A 14-year-old girl was fatally shot by stray bullet after at a clothing store after Los Angeles police opened fire at a suspect, authorities said. Police said that the suspect was also killed during the confrontation. The stray bullet went through the wall of a dressing room inside the clothing store and hit the girl.
The tragic incident took place on Thursday afternoon at a Burlington store in the North Hollywood area of the San Fernando Valley, police responded to reports of an assault with a deadly weapon, the Los Angeles Police Department said. Both the suspect and the girl were pronounced dead at the scene.
Tragic Incident
According to eye witnesses, the suspect, an adult man, started behaving erratically. He suddenly went up the stairs of the store and started throwing items from the upper floor to the ground. He then attacked a woman with a bicycle lock.
The incident happened around noon and the store was already crowded with shoppers. Officers reached the scene after the incident was reported to them. On reaching the clothing store, they started looking for the suspect as he was already running form floor to floor and attacking people.
While searching for the suspect, "the officers encountered an individual who was in the process of assaulting another, and an officer-involved shooting occurred," LAPD Capt. Stacy Spell told reporters during a news briefing.
The officers started firing randomly at the suspect and one shot hitting the suspect. He immediately collapsed and died on the scene. However, a second bullet hit the girl, who was inside the dressing room of the store and trying out new clothes.
She too died on the scene and was identified as a 14-year-old. Police believe the teenager was struck by an officer's bullet fired at the assault suspect that penetrated a wall into her dressing room, LAPD said in an update Thursday evening. She was found during a search for additional suspects and victims and pronounced dead at the scene, police said.
Innocent Life Lost
Police believe the teenager was struck by an officer's bullet fired at the assault suspect that penetrated a wall into her dressing room, LAPD said in an update on Thursday evening. Initially no one noticed that the girl had died. She was found during a search for additional suspects and victims, police said.
"At this time we believe it was a round coming from an officer," LAPD Assistant Chief Dominic Choi told reporters Thursday evening.
The identities of the teenager and suspect have not been released. A third person, a woman, was also injured during the alleged assault, Spell said, and was transported to the hospital. Investigators were still determining the extent and nature of her injuries.
An investigation has been launched and it is still not known if there was any connection between her and the suspect, Choi said. However, what has baffled even the investigators is that what prompted the officers to open fire and what the alleged weapon was the suspect carrying that he couldn't be confronted and made to surrender.
Police have not found a gun during the search of the area at this time, Choi said. "We're at the very preliminary stages of this investigation," Spell said. "There's still a lot of surveillance video to review, there are witnesses to interview."
Investigators will also be looking at police body-worn camera footage, which was on during the incident, Choi said. The officers involved in the shooting also still need to be interviewed, he said.
