« It is like my whole heart has been ripped out of my body, » the teen’s father said. « The pain of opening the Christmas presents for her cannot be articulated. »
The parents of Valentina Orellana-Peralta, the 14-year-old bystander who was by a bullet when police fired at a suspect in a Los Angeles department store, mourned the loss of their daughter in a press conference on Tuesday. Police believe an officer’s stray bullet tore through a dressing room wall, killing the teen. Soledad Peralta was with her daughter when she was fatally shot last Thursday. « She died in my arms and there was nothing I could do, » she tearfully told reporters through a translator. Attorney Benjamin Crump, who is representing the family, said the teen was trying on dresses for Christmas before the shooting occurred. Crump declined to say if the family planned to file a civil lawsuit, but another attorney representing the family said they had sent the Los Angeles Police Department a preservation of evidence letter. Crump said the family « thinks things could have been done differently to where Valentina wouldn’t have been collateral damage. » Crump described Orellana-Peralta as a « beautiful and intelligent girl » who came to the U.S. six months ago with dreams of becoming an engineer, seeing a Los Angeles Lakers game with her father, and becoming a U.
