|
| Police respond in Riverside, Calif., early Thursday morning, Feb. 7, 2013, after one officer was killed and another critically wounded in a shootout with a murder suspect. Police were searching for former Los Angeles police officer Christopher Dorner, who is the main suspect in the weekend killings of a couple whose bodies were found in Irvine, and who has threatened to kill police. Investigators believe Dorner is responsible for two separate overnight shootings about 60 miles east of Los Angeles in Riverside County. Dorner was fired from the LAPD in 2008 for making false statements. |
LOS ANGELES
(AP) -- An ex-Los Angeles police officer who authorities say went on a
deadly shooting rampage to punish those he blamed for his firing killed
three people, setting off a manhunt that stirred fear across several
states and Mexico.
The search for Christopher
Dorner focused late Thursday on Big Bear Lake, about 80 miles east of
Los Angeles, where police found a burned-out pickup truck that belonged
to Christopher Dorner. San Bernardino County Sheriff John McMahon said
officers were going door to door looking for him.
Throughout
the day, thousands of heavily armed officers patrolled highways in the
state, while some stood guard outside the homes of people police say
Dorner vowed to attack in an angry rant posted online.
Electronic
billboards that 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 multiple weapons including an assault rifle, said Los Angeles
police Chief Charlie Beck, who urged him to surrender at an unusual
press conference in an underground room at police headquarters where
there was more security than normal.
"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 some of its officers to protect
more than 40 potential targets across the region on Thursday. 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, injuring two innocent occupants.
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 and their families.
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 the disciplinary hearing.
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 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, when he was fired for making false statements.
Quan's
father, a former LAPD captain who became a lawyer in retirement,
represented Dorner in front of the Board of Rights, a tribunal that
ruled against Dorner, police said. Randal Quan retired in 2002 and later
served as chief of police at Cal Poly Pomona before he started
practicing law. Quan did not immediately return a message seeking
comment.
According to documents from a court
of appeals hearing in October 2011, 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 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.
After his dismissal, Dorner said in
his online rant that he lost everything, including his relationships
with his mother, sister and close friends.
"Self-preservation
is no longer important to me. I do not fear death as I died long ago,"
the manifesto. "I was told by my mother that sometimes bad things happen
to good people. I refuse to accept that."
Dorner said he would use all of his training to avoid capture and track his targets.
In
addition to police work, Dorner served in the Naval Reserves, earning a
rifle marksman ribbon and pistol expert medal. He served in a naval
undersea warfare unit and various aviation training units, according to
military records, and took a leave from the LAPD and deployed to Bahrain
in 2006 and 2007.
"I will utilize every bit
of small arms training, demolition, ordinance and survival training I've
been given," the manifesto read. "You have misjudged a sleeping giant."
As
officers searched for Dorner, there was a report of a shooting in
Corona that involved two LAPD officers working a security detail, police
said. A resident pointed out Dorner to the officers who followed until
his pickup stopped and the driver got out and fired a rifle at them. A
bullet grazed an officer's head.
Later, two
officers on routine patrol in neighboring Riverside were ambushed at a
stop light by a motorist who drove up next to them and opened fire with a
rifle. One died and the other was seriously wounded but was expected to
survive, Riverside police Chief Sergio Diaz said.
Diaz
said news organizations should withhold the officers' names because the
suspect had made clear that he considers police and their families
"fair game."
The hunt for Dorner led to two errant shootings in the pre-dawn darkness Thursday.
LAPD
officers guarding a "target" named in the posting shot and wounded two
women in suburban Torrance who were in a pickup but were not involved,
authorities said. Beck said one woman was in stable condition with two
gunshot wounds and the other was being released after treatment.
"Tragically we believe this was a case of mistaken identity by the officers," Beck said.
Minutes
later, Torrance officers responding to a report of gunshots encountered
a dark pickup matching the description of Dorner's, police said. A
collision occurred and the officers fired on the pickup. The
unidentified driver was not hit and it turned out not to be the suspect
vehicle, they said.
In San Diego, where police
say Dorner tied up an elderly man and unsuccessfully tried to steal his
boat Wednesday night, Naval Base Point Loma was locked down Thursday
after a Navy worker reported seeing someone who resembled Dorner.
Navy
Cmdr. Brad Fagan said officials don't believe he was on base Thursday
but had checked into a base hotel on Tuesday and left the next day
without checking out. Numerous agencies guarded the base. Fagan said
Dorner was honorably discharged and that his last day in the Navy was
last Friday.
Nevada authorities also looked
for Dorner because he owns a house nine miles from the Las Vegas Strip,
according to authorities and property records.
