Huge Search for Ex-Officer in 3 California Killings

[jimmy olsen]

This guy seems like a complete nutjob. The LAPD seems quite trigger happy though.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/08/us/former-los-angeles-police-officer-sought-in-shootings.html

Huge Search for Ex-Officer in 3 California Killings
By ADAM NAGOURNEY and IAN LOVETT
Published: February 7, 2013 244 Comments

LOS ANGELES — A former Navy reservist who was fired from the Los Angeles Police Department in 2008 has gone on a murderous rampage aimed at police officers and their families, law enforcement officials said Thursday, killing at least three people — including an 11-year veteran of the Riverside Police Department — and setting off a huge manhunt across Southern California.


The police were on high alert in a dragnet that appeared to rattle even a part of the country familiar with sweeping police hunts. Protection teams were dispatched overnight to guard uniformed officers and their families, scores of officers set up lines of defense outside the fortress that is the Los Angeles Police Department headquarters, and motorcycle officers were ordered to retreat to the safety of patrol cars.

In Torrance, two women delivering newspapers were shot and wounded by police officers who mistook the Honda pickup they were driving for the one identified as belonging to the gunman, a gray Nissan. About 12 hours later in San Diego, squads of police cars, in a blaze of red lights and screeching tires, converged on a motel where the suspect was mistakenly thought to be hiding after his wallet was found on a sidewalk.

As night fell, the gray Nissan was found, destroyed by flames, at the side of a dirt road in a snowy, wooded area near Big Bear, a ski resort about 100 miles from downtown Los Angeles. The resort and local schools were closed as soon as the vehicle was discovered.

The suspect was identified as Christopher J. Dorner, 33, who worked for the Police Department from 2005 to 2008. Mr. Dorner posted a rambling and threatening note on his Facebook page, which police referred to as "his manifesto," complaining of severe depression and pledging to kill officers to avenge his dismissal for filing a false report accusing a colleague of abuse.

In the note, Mr. Dorner said he had struggled to clear his name in court before resorting to violence.

The 6,000-word manifesto was bristling with anger and explicit threats, naming two dozen police officers he intended to kill. Mr. Dorner laid out grievances against a police department that he said remained riddled with racism and corruption, a reference to a chapter of the department's history that, in the view of many people, was swept aside long ago.

The authorities responded by assigning special security details to protect the people named in the manifesto, and asked the news media not to publish their names.

"I have exhausted all available means at obtaining my name back," he wrote. "I have attempted all legal court efforts within appeals at the Superior Courts and California Appellate courts. This is my last resort. The LAPD has suppressed the truth and it has now lead to deadly consequences."

"I will bring unconventional and asymmetrical warfare to those in LAPD uniform whether on or off duty," he wrote.

The police said that Mr. Dorner was traveling with multiple weapons, including an assault weapon. On his Facebook page, Mr. Dorner posted a certificate from the Department of the Navy attesting that he had completed a course of training to become an antiterrorism officer at the Center for Security Forces.

"Dorner is considered to be armed and extremely dangerous," said Chief Charlie Beck of the Los Angeles Police Department. "He knows what he's doing; we trained him. He was also a member of the armed forces. It is extremely worrisome and scary, especially to the police officers involved."

Mr. Dorner bragged about his lethal skills. "You are aware that I have always been the top shot, highest score, an expert in rifle qualification in every unit I have been on," he wrote.

The rampage began with a double homicide in Orange County on Sunday. One of the victims, Monica Quan, 28, was the daughter of a former Los Angeles police captain who had defended Mr. Dorner in his disciplinary proceedings.

On Wednesday, Chief Beck said, Mr. Dorner tried to hijack a boat in San Diego. Early Thursday morning, police officers assigned to protect an officer named by Mr. Dorner were alerted by a civilian who spotted a man resembling the suspect. As they followed him, Mr. Dorner opened fire as they approached him — grazing one in the head — before he fled, Chief Beck said.

Less than an hour later, the suspect approached two Riverside police officers parked at a traffic light in a patrol car and opened fire, killing one and seriously wounding the second.

"The Riverside officers were cowardly ambushed," Chief Beck said. "They had no opportunity to fight back, no pre-warning."

At Big Bear, police officials said they were prepared to search through the night, weather permitting: a winter snowstorm was approaching. Sheriff John McMahon of San Bernardino County said that footprints had been found in the show leading from the abandoned vehicle; he would not say where they led.

Sheriff McMahon said that about 125 law enforcement officers were going door-to-door in the area searching for the suspect, looking for signs of forced entry and making certain that residents there were safe.

The authorities were concerned that the gunman would expand his choice of targets. "This is a vendetta against all Southern California law enforcement, and it should be seen as such," Chief Beck said

More than a dozen law enforcement agencies across Southern California — from Riverside, east of Los Angeles, down to San Diego — were engaged in the search. Police vehicles crowded the freeways, where electronic signs urged drivers to look out for the suspect's vehicle.

F.B.I. agents staked out a home in Orange County where neighbors said Mr. Dornan's mother lived. Neighbors said that they had seen Mr. Dornan on and off after he returned from a two-year deployment in the Middle East in 2006. They all said he was a cordial and approachable neighbor.

"I don't expect to see him anymore, because I know that this is a hot area for him," said Ike Gonzalez, who has lived there since 1973.

Mr. Dornan was dismissed after being charged with making false statements about his training officer, who he alleged had kicked a suspect. A review board ultimately found Mr. Dornan guilty. Mr. Dornan sued the department, but both the trial court and an appellate court upheld his termination.

In his online manifesto, Mr. Dornan railed against the officers involved in his hearing. "You destroyed my life and name because of your actions," he wrote. "Time is up."

"I never had the opportunity to have a family of my own, I'm terminating yours," he wrote. "Look your wives/husbands and surviving children directly in the face and tell them the truth as to why your children are dead."

[jimmy olsen]

Another two officers have been injured in a gunfight with the suspect.

http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/02/12/16938301-two-officers-injured-as-manhunt-for-ex-lapd-officer-focuses-on-big-bear?lite

[fhdz]

If ever there was a place and job in which you'd be trigger-happy, it's LAPD. Jesus.

[CountDeMoney]

If ever there was a place and job in which you'd be trigger-happy, it's LAPD. Jesus.

I talked to them back in 1996;  they were more interested in whether I spoke Spanish or not.

[mongers]

If ever there was a place and job in which you'd be trigger-happy, it's LAPD. Jesus.

Yeah the two parts of Tim's OP fit like glove and hand.   

[jimmy olsen]

Come on, they shot two old ladies delivering newspapers because they drove the same car as the suspect.

[CountDeMoney]

Gee, the LAPD as a dysfunctional police force?  Welcome to 1972, Timmay.

[mongers]

Gee, the LAPD as a dysfunctional police force?  Welcome to 1972, Timmay.

Yeah it's funny in a way that Hal Rouch* had their modus operandi nailed in 1913, but those guys didn't have glocks.


*Yes I know it's probably not Hal Rouch's output, but I don't know who did them and anyway it sounds better this way.

edit:
Damn I'm ignorant/forgetful, of course it was Mack Sennett. 

[Ed Anger]

At least this is compelling TV.

GO COPS. SMEAR THE DARKIE.

[DGuller]

Damn, gotta go home to watch this.  Please tell me they didn't kill him yet.

[Ed Anger]

Damn, gotta go home to watch this.  Please tell me they didn't kill him yet.

Barricaded in a cabin. There might be hostages.

[CountDeMoney]

GO COPS. SMEAR THE DARKIE.

No way he's coming out of this alive.  Not that he wants to.

[DGuller]

GO COPS. SMEAR THE DARKIE.

No way he's coming out of this alive.  Not that he wants to.

I don't know.  I'm sure LAPD is going to open up at him with everything they've got, but so far in this case they don't exactly have the best track record of hitting anything with a hail of bullets.

[Ed Anger]

I want them to Janet Reno the cabin. KILL KILL

[garbon]

Not nearly as exciting as watching a good car chase.