‘She died in my arms.’ Parents of teen hit by stray police bullet speak out in California

As her 14-year-old daughter tried on quinceañera dresses in the dressing room of a North Hollywood store, mother Soledad Peralta recalls hearing a loud noise.

Then Valentina Orellana-Peralta went limp in her mother’s arms.

“Something hit my daughter Valentina and we were thrown to the floor and she died in my arms,” Peralta said in Spanish at a news conference Tuesday, Dec. 28, KTLA reported. “I couldn’t do anything.”

Valentina died in the Burlington Coat Factory dressing room on Thursday, Dec. 23, after being hit by a stray bullet fired by Los Angeles police at a man who had been attacking other shoppers, McClatchy News reported.

The bullet pierced a wall into the dressing room, striking the girl in what a cleaner called “a horrible scene.” The man shot by police, Daniel Elena Lopez, 24, also died at the store.

The Los Angeles Police Department released security and body cam video of the incident on Monday, Dec. 27.

Peralta and her husband, Juan Pablo Orellana Larenas, spoke at a Dec. 28 news conference about their daughter’s death, KTTV reported.

“My daughter had asked me for so many gifts that I didn’t get to open with her,” Orellana Larenas said, KTLA reported. “Instead I will give them to her at her gravesite.”

Valentina had come to Los Angeles from Chile with her mother six months ago to visit her older sister as the family tried to reunite in the United States, the Los Angeles Times reported.

“Valentina was a shy girl in Chile, but everything was turning out well for her in the U.S.,” her aunt, Carolina Peralta, told the publication. “She was catching up with English and being more outgoing. She was happy to be with her older sister.”

Orellana Larenas said he told his daughter it was too dangerous to stay in the United States, KTLA reported.

“I told her, ‘Let’s leave this country,’ and she said, ‘No, Dad, this country is the safest in the world, the country of opportunity,’” he said. “And now you see, my daughter is dead by the state. ... This is what my daughter found here. Death.”

“Valentina meant the world to us,” Soledad Peralta said, KTTV reported. “And now our sweet angel has left forever. Please give us strength, Valentina, to make justice for you.”

The video released by the Los Angeles Police Department, which includes 911 audio, shows Lopez carrying his bicycle up an escalator.

He then walked around the store trying on clothes until an employee confronted him about his discarded bicycle, KTTV reported.

Lopez smashed a computer monitor and glass railing with a steel or metal cable bicycle lock, then hit at least three women with the lock.

Security video released by police shows Lopez roaming the store with the cable lock as other shoppers rush to escape. Police spotted a bloody woman he had beaten, then Lopez, and opened fire.

Officers believe a bullet skipped off the floor and pierced the wall into the dressing room, KTTV reported. They did not discover Valentina had been hit until after the suspect had been surrounded.

“This chaotic incident resulting in the death of an innocent child is tragic and devastating for everyone involved,” Police Chief Michael Moore said in a statement. “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.”

This story was originally published December 28, 2021 at 1:51 PM with the headline "‘She died in my arms.’ Parents of teen hit by stray police bullet speak out in California."