The California Justice Department announced today that it has found no cause to file chargesagainst 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.

  • @[email protected]
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    637 months ago

    How does someone come to a point where police going around with an AR-15 is even legal, much less common?

    What kind of large field ops with trained & organised counterparty are they expecting to encounter on a daily basis outside of an active warzone? And in a store?

    • @Garbanzo
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      337 months ago

      All it took was two dudes in body armor robbing a bank for every cop in America to shit their pants in fear. They’re so afraid of being helpless again that they went and bought fucking tanks.

      • @Madison420
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        67 months ago

        Technically it was two.

        The one heat was based on in California and the college tower sniper a few years later.

    • @[email protected]
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      177 months ago

      How does someone come to a point where police going around with an AR-15 is even legal, much less common?

      I’ve only seen this once in my life, when I was visiting Paris, and the cops were casually lounging around with rifles.

      In America, generally a cop will carry a pistol, and keep rifles or shotguns in their car (in the trunk).

      • @[email protected]
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        187 months ago

        Are you sure they were cops? We’ve had soldiers patrolling on and off since the terrorist attacks, and I don’t think French cops carry anything other than handguns during their normal shift.

        • @[email protected]
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          137 months ago

          Oh, that’s possible. I tend to instinctively assume American rules wherever I go since they’re what I know, and we virtually never deploy our military domestically, so I wouldn’t have thought to try to distinguish cops from the military.

          • @[email protected]
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            47 months ago

            we virtually never deploy our military domestically

            Doesn’t sound like you’d need to if the cops are running around with that kind of fire power in their cars.

            • @[email protected]
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              17 months ago

              To be clear in case I wasn’t, I was referring to semiautomatic firearms. In general, only the military will carry fully automatic weapons around as a matter of course. Similarly, I’m referring to (relatively) lower caliber than the military - I wouldn’t expect a cop to casually carry around a rifle chambered in .50, although I certainly would expect a shotgun for e.g. breaching a door when necessary.

      • @[email protected]
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        57 months ago

        I went to London which now feels like over two decades ago and was told they only have batons… Like 7 out of 10 cops had MP5s strapped casually to the side of them. Looking back I am like maybe 9/11 response? But that’s still like a couple years after. I don’t know, coming from the US I thought that was crazy. Some of our cops have shotguns usually, and in some towns, rifles in their car, and they are almost never used.

        • @Metacortechs
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          37 months ago

          Had this same experience when I visited London 20+ years ago. Turns out it was the opening of Parliament that brought out all the MP5s according to the staff at the hotel.

      • @[email protected]
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        7 months ago

        Yeah, those were special forces (was it after those terrorist attacks?).

        I don’t know of any country in Europe where caps would keep rifles or shotguns in cars.

      • @AnUnusualRelic
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        37 months ago

        Paris, like many big European cities, is a major terrorist target. It’s been hit numerous times, so they’re a bit on edge there. When the alert level is high, you’ll see military patrols as well. Although the effectiveness of those is dubious.