+- Deep Politics Forum (https://deeppoliticsforum.com/fora)
+-- Forum: Deep Politics Forum (https://deeppoliticsforum.com/fora/Forum-Deep-Politics-Forum)
+--- Forum: Other (https://deeppoliticsforum.com/fora/Forum-Other)
+--- Thread: Christopher Dorner (/Thread-Christopher-Dorner)
Christopher Dorner - Keith Millea - 09-02-2013
Quote:The two women who were mistakenly shot by LAPD officers searching for triple murder suspect Christopher Dorner Thursday said they had no warning beforehand, the victims' lawyer told CBS Los Angeles.
Attorney Glen Jonas said Maggie Carranza, 47, and her mother, 71-year-old Emma Hernandez, were delivering Los Angeles Times newspapers around 5:15 a.m. in Torrance when the officers opened fire on their vehicle.
Jonas said, "There was no warning. There were no orders. No commands. Just gunshots."
Great job LAPD!
Now,these officers have shown they do not have the brains to be a cop with a loaded weapon.There is NO justification for shooting and wounding these women.These men should be cut from the force immediately.They have only reinforced what Christopher Dorner is saying.Clean up your police force LAPD,that's the message!
Christopher Dorner - Peter Lemkin - 09-02-2013
Keith Millea Wrote:Quote:The two women who were mistakenly shot by LAPD officers searching for triple murder suspect Christopher Dorner Thursday said they had no warning beforehand, the victims' lawyer told CBS Los Angeles.
Attorney Glen Jonas said Maggie Carranza, 47, and her mother, 71-year-old Emma Hernandez, were delivering Los Angeles Times newspapers around 5:15 a.m. in Torrance when the officers opened fire on their vehicle.
Jonas said, "There was no warning. There were no orders. No commands. Just gunshots."
Great job LAPD!
Now,these officers have shown they do not have the brains to be a cop with a loaded weapon.There is NO justification for shooting and wounding these women.These men should be cut from the force immediately.They have only reinforced what Christopher Dorner is saying.Clean up your police force LAPD,that's the message!
You are 101% correct, but I think we both know it won't happen.....the excuse of the 'terrorist threat' will mean they won't even get desk duty, let alone any real punishment or firing [or trial!].....
Dorner's methods may be questionable, but his motives and anger are not!
Christopher Dorner - Peter Lemkin - 11-02-2013
The Police Chief found / solicited donors to come up with a million dollar reward and over 50 police officers homes and lives are being protected.....the general population would get neither if in similar situation.
Christopher Dorner - Peter Lemkin - 11-02-2013
LOS ANGELES -- Fugitive former Los Angeles police officer Christopher Dorner's claim in an online "manifesto" that his career was undone by racist colleagues conspiring against him comes at a time when it's widely held that the police department has evolved well beyond the troubled racial legacy of Rodney King and the O.J. Simpson trial.Dorner, who is suspected in a string of vengeance killings, has depicted himself as a black man wronged, whose badge was unjustly taken in 2008 after he lodged a complaint against a white female supervisor."It is clear as day that the department retaliated toward me," Dorner said in online writings authorities have attributed to him. Racism and officer abuses, he argued, have not improved at LAPD since the King beating but have "gotten worse."Dorner's problems at the LAPD, which ended with his dismissal, played out without public notice more than four years ago, as the department gradually emerged from federal oversight following a corruption scandal. At the time, the officer ranks were growing more diverse and then-Chief William Bratton was working hard to mend relations with long-skeptical minorities."This is no longer your father's LAPD," Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa declared in 2009, after the federal clampdown was ended.Dorner's allegations led Police Chief Charlie Beck on Saturday to order a reexamination of the disciplinary case that led to the former officer's firing. Beck said he wanted to assure the city that the department "is transparent and fair in all the things we do.""I am aware of the ghosts of the LAPD's past, and one of my biggest concerns is that they will be resurrected by Dorner's allegations of racism," Beck said in a statement.Civil rights attorney Connie Rice said the department should review the Dorner case and his claims, while stressing that she is not defending the suspect in any way and is shocked by the attacks.She said the 10,000-member force headquartered in a glass-walled high-rise in downtown Los Angeles has entered a new era."The open racism of the days before is gone," said Rice, who closely tracks racial issues inside the department and has faced off against the LAPD in court. "The overall culture has improved enormously."Police say Dorner shot and killed a couple in a parking garage last weekend in Irvine, the beginning of a rampage he said was retribution for his mistreatment at LAPD. A search for him continued Saturday, centered on the mountain town of Big Bear Lake, where his burned-out pickup truck was found Thursday.The woman who died was the daughter of a retired police captain who had represented Dorner in the disciplinary proceedings that led to his dismissal. Hours after authorities identified Dorner as a suspect in the double murder, police believe he shot and grazed an LAPD officer and later used a rifle to ambush two Riverside police officers, killing one and seriously wounding the other."This is a necessary evil that I do not enjoy but must partake and complete for substantial change to occur within the LAPD," Dorner wrote in a 14-page online manifesto.On Friday, a community of online sympathizers formed, echoing complaints against police that linger in some communities. One Facebook page supporting Dorner, which had over 2,300 fans by Friday evening, said "this is not a page about supporting the killing of innocent people. It's supporting fighting back against corrupt cops and bringing to light what they do."The LAPD was once synonymous with violent and bigoted officers, whose culture and brand of street justice was depicted by Hollywood in films like "L.A. Confidential" and "Training Day."In 1965, 34 people died when the Watts riots, triggered by a traffic stop of a black man by a white California Highway Patrol officer, exposed deep fractures between blacks and an overwhelmingly white law enforcement community.In the 1980s, gang sweeps took thousands of youths into custody. The O.J. Simpson trial deepened skepticism of a department already tarnished by the videotaped beating of King, the black motorist who was hit with batons, kicked repeatedly and jolted with stun guns by officers who chased him for speeding. Rioting after a jury with no black members acquitted three of the LAPD officers on state charges and a mistrial was declared for a fourth lasted three days, killing 55 people.In the Rampart scandal of the late 1990s, scores of criminal convictions were thrown out after members of an anti-gang unit were accused of beating and framing residents in a poor, largely minority neighborhood. A handful of officers were convicted of various crimes and the scandal led to federal oversight that lasted eight years.Much has changed: Whites now make up roughly a third of the department and, while under federal authority, LAPD moved to require anti-gang and narcotics officers to disclose their finances and worked on new tools to track officer conduct.When Bratton announced in 2009 he was stepping down, he said he hoped his legacy would be improved race relations. "I believe we have turned a corner in that issue," he said.Dorner's own case in some ways reflects the diversity of the LAPD: the superior he accused of abuse was a woman and the man who represented him at his disciplinary hearing was the first Chinese-American captain in department history.When Dorner, a Naval reservist, returned to LAPD after deployment to the Middle East in 2007, a training officer became alarmed by his conduct, which included weeping in a police car and threatening to file a lawsuit against the department, records show.Six days after being notified in August 2007 that he could be removed from the field, Dorner accused the training officer, Sgt. Teresa Evans, of kicking a severely mentally ill man in the chest and left cheek while handcuffing him during an arrest.However, his report to internal affairs came two weeks after the arrest, police and court records allege. Civilian and police witnesses said they didn't see Evans kick the man, who had a quarter-inch scratch on his cheek consistent with his fall into a bush. A police review board ruled against Dorner, leading to his dismissal.Online, Dorner tells a different story. He argues he was "terminated for doing the right thing.""I had broken their supposed `Blue Line.'. Unfortunately, It's not JUST US, it's JUSTICE!!!" he wrote. Dorner said in the posting that his account was supported by the alleged victim. He also claims the board that heard his case had conflicts because of ties to Evans, the training officer.Rice was quick to point out that while the LAPD culture has improved, there are still what she calls pockets of bad behavior.That was echoed by Hector Villagra, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California."There has definitely been improvement from those dark days," Villagra said. "We are in a vastly different place, but there still are opportunities for improvement in this and any other police department."
Christopher Dorner - Magda Hassan - 12-02-2013
Wanted: Dead, Not Alive:
The LAPD is Afraid of What Renegade Cop Chris Dorner has to Say
By Dave Lindorff
February 12, 2013 "This Can't Be Happening" -- Let's not be too quick to dismiss the "ranting" of renegade LAPD officer Chris Dorner.
By Dave Lindorff
February 12, 2013 "This Can't Be Happening" -- Let's not be too quick to dismiss the "ranting" of renegade LAPD officer Chris Dorner.
Dorner, a three-year police veteran and former Lieutenant in the US Navy who went rogue after being fired by the LAPD, has accused Los Angeles Police of systematically using excessive force, of corruption, of being racist, and of firing him for raising those issues through official channels.
By all media accounts, Dorner "snapped" after his firing, and has vowed to kill police in retaliation. He allegedly has already done so, with several people, including police officers and family members of police already shot dead.
Now there's a "manhunt" involving police departments across California, focussing on the mountains around Big Bear, featuring cops dressed in full military gear and armed with semi-automatic weapons.
Nobody would argue that randomly killing police officers and their family members or friends is justified, but I think that there is good reason to suspect that the things that Dorner claims set him off, such as being fired for reporting police brutality, and then going through a rigged hearing, deserve serious consideration and investigation.
The LAPD has a long history of abuse of minorities (actually the majority in Los Angeles, where whites are now a minority). It has long been a kind of paramilitary force -- one which pioneered the military-style Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT) approach to "policing."
If you wanted a good example to prove that nothing has changed over the years, just look at the outrageous incident involving LAPD cops tasked with capturing Dorner, who instead shot up two innocent women who were delivering newspapers in a residential area of Los Angeles. The women, Margie Carranza, 47, and her mother, Emma Hernandez, 71 (now in serious condition in the hospital), were not issued any warning. Police just opened fire from behind them, destroying their truck with heavy semi-automatic fire to the point that it will have to be scrapped and replaced. The two women are lucky to be alive (check out the pattern of bullet holes in the rear window behind the driver's position in the accompanying photo). What they experienced was the tactics used by US troops on patrol in Iraq or Afghanistan, not the tactics that one expects of police. Their truck wasn't even the right make or color, but LAPD's "finest" decided it was better to be safe than sorry, so instead of acting like cops, they followed Pentagon "rules of engagement": They attempted to waste the target.
![[Image: LAPDshooting.jpg]](http://www.thiscantbehappening.net/sites/default/files/images/LAPDshooting.jpg)
LAPD officers fired on this car with clear intent to kill (check out the bullet holes behind the driver-seat position). Trouble was, it was the wrong make and wrong color, and instead of Dorner, it was two Latino women, one of whom is now in serious condition from her wounds. No warning was given before the barrage.
Local residents say that after that shooting, which involved seven LAPD officers and over 70 bullets expended, with nobody returning fire, the street and surrounding houses were pockmarked with bullet holes. The Los Angeles Times reports that in the area, there are "bullet holes in cars, trees, garage doors and roofs."
In roofs?
What we had here was an example of a controversial tactic that the military employed in the Iraq War, and still employs in Afghanistan, called "spray and pray" -- a tactic that led directly to the massive civilian casualties during that US war.
We shouldn't be surprised that two brown-skinned women were almost mowed down by the LAPD--only that they somehow survived all that deadly firing directed at them with clear intent to kill.
The approach taken by those cop-hunting-cops of shooting first and asking questions later suggests that the LAPD in this "manhunt" for one of their own has no intention of capturing Dorner alive and letting him talk about what he knows about the evils rampant in the 10,000-member department. They want him dead.
When I lived in Los Angeles back in the 1970s, it was common for LAPD cops to bust into homes, gestapo-like, at 5 in the morning, guns out, to arrest people for minor things like outstanding court warrants for unpaid parking tickets, bald tires, or jaywalking.
Police helicopters also used to tail me -- then an editor of an alternative news weekly -- and my wife, a music graduate student, as we drove home at night. Sometimes, they would follow us from our car to front door with a brilliant spotlight, when we'd come home at night to our house in Echo Park. It was an act of deliberate intimidation. (They also infiltrated our newspaper with an undercover cop posing as a wannabe journalist. Her job, we later learned, was to learn who our sources were inside the LAPD -- sources who had disclosed such things as that the LAPD had, and probably still has, a "shoot-to-kill" policy for police who fire their weapons.)
Friends in Los Angeles tell me nothing has changed, though of course the police weaponry has gotten heavier and their surveillance capabilities have gotten more sophisticated and invasive.
It is clear from the LAPD's paramilitary response to the Occupy movement in Los Angeles, which included planting undercover cops among the occupiers, some of whom reportedly were agents provocateur who tried to encourage protesters to commit acts of violence, and which ended with police violence and gratuitous arrests, as in New York, that nothing has changed.
In other words, Dorner may be irrational, but he ain't crazy.
A black military veteran, Dorner joined the police because he reportedly believed in service. Unable to go along with the militarist policing he saw on the job, he protested through channels and was apparently rewarded by being fired. Now, in his own violent way, he is trying to warn us all that something is rotten in the LAPD, and by extension, in the whole police system in the US. Police departments almost everywhere in the US, have morphed, particularly since 9/11/2001, from a role of providing public safety and law enforcement into agencies of brutal fascist control.
As Dorner says in his lengthy manifesto (actually quite explicit and literate, but described as "ranting" in corporate media accounts), in which he explains his actions and indicts the LAPD, "The enemy combatants in LA are not the citizens and suspects, it's the police officers."
That could be said of many US police departments, I'm afraid.
Example: Last fall, I had the experience of trying to hitchhike in my little suburban town. A young cop drove up and informed me (incorrectly, it turns out) that it was illegal to hitchhike in Pennsylvania. When I expressed surprise at this and told him I was a journalist working on an article on hitchhiking, he then threatened me directly, saying that if I continued to try and thumb a ride, he would "take you in and lock you up."
When I called a lawyer friend and said I was inclined to take the officer up on that threat, since I was within my rights under the law hitchhiking as long as I was standing off the road, he warned me against it, saying, "You don't know what could happen to you if you got arrested."
And of course he's right. An arrest, even a wrongful arrest, in the US these days can lead to an added charge -- much more serious -- of resisting arrest, with a court basing its judgement on the word of the officer in the absence of any other witnesses. It can also lead to physical injury or worse, if the officer wants to lie and claim that the arrested person threatened him or her.
If I had been in Los Angeles, I would most likely have been locked up for an incident like that. Forget about any warning. You aren't supposed to talk back to cops in L.A. And if you are black or Latino, the results of such an arrest could be much worse.
I remember once witnessing LAPD cops stopping a few Latino youths who had been joyriding in what might have been a stolen car. There was a helicopter overhead, and perhaps a dozen patrol cars that had converged on the scene, outside a shopping mall in Silverlake. I ran over to see what was happening and watched as the cops grabbed the kids, none of whom was armed, out of the vehicle and slammed them against the car brutally. It was looking pretty ugly, but by then neighbors from the surrounding homes, most of them Latino, who had poured out onto their lawns because of the commotion, began yelling at the cops. One man shouted, "We see what you're doing. These boys are all healthy. If anything happens to any of them after you arrest them we will report you!"
The cops grudgingly backed off in their attack on the boys, and took them away in a squad car. I don't know what happened to them after that, but they were most certainly saved, by quick community response, from an on-the-spot Rodney King-style beating that could have seriously injured them, or worse.
As things stand right now, with the LAPD gunning for Dorner, and wanting him dead and silenced, not captured, the public has to worry that it has more to fear from the LAPD than it has to fear from Dorner himself. At least Dorner, in his own twisted way, has specific targets in mind. The LAPD is in "spray and pray" mode.
![[Image: ChrisDorner.jpg]](http://www.thiscantbehappening.net/sites/default/files/images/ChrisDorner.jpg)
Chris Dorner, in happier days, now a fugitive on the run from the LAPD "manhunters"
Hopefully, Dorner will realize he can do more by figuring out a safe way to "come in from the cold" so he can try to testify about LAPD crimes, than by killing more cops. If he does manage to surrender, he'd better have a lot of support lined up to keep him safe while in custody.
Christopher Dorner - Peter Lemkin - 12-02-2013
AMY GOODMAN: The city of Los Angeles is offering a $1 million reward for information leading to the capture of Christopher Dorner, a former LAPD officer. Dorner is wanted in the three recent killings targeting fellow officers and their families. During a Sunday afternoon press conference, Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa announced the bounty.
MAYOR ANTONIO VILLARAIGOSA: Collectively, this group, led by my office, is posting a reward of $1 million for information that will lead to Mr. Dorner's capture. We will not tolerate anyone undermining the security, the tranquility of our neighborhoods and our communities. We will not tolerate this reign of terror that has robbed us of the peace of mind that residents of Southern California deserve.
AMY GOODMAN: Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa made the announcement after a massive manhunt failed to find the former police officer.
Christopher Dorner was fired from the police department in 2008 after he was accused of making false statements that his training officer had kicked a mentally ill suspect in the course of an arrest. Testimony by the suspect's father supported Dorner's claim.
In an online manifesto, Dorner claims he was unjustly fired. He also accused the department of racism, corruption and other abuses. In his message, he threatened to wage, quote, "unconventional and asymmetrical warfare to those in LAPD uniform." On Friday, Los Angeles Police Chief Charlie Beck announced he'll reopen an investigation into Dorner's firing. LAPD Commander Andrew Smith said Chief Beck's decision was about maintaining public trust in the police force.
COMMANDER ANDREW SMITH: He's not opening it because of the accusations or because of the musings of someone who's awho's a multiple murderer now. He's doing it because he wants to ensure that the public knows that the Los Angeles Police Department is fair and transparent.
AMY GOODMAN: The manhunt for Dorner began last week after he allegedly shot dead Monica Quan, the daughter of the former police captain who represented Dorner during his disciplinary action, as well as her fiancé. Dorner is also accused of shooting several police officers, one of them fatally.
Police pursuing Dorner as part of a multi-agency hunt were involved in at least two separate shootings, injuring two people Thursday after they came across vehicles that looked similar to the suspect's. Dorner's own truck was found on fire and abandoned.
For more, we go to California, to Berkeley, where we're joined by journalist Davey D. He runs the popular website "Davey D's Hip Hop Corner" at DaveyD.com. He's co-host of Hard Knock Radio on KPFA in Berkeley. He's also an adjunct professor at San Francisco State in the Afro Studies Department.
Davey D, welcome to Democracy Now! Start off bywhat is most important, do you think, to understand about this case and Christopher Dorner at this point?
DAVEY D: I think what really has captured people's imagination is, one, that he isthrough his manifesto, is waging war against the L.A. Police Department. And I think for most people it might seem to be an open and shut case in terms of how people's emotions would side. But what you found is, once you read the manifesto, it's either opened up old wounds or it's reaffirmed what people have long suspected or have experienced in terms of brutality. I think what stands out for me and many of the people that I deal with is the fact that there are these troubling allegations. And those things need to be further investigated, irregardless of what we feel about Dorner, whether or not he's a psychopath or any of the words that they want to put on him. I'm really curious as to whether or not these allegations that he has raised, where he names dates, times and places and names, whether or not they actually check out. And I think that needs to be really investigated, above and beyond just the immediate scenario which led to his firing, which was the dispute between his sergeant, his supervising sergeant, Teresa Evans.
AMY GOODMAN: For people who aren't following this case in the greater Los Angeles area, if you can explain exactly what you understand has happened, you know, what this manhunt is about and what this manifesto is.
DAVEY D: Well, you know, the main thing is, with the manifesto, he points out that he's going to ragehe's going to wage war on the police officers who'd done him dirty. And so, with that, you've seen an unprecedented amount of manpower, resources, an award, and language that says that all of our security is undermined. I mean, really, the security that's undermined is the police department. And so, really what you're seeing, at the end of the day, is higher value placed on the lives of the police, and you're seeing them pull all the stops out to find this one individual.
Granted, with the murders of the two people, the captain's daughter and her fiancé, how do we know that he did it? I'm not defending this. We know he said this in his manifesto, but what's the evidence that they have that they are now pursuing is the question that I would ask.
Going above and beyond that, I'm still concerned inI'm basicallypeople are concerned that his charges that LAPD is still corrupt and is still very violent, I think, resonates with a lot of folks, and that's something that needs to be checked out. And we saw that come to the forefront when we saw the two women, Emma Hernandez and her daughter, who were shot in the back. One of them, you saw like 30 or 40 rounds shot in thewith their truck, that didn't fit the description. We hear that they were given no warnings, no commands. And for many people, that's like business as usual in L.A.
AMY GOODMAN: Explain how that happened.
DAVEY D: That goes back to a history wherehuh? Beg your pardon?
AMY GOODMAN: Explain how that happened, how Emma Hernandez
DAVEY D: Well, they were delivering newspapers the night that the officer in Riverside County was shot. And so, there was this manhunt, and I guess two of the undercover cops that were assigned to protect officers that were under threat from Dorner, they approached this truck and shot them. They shot them from the back. You see the pictures. And what you got was an apology and a new truck that's being offered. How about people being arrested for negligence, you know? How about, you know, the transparency in the procedure that they followed or didn't follow in terms of how they went about shooting innocent people?
We also know that there was a man that was shot. He was driving a truck that was similar but not the same color. We don't even know his name, and he was shot with anotherby another department, the Torrance Police Department. So, for many people, when you hear that, that's like, OK, shoot first, ask questions later. That goes back to a deep, sordid history in Los Angeles. And I'm saying that as somebody who's lived in L.A. for a long time.
AMY GOODMAN: I want to read an excerpt of Christopher Dorner's manifesto. He wrote, quote, "I know I will be vilified by the LAPD and the media. 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 goes on, "The department has not changed since the Rampart and Rodney King days. It has gotten worse. The consent decree should never have been lifted. The only thing that has evolved from the consent decree is those officers involved in the Rampart scandal and Rodney King incidents have since promoted to supervisor, commanders, and command staff, and executive positions. He went on to say he would use, quote, "every bit of small arms training, demolition, ordnance and survival training I've been given" to bring "warfare'' to the LAPD and its families.
Davey D, the police department itself is saying it's reopening, you know, investigating why exactly he, Dorner, was fired, which is very interesting, given what has happened. And Dorner is challenging reporters, in this 11-page manifesto, to, you know, get information about particular cases that he believes he has documentation on that no one has paid attention to.
DAVEY D: Well, there's a few things going on. I mean, first of all, anybody who would kill innocent folks, I don't think is a hero, so let's kind of get that off the table, because I think when the question is raised about, "Let's look at what is going on here, what he's raising, let's investigate that," the immediate response is like: Are you supporting a killer of innocent people? Are you supporting a cop killer? No, he named dates, times and places. Let's look theselet's check these out, because those allegations are pretty serious.
The other thing that you have is that, initially, they were saidthis manifesto was described by Chief Beck as something that was ramblings on the Internet. Well, it wasn't ramblings when he decided to put 40 to 50 security squads to protect his officers. He took that seriously. Obviously we are going to reexamine the allegations that he raised around thehis firing, so they're taking that very seriously. The fact that he kind of implicated himself as being the killer of Monica Quan and her fiancé, Keith Lawrence, they're taking that seriously. But then the allegations, they want to say those are ramblings. And I say, as journalists, we should take all that seriously, not just the incident with his sergeant, Teresa Evans, but also the allegations of recruits or officers singing Nazi songs to somebodyhe talks about thatpolice officers who are on the beat to this day, he gives their names. They use the "N" word. Should there be a zero tolerance for that? Are they still officers on the beat? If so, why? We should check out to find out if people involved with the Rodney King scenario or the Rampart scandal have been expanded. If so, why?
AMY GOODMAN: And explain what Rampart is, for people who aren't familiar.
DAVEY D: Rampart was theRampart was the biggest scandal that this country has ever seen with police departments, definitely in California. A lot of people were falsely accused, a lot of people were arrested, a lot of people did jail time, all this sort of stuff, before it was unpacked, maybe about 10 years ago, to find out that there was a lot of misdeeds. And public trust was severely compromised. So, when these allegations come up, you know, for people who have long mistrusted the LAPD, going all the way back to the '50s, that kind of is a continuation of what is going on.
The other thing that I would add is that the allegations that he's put here, where he's naming off people's names, people would say, "OK, why don't you just check that out?" But the other thing that you've got to remember about, in California they have a policeman's bill of rights. And that bill of rights is something that protects police, so you can't get access to their records. You have no idea if they have a long history of violence, as he alleges in his manifesto with some of those officers. You don't know if they've done wrongdoing. Maybe if you're in a court of law and you're suing or you're the victim, you might have some access to it, but for the most part, there are laws on the book that have been re-enhanced, as recently as last year, that give the police absolute protection and privacy of their personnel records. And so we don't know who's out there, what they're doing, what their records are, what their mindset is, all this sort of stuff. And so, I think just the fact that we have that, that needs to be something that people push back on. We should have total transparency when it comes to the police. And when allegations like this are raised, as journalists, instead of cheerleading, which you saw lot of media do in L.A., we should be checking it out. He named dates, times and places. We should check that out, find out if he was lying. If he wasn't, then we should ask those hard questions as to how this sort of culture was allowed to continue.
And then, the last thing that I would just end with is not just L.A. A lot of times we think of just the L.A. Police Department, but it was just last week that we had seven deputies fired from the L.A. Sheriff's Department because they had a rogue gang called the Jump Out Boys, where they were celebrating the shooting of black and Latinos. We have the situation in Anaheim, where you had seven people killed last year and protests that have gone on to this day. So you have a culture thatof police misconduct or police terrorism, as many people call it, that exists all throughout Southern California. And so, when incidents like this come up, you have a very divided community. And many people are saying, "What the heck is going on with the police department, all those police departments? And we want to get them checked out. And more importantly, we want to have trust restored. We want to have a zero tolerance policy, not something where they talk about, 'Well, things have improved over the last five to 10 years, they're not as bad as they were 20 years ago.'" How about zero tolerance? How about, you know, if you cross the line in terms of abuse, if you're using anti-Semitic or racist type of epithets, that you're off the force, period? Those are the types of things that I think people want and have long asked for and never got. They got slow change.
And what we're seeing right now is maybewhat you see right now is the LAPD trying to save face. So they're going to do this investigation. They're going to make sure that the whole world sees them try to find out whether of not this sergeant that he had a dispute with was lying or not lying. And that's supposed to put everybody back to sleep. But most people aren't going to go back to sleep. They're going to demand answers, because he named off a whole bunch of other things in that manifesto that I think are very disturbing, and there's a lot of other questions, including those shootings of the officers, who haven't been arrested. Are they going to be punished? What's happening with them? Why did they open fire? All those sorts of things should not be swept away.
AMY GOODMAN: You mean shooting by the officers of the innocent people, like the newspaper deliverers.
DAVEY D: Yes.
AMY GOODMAN: Davey D
DAVEY D: Right, Emma71-year-old Emma Hernandez and her daughter and the unnamed person that was
AMY GOODMAN: I think his name is David Perdue.
DAVEY D: that was shot by the Torrance police. Yes, thank you, David Perdue. Thank you.
AMY GOODMAN: Who also happens to be a hundred poundslooks like he's about a hundred pounds less than Dorner and is white, not black.
DAVEY D: Well, you know, the other thing that they were doing down here in L.A. was they were actuallyinstead of asking the hard questions about why the police would shoot first and ask questions later, they were telling people, if you have pickup trucks, stay home, or if you look like Christopher Dorner, you know, maybe you might want to lay low, or, you know, everybody cooperate with the police. Thatyou know, I understand that when you have that sort of situation, tensions are high. It's unprecedented. But that's no excuse to roll up on the citizens in such a callous type of form. All of us have a right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, not just the police. We all work hard. We all do our day-to-day tasks to try and bring about a better tomorrow. We shouldn't have to fear from the people whoseour tax dollars go to protect and serve.
AMY GOODMAN: Finally, you're saying, Davey D, we don't even absolutely know if he is the shooter, though he has claimed he is in his manifesto, and it's been a murderous rampage. But oddly, in the manifesto, he explicitly calls for tighter gun control, saying that his spree would not have been possible with a well-regulated assault weapons ban.
DAVEY D: I mean, you know, his opinions about gun control and whether or not Michelle Obama's bangs look nice and what comedians and journalists he like, I think we can have those type of discussions and those debates. I mean, that's his opinion. And, you know, he's entitled to them, I guess.
What I think we should really be focused on are the names, dates, times and places that he names with respect to how LAPD is conducting itself. We were led to believe that when the consent decree was lifted after Chief Bratton took over, that there was marked improvement, that this was a new department. You've heard the mayor, you've heard the chief, Beck, say that it's a new department. Well, if it is, let's check it out. That's what we should be focused on.
Do you have officers that are using racial epithets still working the streets? You know, we need to check that out. We know that on one of the local newscasts down in L.A., that the former training officer confirmed that that incident, where he talks about having the fight with the officers for using the "N" word, that that took place. Well, why are they still on the streets? What's the zero tolerance policy around that?
We should definitely look into the conflict of interest regarding his sergeant, because he said that the people that were on his hearing, they had longstanding relationships, that the people worked for each other, that they were partners. If that's true, we need to check that out.
And then, lastly, just for people around the country and people that are watching in California, we need to ask ourselves a question as to what is up with the policeman's bill of rights, where all the police officers' conduct, promotions, all these sorts of things are hidden from the public. You don't have access to them. And even if you go to a trial, it's very hard to get those things on the table. We found that out during the Oscar Grant case, where there was allegations of police misconduct for the person who was accused of shooting him. Those weren't allowed in the court of law. That's incredible. You do not have the right to privacy when we're the ones paying people's salaries. I think that needs to be challenged, and that needs to be pushed back. If we want to be transparent, if we want to open the doors for the public to retrust and have more confidence in LAPD, how about all the officers saying, "We waive our rights to the policeman's bill of rights"? That would be transparency, not this other stuff that I think is just a slick PR move.
AMY GOODMAN: Davey D, I want to thank you for being with us, journalist and activist, runs the popular website "Davey D's Hip Hop Corner" at DaveyD.com, and he's co-host of Hard Rock Radio [sic] on Pacifica station KPFA
DAVEY D: Hard Knock.
Christopher Dorner - Keith Millea - 13-02-2013
At this moment the police have Christopher Dorner surrounded in a cabin up in Big Bear.There has been a firefight and at least 2 police officers have been wounded.
The end is near.........
Christopher Dorner - Magda Hassan - 13-02-2013
Keith Millea Wrote:At this moment the police have Christopher Dorner surrounded in a cabin up in Big Bear.There has been a firefight and at least 2 police officers have been wounded.Or it could be a girl scout camp given the LAPD track record on such things.
The end is near.........
Christopher Dorner - Peter Lemkin - 13-02-2013
Magda Hassan Wrote:Keith Millea Wrote:At this moment the police have Christopher Dorner surrounded in a cabin up in Big Bear.There has been a firefight and at least 2 police officers have been wounded.Or it could be a girl scout camp given the LAPD track record on such things.
The end is near.........
The story now is that he shot two more police officers, killing one and that the lodge he ran into from the cabin was set on fire [presumably by the police]. No one could have survived the fire.... He was not wanted dead or alive...He was only wanted DEAD [to they'd not have to face his charges against the Department....]
Christopher Dorner - Peter Lemkin - 13-02-2013
It was a mini-Waco! The police had him surrounded in a wood building. No shooting was ongoing. They broke the windows and shot in gases of all types, as well as incendiary devices. Then while the building was blazing they had a bulldozer pull down the walls. No one could have survived. It was murder. I'l bet the 're-opened' Dorner case will shortly be closed and heard of no more.....