A 14-year-old girl died after being hit by a stray bullet fired from a police rifle as she tried on clothes.
Valentina Orellana-Peralta was shopping with her mother for a dress for her upcoming quinceanera, a 15th birthday celebration in Hispanic traditions, when chaos broke out in the Burlington Coat Factory in North Hollywood.
Daniel Elena-Lopez triggered an evacuation effort by staff when he began attacking customers with a metal object described by a distressed 911 caller as a bike lock.
Police arrived to find a woman bleeding on the floor after the 24-year-old grabbed her on the escalator and began brutally beating her with the metal object.
Bodycam footage released on Monday by the Los Angeles Police Department shows an officer running through the store and firing three shots down an aisle towards Elena-Lopez.
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He was killed by the gunfire along with Valentina, who was hiding out of sight inside a dressing room.
The girl was born and raised in Santiago, Chile, and came to the United States six months ago with her mother to visit an older sister, the Los Angeles Times reported.
According to the paper, the she died in the arms of her mother, who had been working on documentation to stay in the United States with her daughter permanently.
The force said no firearm was found on Elena-Lopez.
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A Gofundme page set up to help Valentina’s family with funeral and legal costs has raised more than $20,000 (£15,000).
“There is no amount of money that can bring our Valentina back, or to comfort her grieving mother, father and older sister, but we want her immediate family to be relieved from any financial restraints that might make this mourning process even harder,” a description on the page reads.
“We want her family to be as comfortable as possible and capable of planning Valentina’s funeral without limitations.”
LAPD officers dispatched to the store were responding to several radio calls of an assault and possible shooting in progress, police said.
Video released on Monday by police showed the bearded, burly suspect Elena-Lopez entering the store with his bicycle and behaving erratically as he proceeds to menace and accost several shoppers.
At one point the man is seen in store-security video knocking a woman to the ground and dragging her across the floor away from her shopping cart as he repeatedly bludgeons her with a bicycle cable lock.
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The beating continues as several police officers are seen approaching the suspect with their guns drawn.
In a separate audio-video recording from bodycam footage of the policeman closest to the suspect, the officer can be heard shouting, “She’s bleeding, she’s bleeding,” just before he rounds a corner and confronts Elena-Lopez while the victim tries to crawl away.
The suspect, holding a large object in his hands, is seen standing with his back to the outside of the fitting room, a few yards (meters) from the bleeding victim as the officer raises his rifle and shoots the suspect dead.
The bludgeoned woman was subsequently hospitalised for injuries to her head and arms, police said.
In a statement accompanying the videos, LAPD spokesman Captain Stacy Spell said the 14-year-old girl, who had been in the dressing area with her mother, was found in the fitting room as police searched the store for additional victims.
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The officer who fired the shots has been placed on administrative while an investigation is under way, an LAPD spokesman said.
No firearm was recovered from the suspect, police said.
LAPD Chief Michel Moore issued a statement promising a “thorough, complete and transparent” investigation of what he called a “devastating” tragedy.
The California attorney general’s office also was to open an independent investigation.
Attorney Ben Crump, who represented the families of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and Trayvon Martin, will be representing the family of Valentina and has threatened to bring a civil suit against the police.
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