“We had a great life together. We were married for over 50 years and enjoyed 25 wonderful children. Our time together was always filled with laughter, love, and happiness.”
GARDENA, Calif. (CBSLA) — A funeral will be conducted Monday for a 14-year-old girl who was slain last month in the changing room of a Burlington shop in North Hollywood by a stray gunshot fired by a Los Angeles police officer.
On Jan. 2, 2021, a coalition of local civil rights organizations conduct a press conference and protest in Los Angeles, focusing on the shooting murder of Valentina Orellana-Peralta. (Los Angeles Times/Getty Images/Francine Orr)
Rev. Al Sharpton, a civil rights activist, will give the eulogy and officiate at Valentina Orellana-funeral. Peralta’s
In 11 a.m., the ceremony will take place at Gardena’s City of Refuge Church.
Valentina’s public viewing was held on Saturday at Angelus Funeral Home on Crenshaw Boulevard in the Leimert Park neighborhood of Los Angeles.
Later Saturday, a group of protesters marched from the Burlington shop on Laurel Canyon Boulevard to the LAPD’s North Hollywood station on Burbank Boulevard, demanding justice for the girl’s death. Many of the same activists will stage a drive-by caravan to Attorney General Rob Bonta’s downtown Los Angeles office at 2:00 p.m. Monday.
Valentina was slain on the morning of Dec. 23 while shopping for a Christmas outfit with her mother at a Burlington store on Laurel Canyon and Victory Boulevards.
Officer William Jones of the Los Angeles Police Department, who shot Valentina while confronting a suspect, has been put on administrative leave while the incident is investigated. Jones had just attended a course on how to deal with an active shooter scenario, according to the officer’s union, and was following his training.
Although police fatally shot Daniel Elena Lopez, 24, who was unarmed, a bullet fired by Jones penetrated a wall and injured Valentina. As authorities got on the scene, Lopez had entered the business on his bicycle and began randomly hitting people with a bike chain lock, leaving one lady bleeding on the floor.
Last Monday, the Los Angeles Police Department published body camera and surveillance video of the whole violent event, and a coalition of civil rights organizations demanded Jones’ arrest and prosecution for involuntary homicide.
In his probe into the death, L.A. Mayor Eric Garcetti said Thursday that the city would “look holistically” at everything, including training, tactics, and rules. On Friday, three members of the Los Angeles City Council submitted a resolution aimed at maintaining public openness throughout the probe.
Valentina’s parents told reporters less than a week after the shooting that their daughter had moved to Los Angeles from Chile approximately six months before the shooting and had hopes of becoming a robotics engineer and an American citizen, as well as attending to a Lakers game with her father.
Valentina had just completed her math and physics tests at High Tech Los Angeles Charter School.
The incident is being investigated by the LAPD’s Force Investigation Division and Inspector General’s Office, as well as the California Department of Justice’s California Police Shooting Investigation Team for Southern California. Under the rules of a statute put into law last year, the Department of Justice examines police shootings.
The findings of the inquiry will be handed over to the California Department of Justice’s Special Prosecutions Section under the Criminal Law Division for independent review once it is finished.
President Joe Biden, who was on the phone with Chilean president-elect Gabriel Boric at the time, expressed his sympathies to the people of Chile.
(CBS Broadcasting Inc., Copyright 2021, All Rights Reserved.) This article was written with the help of City News Service.)
