08-02-2013, 09:22 PM
Chris Dorner against the LAPD: 'He knows what he's doing. We trained him'
For the hundreds of police officers now searching for him, Dorner's once-prized attributes have taken a sinister
Rory Carroll in Los Angeles
guardian.co.uk, Friday 8 February 2013 18.53 GMT
San Bernardino County sheriff John McMahon talks to the media about the search Christopher Dorner in Big Bear Lake, California. Photograph: Chris Carlson/AP
In pictures he is invariably in uniform and smiling, and friends say Christopher Jordan Dorner was as direct and warm as his gaze. A big man, a dedicated officer, smart, and good with his hands.
On Friday, as hundreds of heavily armed police swarmed across the snowy mountains of Big Bear, and thousands more fanned across southern California in a tense, frantic manhunt, Dorner's attributes turned sinister, and the smile mocking.
"He knows what he's doing we trained him," Charlie Beck, chief of the Los Angeles police department, told a press conference. It was a lament. A police force which has provided more than its fair share of dramas over the decades was once again transfixing the United States.
Dorner, 33, who was fired from the LAPD in 2008, is accused of killing three people and wounding two others in self-declared "unconventional and asymmetrical warfare" against his former comrades, a week-long rampage which terrorised police from San Diego to LA and by Friday had shifted to the icy wilderness of Big Bear, a ski resort east of LA, where Dorner was believed to be hiding.
An 11,000 word manifesto he posted on Facebook tried to explain his actions and listed a 40-person hit list.
Schools, stores and hotels were in lockdown and officers in helmets and body armour trekked warily through the snow lest the fugitive, a former navy reservist and trained marksman, a cop killer and a killer cop, had left traps. "There's always that concern and we're extremely careful and we're worried about this individual," San Bernardino County sheriff John McMahon told reporters. "We're taking every precaution we can."
The weather turned and a storm closed in, wrapping a story which already felt elemental: Dorner was pursuing a vendetta against authority, believing himself a victim of injustice, and the biggest posse in living memory was after him.
Revenge, blood, pursuit, ingredients of countless westerns and action films from Hollywood, on the other side of the mountains, and a story trending on Twitter buzzed with film references: Cape Fear, Rambo, The Deer Hunter, The Bourne Ultimatum, The Fugitive.
In reality Dorner was probably suffering from mental illness and three families were mourning the death of innocents but already, in some minds, he was becoming legend. Facebook pages sprouted in support, hailing him a rebel, and media commentators hyped his martial skills as if the navy reserves really did breed Rambos.
With TV helicopters hovering above Big Bear, buffeted by strengthening winds, Dorner's story was swept into debates about race, gun control and law enforcement.
For the hundreds of police officers now searching for him, Dorner's once-prized attributes have taken a sinister
Rory Carroll in Los Angeles
guardian.co.uk, Friday 8 February 2013 18.53 GMT
San Bernardino County sheriff John McMahon talks to the media about the search Christopher Dorner in Big Bear Lake, California. Photograph: Chris Carlson/AP
In pictures he is invariably in uniform and smiling, and friends say Christopher Jordan Dorner was as direct and warm as his gaze. A big man, a dedicated officer, smart, and good with his hands.
On Friday, as hundreds of heavily armed police swarmed across the snowy mountains of Big Bear, and thousands more fanned across southern California in a tense, frantic manhunt, Dorner's attributes turned sinister, and the smile mocking.
"He knows what he's doing we trained him," Charlie Beck, chief of the Los Angeles police department, told a press conference. It was a lament. A police force which has provided more than its fair share of dramas over the decades was once again transfixing the United States.
Dorner, 33, who was fired from the LAPD in 2008, is accused of killing three people and wounding two others in self-declared "unconventional and asymmetrical warfare" against his former comrades, a week-long rampage which terrorised police from San Diego to LA and by Friday had shifted to the icy wilderness of Big Bear, a ski resort east of LA, where Dorner was believed to be hiding.
An 11,000 word manifesto he posted on Facebook tried to explain his actions and listed a 40-person hit list.
Schools, stores and hotels were in lockdown and officers in helmets and body armour trekked warily through the snow lest the fugitive, a former navy reservist and trained marksman, a cop killer and a killer cop, had left traps. "There's always that concern and we're extremely careful and we're worried about this individual," San Bernardino County sheriff John McMahon told reporters. "We're taking every precaution we can."
The weather turned and a storm closed in, wrapping a story which already felt elemental: Dorner was pursuing a vendetta against authority, believing himself a victim of injustice, and the biggest posse in living memory was after him.
Revenge, blood, pursuit, ingredients of countless westerns and action films from Hollywood, on the other side of the mountains, and a story trending on Twitter buzzed with film references: Cape Fear, Rambo, The Deer Hunter, The Bourne Ultimatum, The Fugitive.
In reality Dorner was probably suffering from mental illness and three families were mourning the death of innocents but already, in some minds, he was becoming legend. Facebook pages sprouted in support, hailing him a rebel, and media commentators hyped his martial skills as if the navy reserves really did breed Rambos.
With TV helicopters hovering above Big Bear, buffeted by strengthening winds, Dorner's story was swept into debates about race, gun control and law enforcement.
"Let me issue and control a nation's money and I care not who writes the laws. - Mayer Rothschild
"Civil disobedience is not our problem. Our problem is civil obedience! People are obedient in the face of poverty, starvation, stupidity, war, and cruelty. Our problem is that grand thieves are running the country. That's our problem!" - Howard Zinn
"If there is no struggle there is no progress. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and never will" - Frederick Douglass
"Civil disobedience is not our problem. Our problem is civil obedience! People are obedient in the face of poverty, starvation, stupidity, war, and cruelty. Our problem is that grand thieves are running the country. That's our problem!" - Howard Zinn
"If there is no struggle there is no progress. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and never will" - Frederick Douglass