LAPD officer kills 14-year-old girl while opening fire on suspect in clothing store

A 14-year-old girl was reportedly shot and killed by a Los Angeles police officer who opened fire on a suspect in a Burlington clothing store in North Hollywood on Thursday, The Associated Press reports.

The police were responding to a report of a person being assaulted with a deadly weapon when they apparently opened fire in the store on the suspect. The suspect was struck and killed — officers found he had a heavy metal cable lock, but not a gun, The New York Times reports — while a bullet pierced the wall of the dressing room and killed the 14-year-old, who was shopping for a quinceañera dress with her mother.

"Preliminarily, we believe that round was an officer's round," Dominic H. Choi — the acting chief in the absence of LAPD Chief Michel Moore, who was out of town with his family — said at a news conference. Choi added, "The dressing room was behind where the suspect was, in front of the officer. You can't see into the dressing rooms. It just looks like a straight wall of drywall."

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Briefed while out of town, Moore added, "There's not a police officer in America who would ever want this type of circumstance to occur." The Los Angeles Times reports that the LAPD said "it wasn't yet clear whether the lock prompted officers to shoot."