RUBEN NAVARRETTE JR.: Police mistakes can be lethal

Latinos are America’s largest minority and one of its quietest. We don’t raise nearly enough hell — even when it is called for.

Which brings us to the question: Do brown lives matter?

What about Valentina Orellana-Peralta? Did her life — including the 14-year-old’s plans to become an engineer and a U.S. citizen — matter?

The future that Valentina dreamt about will not happen. We can’t blame a pandemic. Her death was man-made, caused by human error and bad judgment.

This girl is dead and her family destroyed because of a tragic and preventable mistake by a veteran officer with the Los Angeles Police Department.The officer apparently believes in accountability. Supposedly, he is a “woke” cop who wants to build trust between the LAPD and the community it serves.

There is nothing more ghastly than a parent engaging in the unnatural ritual of burying a child. Imagine taking your daughter to buy a Christmas outfit, and instead, a few days later, you’re picking out her coffin.

That’s the horror that befell Valentina’s parents, who will forever equate the holidays with loss and heartbreak. Their Navidad will never again be Feliz.

The girl had only recently moved from her native Chile to the United States, which she proclaimed to her was “the safest country in the world.”

America was not safe for her. Valentina was shot and killed on Dec. 23 by William Dorsey Jones Jr., a veteran 42-year-old African American LAPD police officer who has — ironically — built a reputation as a police reformer.

You might ask: Is the officer’s race relevant? You bet. The media routinely mentions the race of white cops and Latino cops accused of everything from mistakes to misbehavior to murder. We can’t have different rules for Black cops. Besides, it’s no secret that one of the things about policing that needs reforming is how police officers interact with African American men. In this case, the officer who made the deadly mistake is himself African American and the victim is Latina. That opens up a whole new racial dynamic that becomes part of the story.

The girl was huddled with her mother in a North Hollywood department store changing room when cops stormed in to confront a man who was swinging a bike lock at shoppers, bloodying one of them. The man did not have a gun, and according to police body-cam video, he did not approach officers.

In that public place, police opened fire with semiautomatic weapons. A stray bullet ripped through the drywall behind the suspect, killing the girl. According to Valentina’s mother, officers did not render aid to her daughter. They just left.

In a social media post since deleted, Jones proudly proclaimed himself to be part of both the Thin Blue Line and Black Lives Matter.

His behavior that day is nothing to be proud of. He needs to answer for it. Multiple investigations are underway. Let’s hope they produce what police reform advocates always call for in these cases: accountability and justice.

A friend of mine, a retired police chief in three cities who now trains officers, says he would have handled the situation differently. When police enter an indoor public space with many unknowns, he says they should dispense with the big guns and rely on their handguns. According to him, a handgun would have been more precise and its ammo less likely to pierce some walls than a high-powered rifle.

Law enforcement officers take an oath to protect and serve. But their first priority should be, like physicians, to do no harm.

You’ve heard this before, right?

Isn’t that the lesson that America was supposed to learn in the 20 months since George Floyd — an African American — was murdered by Derek Chauvin, a white police officer in Minneapolis?

Isn’t that the message a jury in a Minneapolis suburb sent last month when it convicted ex-police officer Kim Potter of first-degree and second-degree manslaughter in the killing of Daunte Wright, a Black motorist, after Potter claimed she mistakenly confused her gun for her Taser?

Hey, mistakes happen. But not all professions allow for mistakes to go unpunished. Mail carriers might put a letter into the wrong mailbox, or a supermarket clerk might forget to put a carton of eggs into a shopping bag.

But cops cannot be careless. Their mistakes can cost lives. That’s the job. If they’re not up to it, they should consider a less stressful gig doing mall security.

Given recent events, Americans are supposedly more enlightened than ever about police violence. We’ll see about that.

Ruben Navarrette’s email address is crimscribe@icloud.com. His podcast, “Ruben in the Center,” is available through every podcast app.