Girl Likely Killed By Officer's Stray Bullet In LA Mall Shooting

NORTH HOLLYWOOD, CA — A Los Angeles Police Department officer may have killed a 14-year-old girl with a stray bullet while firing on and killing an assault suspect inside a North Hollywood Burlington Coat Factory Thursday.

The shooting unfolded just before noon on one of the busiest shopping days of the year when police were called to the Burlington Coat Factory at Laurel Canyon and Victory boulevards. Officers were responding to a report of an assault with a deadly weapon. At least one officer shot at the suspect, a man who died at the scene.

"As the officers were responding, they arrived at this location and began a search, looking for a suspect," Capt. Stacy Spell said. "While conducting that search for a suspect, the officers encountered an individual who was in the process of assaulting another and an officer-involved shooting occurred."

The suspect, a man, was fatally shot, police said.

LAPD Assistant Chief Dominic Choi said that during a subsequent search, police found a hole in a stretch of drywall that was in front of the officer or officers who opened fire at the suspect.

"We went behind it (the wall), and it turned out to be a dressing room up there," Choi said. "... We were able to locate a 14-year-old female who was found deceased in that dressing room."

"Preliminarily, we believe it was from an officer's gunfire," said LAPD Officer Drake Madison.

The bullet appeared to pass through the wall of the dressing room, Madison added. Department officials also said it's unclear if the suspect who was also killed by police was armed. No gun has been found.

"We did not find a gun," Choi said. "However, until the coroner gets here and we do a full search of the suspect, that won't be definitive. But right now we haven't located a firearm."

Officers did find a "steel or metal cable lock, a very heavy lock," near the suspect that may have been used in the assault, Choi said.

Choi called it a "tragic and unfortunate sequence of events."

The department's Force Investigation Division and Inspector General's Office were both on the scene investigating, Choi said. According to Choi, investigators have not reviewed the store's security camera footage or video from the officers' body-worn cameras.

The California Department of Justice's California Police Shooting Investigation Team for Southern California deployed to the shooting scene, following notification by local authorities, under provisions of a bill signed into law last year by Gov. Gavin Newsom, California Attorney General Rob Bonta announced.

Once the investigation has been completed, it will be turned over to the California Department of Justice's Special Prosecutions Section within the Criminal Law Division for independent review.

A woman who was being assaulted by the suspect when officers arrived was taken to a hospital in unknown condition. She was seen in video footage from the scene being loaded into an ambulance, awake but bloodied.

It was unclear if the teenage girl's parents were in the store at the time, and whether she was hiding in the dressing room when she was killed by the stray bullet.

Terrified shoppers fled the building. The store was evacuated and remained closed as detectives processed the crime scene.

Authorities sought to calm the public as word of the shopping center shooting spread Thursday.

"This is NOT an active shooter (incident). The suspect is in custody," police said in a tweet.

City News Service contributed to this report.