?Daughter, give us strength to fight?: family mourns teenager killed by LAPD

The Rev Al Sharpton delivered a eulogy on Monday for Valentina Orellana-Peralta, the 14-year-old girl killed by a Los Angeles police officer, denouncing LAPD's longstanding abuses, as her family remembered a bright young girl who excelled in school and had big dreams for her life in the US.

Valentina's parents cried over their daughter's open casket at the City of Refuge church in Gardena, south of LA, as Sharpton and the family's attorney, Benjamin Crump, stood by their side. The teenager was dressed in a pink dress, her favorite color, and the funeral programs featured a skateboard on the cover, celebrating one of her treasured hobbies.

Valentina was shopping for a Christmas dress with her mother on 23 December at a Burlington Coat Factory in North Hollywood when the LAPD officer William Dorsey Jones Jr fired three rounds at a 24-year-old man in the store, killing him and Valentina in the process.

When Valentina was shot, she was in a nearby dressing room with her mother, Soledad Peralta and died in her mother's arms. "There was nothing I could do. As I lay screaming for help, the police did not come to help me or my daughter," she said, days after the killing.

Footage of the events at the store showed that the 24-year-old, Daniel Elena Lopez, had assaulted several customers with a bike lock. Jones's body-camera footage revealed that the officer shot Elena Lopez from a distance, appearing to immediately fire three rounds before issuing any commands. Elena Lopez was standing alone at the other end of a store aisle, had no gun and appeared to be turning away from the officer the moment he was shot. He and Valentina both died on the scene.

Valentina moved to the US from her native Chile six months ago, and her parents said she was excelling at her school, High Tech Los Angeles in Van Nuys, despite English being her second language. She had ambitions for a career in engineering and technology and was interested in building robots, telling her mother that one day she would build a robot to help her around the house. Her parents said her primary dream was to become a US citizen.

"It is like my whole heart has been ripped out of my body," Juan Pablo Orellana Larenas, Valentina's father, told reporters at a recent press conference. He arrived from Chile days after his daughter was killed, and at a news conference held in his hand a skateboard, still in its plastic wrapping, that had arrived for Valentina on Christmas Eve, the day after she died. He said he would deliver the skateboard to her grave and lamented that the two of them would never get to see LeBron James play basketball in person.

The Chilean president, Gabriel Boric, has called for justice for Valentina's family, and Joe Biden has offered condolences.

Soledad Peralta struggled to speak at the funeral, but said she would continue to carry on her daughter's "mission of peace and love". One of Valentina's cousins stood by her aunt's side at the podium, saying: "All of [Valentina's] dreams consisted of applying herself and helping others. In only 14 years, Valentina was making all of the people who loved her proud. This is what we will remember when we think of Valentina and we will imagine more of her triumphs. I know that we would all be amazed how many of those big dreams would come true for Valentina."

Juan Pablo Orellana Larenas lamented that his daughter was killed in a country that she loved, where she dreamed of going to college: "She always told us this country was the safest country in the world. Unfortunately, she was mistaken. She only came to this country to face her death," he said, in Spanish. "This pain and suffering of not having her by our side, we will never overcome it. Daughter of mine, we love you forever. Give us strength to continue this fight. We know we will win. Daughter, fly high, take care of us, forever."

Sharpton, who has given eulogies for high-profile victims of police killings across the US, questioned why the LAPD officer fired his weapon so quickly, shooting "like it was the wild, wild west"."It puzzles me how you can take hostage situations and deescalate it, but you can't [respond to] one man in a department store without recklessly shooting everybody", he said.

Crump compared the killing to the murder of George Floyd, whose family he also represented and told Valentina's parents that they would not allow LAPD to "justify the unjustifiable actions that caused your 14-year-old angel to spill her innocent blood".

The killing of a young bystander has prompted widespread scrutiny of the LAPD, which shot a total of six people in a nine-day period last month, contributing to a sharp increase in officer shootings and killings in 2021.

LA's mayor, Eric Garcetti, has said the LAPD will review its tactics, training and policies in the wake of the killing. But the case has renewed calls for the defunding of the department, with critics arguing that ongoing reform efforts have failed to prevent police violence, and that officers must face accountability for misconduct and unjust killings.

LAPD has declined to answer specific questions about the shooting, which remains under investigation, but has said the officer was unaware there were people in the dressing room when he opened fire. The officer's representatives have said he was following his training for "active shooter" cases, since some 911 callers had mistakenly stated Elena Lopez had a gun, which turned out to be wrong. But at least one 911 caller in the store told dispatchers he did not have a gun, according to audio released by the department.

Rahul Ravipudi, another attorney representing the family, spoke at the funeral, lamenting that "Valentina's life was needlessly taken away with an AR-15 assault rifle by the very people who were charged with protecting her", adding, "with Valentina's spirit guiding us, we will expose the truth, hold accountable those responsible for her death and implement changes that will allow all Americans, all immigrants, and everyone to feel that same American dream, the one where we're raising children in a place where we feel safe and protected."