LAPD officer who accidentally killed 14-year-old girl testifies in civil trial

LOS ANGELES (CN) — The LAPD officer who accidentally shot 14-year-old Valentina Peralta in a department store in 2021 testified in court Monday as part of a civil trial brought by Peralta’s parents against the city of Los Angeles.

Four patrolmen responded to reports of an assault with a deadly weapon inside the Burlington Coat Factory in North Hollywood. They proceeded upstairs in a tight formation, the most senior officer giving the orders. He told the officer holding a special weapon designed to shoot less-than-lethal rounds, such as bean bags, to take the first shot at the suspect, an apparently mentally disturbed man who beat at least one customer with a large bike lock.

Officer William Jones arrived at the scene slightly later than the other officers, along with his partner. Jones grabbed an AR-15 assault rifle from his trunk, having just completed the training course required to carry that weapon weeks before. He rushed upstairs and pushed his way to the front of the formation. As he did so, the senior officer told him: “Sling that! Sling that!” and to “slow down.”

Jones did place the assault rifle’s strap around his neck but maintained his position at the front of the now five-man formation. Once he spotted the suspect, he immediately fired three shots in less than a second. One of the bullets hit the suspect in the back, killing him. Another one ricocheted off the ground, cutting through the thin wall of a fitting room and killing Peralta, who was hiding in one of the rooms with her mother. Peralta died in her mother’s arms.

Plaintiff’s attorney Haytham Faraj has suggested that the AR-15 was an inappropriate weapon to be used in the situation — indoors, with innocent bystanders and thin walls. From the witness stand, Jones disputed this, calling the assault rifle the “optimal weapon.”

“With its actuary and distance, that is the big weapon that you want up front,” Jones said.

Faraj asked Jones if he was “excited” to have the opportunity to use the rifle, which he had just been trained to use.

“Absolutely not,” Jones said. “That’s the last thing I want to do. … If someone’s in there shooting and we have a mass shooting two days before Christmas, I gotta do what I was sworn to do.”

At least one of the communications from a police radio dispatcher claimed there were shots fired at the store. But none of the officers at the scene said anything about a gun; instead, all shouted warnings about a suspect with a bike lock.

As to the order to “sling” his weapon, Jones testified he took that to mean to put the strap over his neck, rather than to put away the rifle.

“If he had wanted me to put it away, he would have said, ‘Jones put that away,’” he said. Jones also denied it was the commanding officer’s responsibility to decide which officer should take point.

“The team leader didn’t have the vantage point we had at the time,” Jones told the jury. “I would have the clearest view.”

The next witness disagreed. Richard Bryce, the former second-in-command of the Ventura County Sheriff’s Department testifying for the plaintiffs as an expert witness, told the court the decision of which officer should walk at the head of the formation belonged to the senior officer at the scene.

“Use of deadly force in this case was unjustified and unnecessary,” Bryce testified, “because there wasn’t an imminent threat of death or bodily injury to the officer when he fired the shots.” Firing three shots, he said, was “excessive” and “endangered individuals’ lives.” He pointed out that Jones told investigators, in an interview after the incident, that he thought he had fired only two shots.

Jones will retake the stand later in the week. The trial, which began Wednesday, is expected to last about seven days. This is only the first phase of the trial, in which a jury will determine whether or not the shooting was negligent, which would make the city of LA liable in the killing. If the jury decides the city is liable, there will be a second phase to determine damages — that is, how much money the city will be ordered to pay the Peralta family.

Because of this bifurcation, Peralta’s parents are not likely to testify in the first phase of the trial, which will turn largely on body camera footage and testimony from the police officers at the scene, as well as experts in use of force. The plaintiffs aren’t even allowed to play video footage that includes the sound of Peralta’s mother screaming. Plaintiff’s attorneys have said the mother will testify in the second phase of the trial, if there is one.

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