington Store
GARDENA (CBSLA) – A funeral service will be held Monday for a 14-year-old girl who was killed by a stray bullet fired by a Los Angeles police officer while in the dressing room of a Burlington store in North Hollywood last month.
The civil rights leader Rev. Al Sharpton will deliver the eulogy and officiate at the funeral for Valentina Orellana-Peralta.
The ceremony will be at 11 a.m. at the City of Refuge Church in Gardena.
A public viewing for Valentina was on Saturday at Angelus Funeral Home on Crenshaw Boulevard in the Leimert Park area of L.A.
Later Saturday, a group of demonstrators marched from the Burlington store on Laurel Canyon Boulevard to the LAPD's North Hollywood station on Burbank Boulevard to demand justice over the girl's killing. At 2 p.m. Monday, many of those same activists will have a drive-by caravan at Attorney General Rob Bonta's downtown Los Angeles office.
Valentina was killed while shopping with her mother for a Christmas dress on the morning of Dec. 23 at a Burlington store located at Laurel Canyon and Victory boulevards.
LAPD Officer William Jones, who shot Valentina while confronting a suspect, has been placed on administrative leave while authorities investigate the shooting. The officer's union said that Jones had recently completed a course on how to handle an active shooter situation and was following his training.
Police fatally shot 24-year-old Daniel Elena Lopez -- who did not have a gun -- but a bullet fired by Jones pierced a wall and struck Valentina. Lopez had entered the store with his bicycle and started randomly attacking customers with a bike chain lock, leaving one woman bloodied on the floor as officers arrived on the scene.
The LAPD released body camera and surveillance footage of the entire violent incident last week, and a coalition of civil rights groups has called for Jones to be arrested and prosecuted for involuntary manslaughter.
L.A. Mayor Eric Garcetti said Thursday that the city will "look comprehensively" at everything including training, tactics and policies in its investigation into the killing. Three L.A. City Council members on Friday also introduced a motion aimed at ensuring public transparency during the investigation.
Valentina's parents, speaking to reporters through a translator less than a week after the shooting, said their daughter came to L.A. from Chile about six months before the shooting and had dreams of becoming a robotics engineer and an American citizen, and going to see a Lakers game with her father.
Valentina attended High Tech Los Angeles Charter School, where she had just passed her math and physics exams.
The LAPD's Force Investigation Division and Inspector General's Office are both investigating the shooting, along with the California Department of Justice's California Police Shooting Investigation Team for Southern California. The DOJ investigates officer shootings under provisions of a bill signed into law last year.
Once the investigation has been completed, the results will be turned over to the California Department of Justice's Special Prosecutions Section within the Criminal Law Division for independent review.
The incident drew the attention of President Joe Biden, who offered his condolences to the people of Chile while on a phone call with Chilean president-elect Gabriel Boric.
(© Copyright 2021 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. City News Service contributed to this report.)
