Mother says 14-year-old shot by L.A. police 'died in my arms'

The family of a 14-year-old girl who was fatally shot by Los Angeles police while shopping for Christmas clothes last Thursday is calling for transparency in the investigation.

Valentina Orellana-Peralta was shopping with her mother when the pair heard screams and hid in a dressing room, where the girl was shot by Los Angeles police after an officer fired a rifle at a suspect and a bullet pierced a wall, the family said Tuesday. 

The teen died in her mother's arms last Thursday at a Burlington store in the San Fernando Valley's North Hollywood neighbourhood. Her family said the teen loved skateboarding and had dreams of becoming an engineer to build robots. 

After screams broke out in the store the day before Christmas Eve, the teenager locked the dressing room door.

"We sat down on a seat, holding each other, praying, when something hit my daughter, Valentina, and threw us to the floor," Soledad Peralta said Tuesday. "And my daughter died in my arms. I couldn't do anything."

The teen's family stood outside Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) headquarters on Tuesday, next to a large photo of Orellana-Peralta wreathed in flowers, to call for justice and remember their daughter. 

Speaking in Spanish and choking back tears as sirens wailed in the background in downtown L.A., they said they had left Chile to get away from violence and injustice in search of a better life in the U.S.

The LAPD on Monday posted an edited video package online that included 911 calls, radio transmissions, body camera footage and surveillance video from the Thursday shooting at a store crowded with holiday shoppers. The department's policy is to release video from critical incidents, such as police shootings, within 45 days.

The family's lawyers — including civil rights lawyer Ben Crump — have sent a letter to the LAPD asking for more video of the shooting incident that culminated from the police pursuit of a male suspect violently assaulting shoppers in the store. 

Surveillance video showed the suspect attacking two women in the store's aisles. 

Multiple people including store employees called police to report a man striking customers with a bike lock. One caller told a 911 dispatcher that the man had a gun. No firearm — only the bike lock — was recovered at the scene.

The early surveillance footage showed a man carrying a bicycle up the store's escalator to the second floor, where he wandered around, seemingly disoriented, clutching a cable-style bike lock. At times he stood motionless, staring into the distance. 

The footage later showed the man on the down escalator attacking a woman, who managed to escape his grip and run out of the store. 

Police said the suspect then left the store briefly, but returned and violently attacked another woman, who sustained injuries.