I like many of you, have been watching the events unfold about Christopher Dorner. I heard words tossed around like hero and domestic terrorist, but I call this a tragedy because so many families lost loved ones. I took some time today gathering my thoughts and listening to opinions of individuals before sitting down to write this. Dorner was obviously a troubled man, and since he is now dead I doubt we will find out the whole truth how all this came about. What we do know for sure is that he worked for the LAPD and served in Afghanistan. He also wrote a Manifesto (although some believe the one available to the public online is a fake) but I am not real big of conspiracy theories. I read it and found it both disturbing and not surprising.
The LAPD does not have a good reputation but for that matter, I don’t know of any cities that have good track records when it comes to police conduct. I also will not say that all police officers are crooks or abusive. I wish Dorner would have chosen to do something else in order to get his grievances heard. Killing didn’t get the results he wanted, which was to be heard. I also don’t understand why he wanted to join the police department, especially the LAPD. I used to talk with many police officers who came in to eat at the local diner where I worked in San Francisco. I asked them why they became a cop and they all told me they wanted to help people. For most of the cops I met, I would say its a noble and at the same time a thankless job.
But law enforcement is a lot like the military — there is a code of silence among them. It’s about trust and that type of code allows bad cops to get away with bad things. Cops need to trust their partners — with their life, but what happens when the one you need to trust does something bad, like abuse their power? Dorner claims exactly that. He decided to speak out and it probably got him fired.
How many of you worked in jobs where you saw bad behavior but looked the other way thinking if you told on the person it would backfire and you would be the one in trouble? Dorner had three years to stew about being fired. Why didn’t he hire an attorney and expose the police force that way? What about writing a book? Politicians do it everyday — they love to write tell-all books after they leave office. He could have done the same thing.
Revenge is almost never a good way to go about settling grievances. Killing people definitely is not the way to go either. But isn’t that how (once again) our society likes to handle problems? We hear almost weekly someone shooting employees at a job where the shooter had been fired. Someone felt they were wronged and the way they decided to handle it was killing the perpetrators. I think the public was more upset with Dorner because he was a cop. He supposed to be the one catching the ‘bad guy’ not be the ‘bad guy’.
Dorner was trained in the military to kill the enemy. And let’s be real here — soldiers are expected to kill “on command”… no questions asked. Anyone believing they are enlisting in the military to get free job skills as a trade off, are naive. People are not called people in a war zone–they are the enemy, targets, combatants, terrorists, etc. I’m sure law enforcement has their own terms for those they see as the enemy and I am willing to bet the word ‘nigger’ is thrown around by some. Calling people names in order to de-humanize them makes it easier to abuse them, whether its in war torn Afghanistan or the streets of Los Angeles. I’m guessing Dorner believed the LAPD became his enemy when he found out whistleblowing on his peers got him fired, and he certainly had a long time to think about things before acting on his anger.
There are no winners in this scenerio and we will never know the entire story behind his manifesto because it died with him in that cabin. The public will remain divided about Dorner’s actions and those who abuse their power in law enforcement will continue to do so. And the beat goes on…until the next rampage.
To any who think that that scum bag Dorner is in any way or any part a hero, I say FOAD.
“There are no winners in this scenerio (sic) and we will never know the entire story behind his manifesto because it died with him in that cabin. The public will remain divided about Dorner’s actions and those who abuse their power in law enforcement will continue to do so. And the beat goes on…until the next rampage.”
Sad, true, and lets hope that we as a society can come together and move forward. The conspiracy theorists will be making quite a bit of noise for awhile.
Now onto the critique:
“And let’s be real here — soldiers are expected to kill “on command”… no questions asked. Anyone believing they are enlisting in the military to get free job skills as a trade off, are naive.”
This is just flat out wrong and detracts from the piece.
Our soldiers, particularly our soldiers in Iraq, were expected to operate under extremely difficult rules of engagement.
“People are not called people in a war zone–they are the enemy, targets, combatants, terrorists, etc.”
In a war zone, our soldiers were required to go to great lengths (some would say extraordinary) to distinguish between types of people: Civilian or Combatant.
I think what’s shocking in this particular story is the steps Dorner took to distinguish between those he saw as combatants and those he did not. He had the opportunity to murder many more people, yet only carried out acts of evil on those he deemed worthy (which is just sick and twisted vigilantism . . . but limited vigilantism.)
On the flip side, some civilian police officers did not. Several officers should be going to jail (for a long time) for failing to follow their rules of engagement and attempting to murder civilians in Torrance.
Had an officer rammed a car and shot at a driver in Iraq, he’d be sent to Levinworth for 35 years. Had an officer shot up a truck with 30+ bullets, a truck that was clearly driving away from the officer, and shot a civilian in Iraq, he’d be lucky to avoid a life sentence.
Had an officer **there is absolutely no evidence to support this, but the perception that this may have occurred is disturbing** set fire to a building to flush out a suspected terrorist, without even attempting to verify the identify of the person in the building, you can bet that officer would be put on trial for arson and murder with the appropriate death penalty pending.
Will we see any of that here? Your guess is as good as mine.
This guy was not a hero, good people died needless deaths, families are going to be wrecked forever because a man with a gun did a very bad thing.
my comments about the military were meant to compare how Dorner may have seen the other police officers…those who he thought turned against him. He resorted to his military training, even though it was in his head.
I stand by my comment that soldiers are trained to see everyone as the enemy in combat or a war zone; thats why so many soldiers have trouble getting back into society. I have a nephew that has PTSD from Iraq and its directly related to his gun battles and seeing the ‘enemy’ get killed. My comment was not meant to be a ‘put-down’ on our soldiers, its reality. You can’t kill someone if you stop and see him as a human being and its even easier to kill now that we have drones. Soldiers don’t have to see their ‘target’ in person. Yes, they have it tough over there, but they should know what they are getting themselves into. Like they say “war is hell”.
Thanks to your nephew for his service and to your family for their sacrifice.
Along the lines of your point, I have been thinking about the people that Dorner could have killed — such as the housekeepers and the guy he carjacked — but didn’t. He probably would have been safer if he had done so, but his vendetta was limited to cops and their kin. I’m trying to think of a movie villain with similar apparent scruples.
Every normal man must be tempted, at times, to spit on his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin slitting throats.
H. L. Mencken
The normal man, Christopher Dorner, lived his temptation.
“There is absolutely no evidence to support this” that the cops intentionally burned down the cabin.
Actually there is some evidence that points in that direction. The recorded audio.
Is that hard evidence? probably not.
But the fact is that there is more evidence pointing in that direction than there is in the direction of Dorner burning down the place or of the Teargas by accident burning down the place. For the last two scenarios, there is much less evidence if any.
Please use better logic folks.
The Weekly reports that they initially sent in some normal strength tear gas, which Dorner withstood, and so they then send in some extra-strength tear gas, which is also flammable. I suppose that you could say that the police started the fire if you say that they had no basis to try to drive Dorner out of the cabin.
*33 years old……an over-achiever……that was not mature enough to understand the duplicity and double standards in life. Public Safety can never be sacrificed in the name of “Vigilantism”. He had not lost a family member…..he had not lost his friends or buddies in combat. He had lost his faith in himself. He could have run for Congress. He could have found a non-lethal way to fight the system. He could have been reminded that he had taken a oath to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States. He needed a true friend that could have told him the truth about the world. Instead, he sold out to the Dark Side……….and now will never be known as a Jedi. Sad…..for the four that had nothing to do with the blatant insults and slings and arrows of life. Sad for those wounded in both mind and spirit. Sad for our society. What do they say….the loss of one of us…..deminishes us all. He went the wrong way on a one way street…..and the result was already assured on day one.
*33 years old……an over-achiever……that was not mature enough to understand the duplicity and double standards in life. Public Safety can never be sacrificed in the name of “Vigilantism”. He had not lost a family member…..he had not lost his friends or buddies in combat. He had lost his faith in himself. He could have run for Congress. He could have found a non-lethal way to fight the system. He could have been reminded that he had taken a oath to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States. He needed a true friend that could have told him the truth about the world. Instead, he sold out to the Dark Side……….and now will never be known as a Jedi. Sad…..for the four that had nothing to do with the blatant insults and slings and arrows of life. Sad for those wounded in both mind and spirit. Sad for our society. What do they say….the loss of just one of us…..deminishes us all. He went the wrong way on a one way street…..and the result was already assured on day one.
The entire thing is very sad all the way around.
Both the actions of an educated man gone mad and the police response to it, in shooting up the trucks and some of their other very zealous reactions.
The response when they caught him? I don’t know for sure, but…I really hate the smell of burning structures as a solution to a standoff. I don’t like it when news helicopters are restricted, out of direct line of sight, so that the public is obscured from seeing what really happens. I understand it, but I don’t like it.
I think we all know, in the end he was committed to a suicidal death by cop. No doubt about it, that’s exactly what he was asking for. I think it’s a shame however to have someones house burn down in the process. I don’t understand why they couldn’t simply wait him out. They certainly had enough power to contain him and minimize his risk to themselves and the public.
I understand the use of force, I just hate to see our society unleash it, as if it were war.
You are all sheep.
Psycho analyzing a guy that you have no idea of ever having been there. Projecting your own fantasies of being immature, victimized, depressed. disrespected, narcissistic, delusions of grandeur.
His ID was supposedly found in two if not three different locations throughout the state buillding some of the key “evidence” of his whereabouts, and then an ID survived the fire all though his corpse and everything else was burned to a crisp.
You blindly except that.
When he was in the supposed fire fight at the cabin, did anybody explain where he was firing from. What do any of you actually know from your own damn eyes. None of your eyes ever saw an Adam Lanza before, during or after the “massacre” also. Not alive not dead.
Did you?
Right. Every time something like this happens, everybody is simply lying. Newtown, Aurora, Columbine, 9/11, Dorner, Obama’s Birth Certificate, UFO’s, the Holocaust, Oreo filling, etc, etc…it’s all lies.
I believe in lots of things that I’ve never seen with my own eyes — don’t you?
Ron and Anna should never post when they have the hiccups.
What most fail to realize, Doner didn’t “speak out” he waited a couple of weeks then dropped a dime….after he was told he was unsat and would need retraining. He lost credibility when he waited and after he was told he wasn’t as good as he should have been.
If he was the hero some think he was he would have immediately stood up and reported what his partner did, instead of waiting. He wasn’t a hero he didn’t die for something he believed in. He was a mentally ill person who held grudges from grade school. Seriously, dude is like all grown up and been thru the military and the police and he is still holding on to a grudge about something that happened in grade school. Yeah, heroic.
That you are having this discussion makes me sad about the state of our country.
ummm…I’m not having it.
Vern, do you honestly seen any rational response to the assertion that Dorner can be portrayed as a hero?
Could you rephrase the question? Why wouldn’t there be a rational response to that?
Why? What orthodoxy would you see to impose?
Obviously the LAPD accurately assessed Dornan’s state of mental fitness. Who are we going to champion now,…..? Postal workers who mow down there co-workers?
LAPD accurately assessed his mental illness?
Is LAPD going to accurately assess the illness of the cops that shot up the two mistaken pick up trucks?
Lets see what kind of health reports get worked up for them.
You all are barking up the wrong trees.
Dorner is not a hero in this story.
LAPD definitely not heroes in the story.
Media definitely not a hero in this story.
Has our “Maid”/ “Elderly Couple”/ 911 caller received her million dollar reward yet?
I think there is another victim who got his truck stolen right before Dorner hid in the cabin that burned. He will want that reward as well. We’ll see how that plays out.
There is talk now that LAPD burned the cabin down on purpose. The police dispatch recording mentions using “burners”. One explanantion was its a term used for pyrotechnic tear gas. I know pyrotechnics were involved in at least 2 deadly fires in bars, it makes sense it would burn down a cabin. There’s plenty of flammable objects inside. Now LAPD says it didn’t use that type of tear gas. We probably will never know the answer to that either.
I think everyone knows that Dorner would never be taken alive. He said so in his Manifesto and I’m sure the LAPD wasn’t going to take a chance that he would be alive to tell his story.
Like I wrote earlier, he made some very bad choices. Too bad he wasn’t in a better state of mind and instead sought counseling and then put together a plan to expose the LAPD.
It’s the audio of someone screaming: “BURN IT DOWN” that’s particularly alarming.
The circumstantial evidence collected over the week certainly supports at least a possibility that there was never going to be an attempt to arrest Dorner.
*Not particularly new tactics……ever hear of the Sibionese Liberation Army that
kidnapped Patricia Hurst? Same stuff. Way back…..
Stop saying “ever heard of” to us … of course we’ve heard of stuff.
I have to admit that I’ve never heard of either “Patricia Hurst” or the “Sibionese Liberation Army.” I think that it may have been a trick question.
Common’ Greg you know who they are.
Patricia Hurst was the daughter of the guy that converted station wagons into those vehicles at funerals that carry the caskets.
The Sibionese Liberation Army was that group that went around freeing all those house cats that looked alike.
Maybe you were overseas. Big part of American culture.
Oh. I always mix her up with Patty Hurst, after whom they named the Patty Wagon.
And frankly, I wish those Sibionese would go back to Sibion where they came from!
You’re just a racist…
Fictitious Anti-Hero.
*The kidnapping of the daughter of William Randolf Hurst…..Patricia. Of course we
know that you flea bags are putting us on……..but we will just consider the source.
The LAPD burnt out the SLA hideout in south central and killed everyone with fire bomg grenades…..used in Vietnam……..everyone died….not prisoners……Patricia Hurst and two other SLA members had already escaped and were living in SF. Later captured…..phony turn in……and surrender……politics. Powerful money interests.
Dorner was employed with LAPD for seven years. 2002 to 2009…..odd that the wheels took that long to come off Dorner’s mindset.
==================================
Symbionese Liberation Army – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symbionese_Liberation_Army
Notable attacks, November 6, 1973 shooting of two school administrators … 6.1 Hibernia Bank robbery; 6.2 Move to Los Angeles and police shootout; 6.3 Return …
It’s spelled Hearst.
It’s not spelled Sibionese.
Your spelling is atrocious. Did you school with the Exile ? The Great Juan?
Not only that, OF COURSE WE ALL KNOW ABOUT THAT! One of the most colorful events of the 70’s, who can forget? Patricia Hearst, star of John Waters movies, especially the unforgettable Cecil B Demented, where she actually plays the mother of a member of a cult that has kidnapped a Hollwood star who has come to sympathize with her kidnappers. (If you follow ANY of my advice this year, watch CECIL B DEMENTED!)
The shootout was Inglewood’s #2 claim to fame after the Fabulous Forum!
*You finally come clean……thanks for the levity……..we needed that!
Meanwhile, the so-called “Burners” have been in use for many decades and are actually an off-breed of the Flashbangs they use
in general counter insurgencies. As they did with the old guy and the
young six year old in Alabama. Flashbangs come in a variety of sizes and pyrotechnic choices. The reality is of course….that Chris Dorner was not coming out of that location alive…no matter what he might do.
Just as they did with the SLA folks in 1973!
“a Hollwood star who has come to sympathize with her kidnappers”…….. Hmmmmmm
It is called “Stockholm Syndrome” of which the majority of you are a victims too.
You appear to have formed same paradoxical emotional bond with your progressive captors; you tell reporters that you saw the constitution as your enemy rather than the progressives, and that you have positive feelings toward their criminality.
*Stanley…you thought “the burners” that were used at Waco…..were a fine use of “Stockholm Syndrome”?
There is a huge difference between “reality of what happens” and the rationalizations for “what happens”.
The main ingredient is law enforcement is “making a statement”. Unless folks get the idea that laws must be obeyed without question…you do have or could have people that disregard the police. The amazing number of stupid folks running away from police for whatever reasons……are totally unacceptable. In the bad old days..if you ran from the police there was a 50-50 chance you would be killed by the police chasing you.
“*Stanley…you thought “the burners” that were used at Waco…..were a fine use of “Stockholm Syndrome”? “……… Hmmmmm
If you falsely believe that “the burners” were the Branch Davidians and not FBI than you are a victim of the “Stockholm Syndrome”.
*Obviously Stanley…you only read your own comments. Of course “the burners” were from the BATF and FBI (HRT crew). Those that think that David Koresh burnt down his beloved Mr. Carmel……are brainless at best.
“Stockholm Syndrome”, like being held hostage to blog sites that do not fight for our interests or serve them.
That first murder happened in Orange County. This Orange County political blog site should be writing about that Irvine murder and examining if their were any witnesses.
How about making articles examing Dorner’s Facebook that was set up only two weeks before the supposed manifesto posting.
Both of the key participants and possible witnesses to Sandy Hook have been SCRUBBED from the internet.
#1 Vice Principle = Natalie Hammond
“injured shot in foot or leg” photoed while wheeled out on gurney, no quotes or interviews available, no internet photos on google images etc.
#2 Janitor, Custodian = Rick Thorne
“invited and present” for award ceremony by President Obama, Heroism during shooting, no photos on google images, no quotes or interviews available on internet.
3rd mystery participant, wounded taken to hospital, still unknown identity
4th mystery participant/witness an unknown child covered in blood “seen in parking lot.”
Please Google…
Natalie Green Hammond
Infamously mysterious Vice Principle of Sandy Hook Elementary school
Go to Google Images, type in her name.
The only things that you are likely to find are links to a March 3 Bruins game that she is supposed to magically appear at, or links to articles calling out her mystery identity.
Is she in the witness protection program? The D.A. says that it is suspected that there may be more than one shooter and that they need to keep the investigation closed to the public to protect witnesses. Isn’t that convenient now?