Valentina Orellana Peralta Civil Trial Opens in Burbank

Opening statements began Wednesday in the civil trial over the 2021 death of Valentina Orellana Peralta, a 14-year-old girl killed by an LAPD officer’s bullet while she was trying on clothes inside a North Hollywood Burlington store. The trial is being held at the Burbank Courthouse.

Valentina was in a dressing room on December 23, 2021, shopping with her mother for Christmas clothes when LAPD Officer William Jones opened fire on the store’s second floor. Jones had responded to a violent assault in progress. Body-camera footage shows the suspect repeatedly beating a woman with a cable bike lock. Jones fired at the suspect, but one of his bullets ricocheted off the floor and passed through the dressing room wall, striking Valentina. She died at the scene. The suspect was also shot and killed by officers.

Her parents, Soledad Peralta and Juan Pablo Orellana Larenas, filed a civil lawsuit against the LAPD after California Attorney General Rob Bonta announced his office would not pursue criminal charges against Jones. Bonta described the shooting as a tragedy of being in the “wrong place at the wrong time,” a characterization that hit the family hard.

“This avoids all oversight, all accountability that needs to be had,” family spokesperson Sennett Devermont said following Bonta’s decision.

The civil trial now gives the family a separate legal path forward. Rather than criminal culpability, the lawsuit centers on whether the city of Los Angeles is liable for Valentina’s death, and whether Jones acted within the bounds of his training and departmental policy when he fired inside a crowded retail store.

The case arrives at a complicated moment for the city. Los Angeles is currently managing an overspending gap of more than $208 million, a figure city officials have attributed in part to mounting legal settlements. Civil suits involving LAPD use-of-force incidents have contributed to that financial pressure for years, and this trial adds to a caseload the city cannot afford to ignore.

For Burbank, the courthouse location puts the proceedings squarely in this community’s civic footprint, even though the incident itself took place in North Hollywood. Trials of this scale and public attention routinely draw advocates, reporters, and community members to the San Fernando Boulevard courthouse complex. Expect downtown Burbank to feel that presence in the coming days.

The shooting drew widespread attention when it happened and reignited ongoing debates about police tactics inside enclosed, civilian-populated spaces. Critics questioned why an officer discharged a firearm inside a busy shopping store during the holiday season, with limited visibility into adjacent rooms and no ability to confirm what lay beyond his line of fire.

LAPD officials at the time defended Jones’s actions, saying he faced an active, life-threatening assault. The department has maintained that position. The civil trial will test that defense against the specific facts captured on body-camera footage and through witness testimony.

Valentina’s family has said from the beginning that accountability is the point. The criminal process closed without charges. The civil process now becomes the only remaining forum where their questions about officer decision-making and departmental responsibility can be formally examined.

The trial is expected to continue for several days. Given the city’s fiscal pressure and the high public profile of the case, any outcome carries weight beyond the courtroom. A significant jury award would add to an already strained settlement budget. A defense verdict would face intense scrutiny from advocates who have followed this case since 2021.

Valentina was 14 years old and shopping for Christmas. That fact has anchored every stage of this case, from the first wave of public outrage to the criminal review to the civil complaint now before a Burbank judge. Her parents want a court to say what the attorney general would not. The trial will run its course in the days ahead.

Originally reported by NBC Los Angeles.