CA-LA cops open fire on suspect, kill innocent 14 year old girl in adjacent dressing room

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Coroner IDs girl killed by police in Los Angeles shooting

https://apnews.com/article/police-shootings-los-angeles-hollywood-a8e0d5c9cc3d880cf2704d72f40f3539

By STEFANIE DAZIO

LOS ANGELES (AP) — The coroner’s office has identified the 14-year-old girl who was fatally shot by Los Angeles police Thursday when officers fired on an assault suspect and a bullet went through the wall and struck the girl as she was in a clothing store dressing room.

Police also fatally shot the suspect Thursday morning at a Burlington store in the North Hollywood area of the San Fernando Valley, police said.

The Los Angeles County coroner identified the girl as Valentina Orellana-Peralta. The suspect’s name has not yet been released.

LAPD officers have shot at least 37 people — 17 of them fatally — in 2021 after another police shooting occurred on Friday, according to 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 all of 2020. In 2019, officers shot 26 people, killing 12.

In the last week, LA officers have killed four people — including two men in separate incidents on Saturday, the newspaper reported.

On Thursday, witnesses in North Hollywood told KCBS-TV that the man began acting erratically, threatening to throw items from the upper floor, and he attacked a woman with a bicycle lock shortly before noon as the store was crowded with holiday shoppers.

Officers answered a report of an assault and others of shots being fired, police said. Investigators have not found a gun at the scene.

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 didn’t immediately know whether she was in the dressing room before the violence began or ran in there to hide, he said.

“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 late Thursday night. “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.”

Moore promised a “thorough, complete and transparent investigation” into the shooting and said a critical incident video that will include 911 calls, body camera and other video will be released by Monday.

The woman who was attacked is not being identified.

Investigators were trying to determine whether the assault was random or targeted. Choi said they don’t believe the teenager was related to the person who was attacked.
 
On Thursday, witnesses in North Hollywood told KCBS-TV that the man began acting erratically, threatening to throw items from the upper floor, and he attacked a woman with a bicycle lock shortly before noon as the store was crowded with holiday shoppers.

Officers answered a report of an assault and others of shots being fired, police said. Investigators have not found a gun at the scene.

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 didn’t immediately know whether she was in the dressing room before the violence began or ran in there to hide, he said.

This chaotic incident resulting in the death of an innocent child ...

This ought to be good. How many shots were fired at the (apparently) unarmed "suspect"? I'm sure there was only "a hole" (singular) in the "solid wall."

ETA: Merry Christmas.
 
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This ought to be good. How many shots were fired at the (apparently) unarmed "suspect"? I'm sure there was only "a hole" (singular) in the "solid wall."

ETA: Merry Christmas.

What could possibly go wrong firing inside a crowded store?

Let’s guess. Since the victim is not a black male criminal, there will be no outrage, no charges filed, no nothing.
 
Officers answered a report of an assault and others of shots being fired, police said. Investigators have not found a gun at the scene.

How many times do we find that the Police are erroneously told by the dispatcher than there is a gun or an active shooter, and the police show up with guns a-blazing?

Did the police fire handguns, or did they have the long guns out and ready for combat?
 
I wonder if these officers were using FMJ ammunition, which we know, is designed to go through its target to hit innocent people behind your target.
 
What could possibly go wrong firing inside a crowded store?

Let’s guess. Since the victim is not a black male criminal, there will be no outrage, no charges filed, no nothing.

Well, they might charge the guy they were shooting at with the girl's death.

Because that's a thing they do now.

Cop Kills 8-Year-Old Girl; Two Teens Charged With Her Murder
Fanta Bility's death has revived an under-the-radar debate about the doctrine of transferred intent.
https://reason.com/2021/11/12/cop-kills-8-year-old-fanta-bility-two-teens-charged-with-murder/
Billy Binion (12 November 2021)

Two Pennsylvania teens are staring down first-degree murder charges after a bullet killed 8-year-old Fanta Bility outside of a high school football game in August this year.

Neither Angelo "A.J." Ford, 16, nor Hasein Strand, 18, fired that fatal shot. A police officer did, but the two teens were charged under the concept of transferred intent, which allows the state to prosecute someone for a crime he didn't technically commit if it happened during the commission of a related offense.

On August 27, Ford allegedly threatened Strand and his friends with a handgun at an Academy Park High School football game, prompting Strand to retrieve his own firearm from his vehicle. Ford opened fire and Strand responded in kind; a nearby victim was ultimately wounded in the gunfire.

That victim was not Bility, who died when an identified Sharon Hill cop shot her in the back after three officers began shooting at a car that they reportedly believed was involved in the shooting between Ford and Strand. The bullets from the police also struck Bility's older sister and two other bystanders, who survived.

The charges against the two teens have revived an under-the-radar debate about the doctrine of transferred intent, a controversial approach that some say grants the state too much latitude to sweep people up in prosecutions for crimes they did not commit. That's complicated here by the fact that the actual shooter in question was another agent of the government.

It would not be the first time that police have used the legal doctrine to deflect responsibility onto someone else for a tragic accident. An Idaho woman was recently charged with manslaughter after a police officer killed another police officer with his vehicle while responding to the woman's apparent mental health crisis. Though an internal investigation revealed that the officers had failed to follow safety protocols that evening, Jenna Holm spent over a year in jail awaiting trial on that homicide charge. A judge eventually struck the charge down as unconstitutional.

Observers will likely find this story less cut and dry; having a mental health crisis on the side of the road is obviously not the same thing as engaging in a gunfight. But it remains a matter of debate whether the two teens should be prosecuted solely for the crimes they allegedly committed—aggravated assault and gun charges—as opposed to the first-degree intentional murder of someone everyone acknowledges they did not actually kill.

The doctrine of transferred intent is inherent to the contentious felony murder rule. It's how, for example, prosecutors in Ohio were able to zero in on a teenager for the murder of her boyfriend after a police officer killed him during a botched robbery. Though the state conceded the obvious—that 16-year-old Masonique Saunders hadn't pulled the trigger—they pinned the killing on her because she allegedly helped him plan that burglary. She ultimately pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter.

Bility's family has filed a civil suit against the officers and the police department. It's questionable that her family members will ever get the opportunity to state their case before a jury, as they will need to overcome qualified immunity, the doctrine that shields government officials from lawsuits if the way they allegedly violated someone's rights has not yet been "clearly established" in a prior court decision. So, too, will they face an uphill battle in suing the department, as the Monell doctrine will require they prove that the government had a specific policy in place that explicitly propagated the behavior that evening.

"I want the focus to remain on the Sharon Hill police officers whose negligent and reckless behavior in reacting as they did is what killed Fanta Bility," Bruce Castor, an attorney for the family, told The Philadelphia Inquirer. "From the point of view of the Bility family, these officers killed Fanta, and they need to be held accountable for that, and those responsible for their supervision and training need to be held accountable for that."
 
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I've read elsewhere the shooter used an M16A1 -- not a great choice for taking on somebody inside a dept store, armed with a bike lock. Makes me think of the shooting of Daniel Shaver, except that was an AR15 and no "accident." Maybe this one will get a life-long pension for PTSD also.
 
I've read elsewhere the shooter used an M16A1 -- not a great choice for taking on somebody inside a dept store, armed with a bike lock. Makes me think of the shooting of Daniel Shaver, except that was an AR15 and no "accident." Maybe this one will get a life-long pension for PTSD also.

Yep. See the video above. And the guy with the rifle pushed past the officers that were already there at the last minute so he could take lead and shoot the guy. He basically ran up and shot the guy, no confirmation of a gun. The bloodied victim was his evidence to put the perp down.
 
How many times do we find that the Police are erroneously told by the dispatcher than there is a gun or an active shooter, and the police show up with guns a-blazing?

Did the police fire handguns, or did they have the long guns out and ready for combat?

Correct on both counts. “Witnesses” from the parking lot called in and say the guy has a gun and is shooting. Dispatchers tell cops it is a shooter, and and cop runs in with rifle and shoots perp:



The initial cops had handguns, a shotgun, and what appeared to be a non lethal weapon like a beanbag gun. Right before contact with the perp, a cop with a rifle ran past them to take the lead, and immediately fired on the perp. If the cop with the rifle hadn't run to the front, it may have turned out differently.

Also note the lack of awareness of the people in the store. A couple of women walk right into the crazy guy they are evacuating to avoid. The woman who was beat was pushing her cart and still shopping, long after everyone else had evacuated. The woman and girl that was killed probably made the fatal mistake to hide in the dressing room instead of evacuate.

There is a fairly long period where the crazy perp is acting out, threatening people, and threatening to throw his bike over the rail onto the head of customers on the 1st level. He does this at the top of the escalator, in front of what appears to be a uniformed security guard. The security guard eventually flees.
 
Sometimes it takes years for video to be released and then it is incomplete. In this scenario they have every imaginable footage. I wonder if the security guard was harassing the guy for appropriating less than $900 worth of unfit clothing.
 
a happy new year to yourself!
a lot has changed, but somethings never change. yes, I am still driving that old dodge. :toady:
 
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