A Los Angeles police officer opened fire on a man who was involved in an assault at a clothing store on Thursday, and one of the shots pierced a wall, killing a 14-year-old girl in a dressing room, the police said.
The shooting happened at a Burlington store in North Hollywood during the busy holiday shopping season after the police received reports at about 11:45 a.m. of an assault with a deadly weapon and possible shots fired, the police said.
When the officers arrived, they went upstairs and found a man who was assaulting a woman, the police said. The police opened fire, killing the man, whose name was not immediately released, the police said.
Officers found a heavy metal lock near the man but no gun, Dominic H. Choi, an assistant chief of the Los Angeles Police Department, said at a news conference.
A woman who had been assaulted was taken to the hospital with injuries to her head and arms, Chief Choi said.
As officers continued to search the store, they noticed a hole in the wall, Chief Choi said. Behind the wall, they found the 14-year-old girl who had been shot and killed in the dressing room.
The girl’s name was not immediately released.
Chief Choi described the encounter as a “tragic and unfortunate sequence of events” and said it remained under investigation. He said that the investigation had indicated that the girl had been fatally shot by the police.
“Preliminarily, we believe that round was an officer’s round,” he said.
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