Mountain manhunt for ex-LAPD cop accused of killing 3
Updated 10:08 PM ET
LOS ANGELES A fired police officer who threatened to bring "warfare" to the Los Angeles Police Department went on a shooting rampage that left a policeman and two others dead and set off an extraordinary manhunt Thursday that put Southern California on edge, led hair-trigger officers to mistakenly shoot at innocent citizens and forced police to guard their own.
The search for Christopher Dorner had three states and Mexico on alert before shifting Thursday afternoon to the snowy mountains around Big Bear Lake, about 80 miles east of Los Angeles, where police found his burned-out pickup truck and tracks leading away from the vehicle.
A burned-out pickup truck belonging to ex-Los Angeles police officer Christopher Dorner is towed after it was discovered in Big Bear, Calif, Thursday, Feb. 7, 2013.
/ AP Photo/Jae C. HongSan Bernardino County Sheriff John McMahon said 125 officers were going door to door and attempting to track the suspect, and that a SWAT team was providing added security to those in the community. Schools were put on lockdown while investigators examined the vehicle and spread out across the area.
"He could be anywhere at this point, and that's why we're searching door to door," McMahon said, adding that the manhunt would continue "as long as we can." A snow storm was expected in the region with temperatures dipping into the teens overnight.
Said LAPD Assistant Chief Michel Moore: "This complex and violent investigation has led to this mountain."
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The pickup was to be processed at a crime lab Thursday evening and examined by investigators from multiple agencies.
Throughout the day, thousands of heavily armed officers patrolled highways throughout Southern California, while some stood guard outside the homes of people police say Dorner vowed to attack in a rant posted online. Electronic billboards, which usually alert motorists about the commute, urged them to call 911 if they saw him.
"I will bring unconventional and asymmetrical warfare" to Los Angeles Police Department officers, on or off duty, said the manifesto. It also asserted: "Unfortunately, I will not be alive to see my name cleared. That's what this is about, my name. A man is nothing without his name."
Dorner, 33, had several weapons including an assault rifle, said police Chief Charlie Beck, who urged him to surrender at a press conference held amid heightened security in an underground room at police headquarters.
"Of course he knows what he's doing; we trained him. He was also a member of the Armed Forces," he said. "It is extremely worrisome and scary."
The nearly 10,000-member LAPD dispatched officers to protect more than 40 potential targets, including police officers and their families. The department also pulled officers from motorcycle duty, fearing they would make for easy targets.
"I never had the opportunity to have a family of my own, I'm terminating yours," the manifesto said.
At one point, officers guarding one location mistakenly opened fire on a pickup truck, believing it matched the description of Dorner's dark-colored 2005 Nissan Titan. Two occupants were injured.
The chief said there had been a "night of extreme tragedy in the Los Angeles area" and that the department was taking measures to ensure the safety of officers.
The search for Dorner, who was fired from the LAPD in 2008 for making false statements, began after he was linked to a weekend killing in which one of the victims was the daughter of a former police captain who had represented him during his disciplinary hearing. Thursday was the anniversary of his first day on the job at the department eight years ago.
Monica Quan and her fiance, Keith Lawrence, were found shot in their car at a parking structure at their condominium on Sunday in Irvine. Quan, 28, was an assistant women's basketball coach at Cal State Fullerton. Lawrence, 27, was a public safety officer at the University of Southern California.
Police said Dorner implicated himself in the couple's killings in the manifesto posted on Facebook. They believe he was the one who wrote it because there were details in it only he would know.
In the post, Dorner wrote that he knew he would be vilified by the LAPD and the news media, but that "unfortunately, this is a necessary evil that I do not enjoy but must partake and complete for substantial change to occur within the LAPD and reclaim my name."
Dorner was with the LAPD from 2005 until 2008.
According to documents from a court of appeals hearing, Dorner was fired from the LAPD after he made a complaint against his field training officer, Sgt. Teresa Evans. Dorner said that in the course of an arrest, Evans kicked suspect Christopher Gettler, a schizophrenic with severe dementia.
Richard Gettler, the schizophrenic man's father, gave testimony that supported Dorner's claim. After his son was returned home on July 28, 2007, Richard Gettler asked "if he had been in a fight because his face was puffy" and his son responded that he was kicked twice in the chest by a police officer.
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Did Riverside Police & witnesses confirm HE shot the officers ? He has SELECTED targets, not just random.
He Afro-American, people vehemently abused by LAPD. Think maybe he tried to do the right thing, & LAPD chose to kick him out for it?
Who are the real crimanals here? -- Caucasian, (fmr). policeman
Nah.....actually, even though the NRA gun nuts make sure that everyone knows the last part of the 2nd Amendment from the Colonial Period -- "shall not be infringed" -- I believe they are stuck in the "Wild West" past of the latter 1800's, that "doesn't adhere to evolution, culture or civility".
Even your most conservative SCOTUS justice leans on original intent of the 2nd Amendment.
One of the ironies of the gun-control debate is that Justice Antonin Scalia's ruling in an important Supreme Court case (2008 ruling in District of Columbia v. Heller) left the door open to gun control.
Scalia will never be a hero to liberals, of course. But his emphasis on originalism and textualism seems to coincide with liberal interests on guns precisely because there were restrictions on guns during the colonial era; his reading of the original intent of the law was that it allowed an average person to have a typical firearm. Indeed, back in July, when he was promoting a new book, Scalia told Fox News that the Second Amendment "undoubtedly" permits some restrictions on firearms.
Look at the syllabus of the Court's brief that he wrote:
"Like most rights, the Second Amendment right is not unlimited. It is not a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose"
http://www.nationaljournal.com/politics/why-liberals-should-thank-justice-scalia-for-gun-control-20130119
Nobama wants to disarm honest folks so ,it turns out in this case, mentally ill renegade x police can run a muck.
It already looks like the police are also running a muck, they only care about there own. Why else shoot to kill innocent drivers just cause they are driving a vehicle that matches a description? BTW, a description that matches thousands of vehicles.
When the efforts of average citizens are covered up, while the attempted killers of others and of average citizens are covered up to protect a LE that is entrusted to protect us all there is something seriously wrong.
We need objective reporting and we don't get it.
We, outside of Calif, have to get independent investigation -- against the SECOND LARGEST police dept. in nation. Add to that, Rodney King ALSO beaten by Calif. Highway Patrol.
Who investigates LAPD, especially with repercussions to CHP ?
It signals that he's plugged in (this day and age... electronics?) to what happened, so to avoid more 'accidental' shootings on his behalf..
The description of Christopher Dorner lauds what might well become a very real enactment of 'Rambo, First Blood'!
That a real thriller is about to unfold on the LAPD, this guy is no yob or newbie, plentiful on warfare skills, resource and brains, looks damn fit in photos, fueled by scorn and disappointment which was finally ticked off by the unjust wrongdoings of a few rotten apples, who are at the top of this guys list of needing a final reckoning..
What it all comes down to: someone somewhere failed in proper attention (again) and it would seem that a pretty capable person in destruction and mayhem has decided to right a wrong on his own terms!
No happy ending here.....
Who exactly are the bad cops and who are the good cops? Who exactly is the insane one in the story? Our country has become so corrupt, police have gotten so out of hand with their abuse of power, that it made Dorner snap. It pushed him over the edge. He cared TOO much. He isn't justified for what he's doing, but it is certainly understandable -- and that is what is so sad. It's truly sad that it has come to this. And I fear that Dorner's story is just the first in what will become a very long list of stories.