No CA charges in LAPD police shooting of teenage girl

From CalMatters justice reporter Nigel Duara:

The California Justice Department announced Wednesday that it has found no cause to file charges against a Los Angeles police officer who, while aiming at a suspect, shot and killed a 14-year-old girl hiding in a department store fitting room. 

Fourteen-year-old Valentina Orellana Peralta was picking out a quinceanera dress with her mother just before Christmas in 2021. She was shot and killed by a bullet that ricocheted off the floor. 

Los Angeles Police Department Officer William Jones will not face charges under the Justice Department’s two-year-old program to investigate fatal police shootings of unarmed people. 

The Justice Department program has closed eight cases since July 2021. It has not recommended charges against officers in any of them. There are 46 cases still open, the oldest one dating to August 2021. 

• The department analysis: “The evidence shows that Officer Jones likely believed he was acting in self-defense or defense of others. This killing appears to have been unintended and unforeseeable.”

Multiple officers told Jones to “slow down” as he advanced through the department store, according to the Justice Department and body-worn camera footage provided by the Los Angeles Police Department. 

Los Angeles officer Jordan Head had a 40-millimeter bean bag gun, but before he could aim it at the suspect, Jones fired his AR-15 three times.

Head “did not discharge the 40-millimeter launcher because, before he could aim, rounds were fired, and the suspect fell to the ground and was no longer an immediate threat,” according to the Justice Department analysis of the shooting.

Officer Michael Mazur, who assumed command of the scene on arrival, told Jones to “slow down” multiple times, and at some point later told Head “It’s f—– up. We tried to slow it down.”

• Attorney General Rob Bonta, in a statement: “My heart goes out especially to the family of Valentina Orellana Peralta, who tragically lost her life and whose only involvement in this incident was by being at the wrong place at the wrong time.”

The Dec. 23, 2021, shooting began with a 911 call about a man striking people with a metal bike lock at a Burlington Coat Factory store. Store surveillance footage showed the man, later identified as Daniel Abisai Elena Lopez, 24, bringing his bicycle into the store and assaulting at least three women with the U-shaped lock. 

He left the store and returned 90 seconds later, where he found a woman pushing a shopping cart. The footage from body cameras worn by the officers shows him striking her multiple times as she attempts to crawl away; then he drags her toward the dressing rooms. 

At least 10 Los Angeles Police officers can be seen on the footage walking toward Lopez. According to body camera footage, Jones saw the woman lying on the floor, her face covered in blood. Another officer can be heard yelling for Jones to “slow down” and “hold up, hold up Jones.” 

“She’s bleeding,” Jones said, then looked up, saw Lopez and fired three times. 

More cases: CalMatters is tracking many of the officer-involved shooting cases being investigated by Bonta’s office. See them here.

Given how sensitive end of life care is, a bill to expand its use was always going to be a heavy lift.

Wednesday, even before its first committee hearing, Sen. Catherine Blakespear withdrew her bill to make it easier for Californians to seek end of life support and to also allow out-of-state patients to use the law.

Under California’s law that took effect in 2016, adults can request lethal medication if they’re able to make their own decisions, swallow the drug themselves and are expected to die within six months. But Blakespear’s bill would also allow those without a specific terminal prognosis, but who suffer from a “grievous and irremediable medical condition” to request life-ending drugs.

In a statement, the Democrat from Encinitas said that while she “received a flood of calls and emails” in favor of the proposal, she will not move forward with the measure for this year.

• Blakespear: “At this point, there is a reluctance from many around me to take up this discussion, and the future is unclear. The topic, however, remains of great interest to me and to those who have supported this bill thus far.”

Though the bill was expected to face opposition from religious and disability rights groups, some organizations and lawmakers that support end of life options also criticized the bill, reports Politico. Compassion & Choices, for example, disagreed with including patients with dementia and patients who don’t expect to die within six months.

Sen. Susan Talamantes Eggman, a Democrat from Stockton who authored the 2016 law, posted on social media that Blakespear’s proposal was “pushing for too much too soon.”

State figures show that use of the End of Life Option Act has steadily risen, from 292 prescriptions for aid-in-dying drugs and 151 deaths in 2016 to 1,270 prescriptions and 853 deaths in 2022, when data was last available.

In total, prescriptions have been written for 5,168 people, with 3,349 individuals dying from the medications. Of those who died, nearly 91% of them were under hospice or palliative care.

Where do high-profile California officials and advocacy groups stand on an upcoming U.S. Supreme Court case that could impact how the state responds to homeless encampments for years to come? 

As CalMatters homelessness reporter Marisa Kendall explains, the country’s highest court is scheduled to hear oral arguments Monday in a lawsuit against the Oregon city of Grants Pass, which prohibited unhoused residents from camping on public property. The Supreme Court is expected to decide whether banning people from camping if they have nowhere else to go is a cruel or unusual punishment.

Leading up to Monday, many people and organizations have filed amicus briefs that detail their opinion for the justices to consider. 

Those that side with Grants Pass and believe cities should have the authority to ban public camping include the California Chamber of Commerce and some police groups that contend that unhoused residents have led “to an explosion of encampments throughout the state.” Some Republicans representing California in Congress also say that “statistics demonstrate that homeless encampments and crime go hand-in-hand.”

Besides homelessness advocates who say that anti-camping rules are inhumane when the cities do not provide viable shelter alternatives, the American Psychiatric Association and the National Alliance on Mental Illness also argue that altercations between unhoused people and police officers who attempt to enforce camping bans could turn deadly. Some California Democratic U.S. representatives say the bans are not only “unconstitutional” but ineffective.

Find out what others — including Gov. Gavin Newsom, the mayors of major California cities and President Joe Biden — have to say on the case in Marisa’s story.

Hexavalent chromium was made famous by environmental activist Erin Brockovich and the 2000 movie about her. But the dangerous contaminant is still in Californians’ drinking water. Find out what the state did about it Wednesday from CalMatters water reporter Rachel Becker.