Fugitive ex-LAPD cop accused in shootings posts manifesto, attempts to steal boat, flee to Mexico

6a00d8341c630a53ef017d40d99c09970c-640wi

Ex-LAPD officer and shooting suspect Christopher Jordan Dorner, left, with former LAPD chief Bill Bratton.

Christopher Jordan Dorner, 33, a disgruntled former officer with the Los Angeles police department, is suspected of shooting three police officers Thursday morning and murdering a couple in Irvine earlier this week.

He also posted a wacky 11,000-word manifesto with shout-outs to Anonymous, Charlie Sheen, and "Mister Bill Cosby," then tried to steal a boat in San Diego and flee to Mexico.

Gawker has a roundup of the story here.

The LAPD have accidentally shot two people in the process of pursuing Dorner.

And, in tangentially related news: seven deputies who are members of a secret clique within the LA Sheriff's Department will be fired. Members were involved in an elite squad that operated in areas where gang violence is high, and received tattoos for each shooting of a gang member.

(via Adrian Chen and others)

Boing Boing editor/partner and tech culture journalist Xeni Jardin hosts and produces Boing Boing's in-flight TV channel on Virgin America airlines (#10 on the dial), and writes about living with breast cancer. Diagnosed in 2011. @xeni on Twitter. email: xeni@boingboing.net.

More at Boing Boing

Eurovision 2013: An American in London

The technology that links taxonomy and Star Trek

Judonerd

The sad part is, as far as I can tell, he was unjustly fired from the LAPD for blowing the whistle on another officer.

Now he’s just crazy and a murderer.
- UVaGrad
  
  For what it’s worth (and that may not be much, given the thin blue line), he was fired for falsely accusing his superior of kicking a schizophrenic in the head. My guess, however, is that his superior really did do it, and Dorner got railroaded for reporting on her. That said, in his manifesto, he admits to choking another officer while on duty, so it may be that his being fired was just a matter of time.
  - donovan acree
    
    Re: choking another officer. That ‘officer’ was calling a citizen a n****r repeatedly and when confronted and told to stop said he would say whatever he wanted to. He deserved to the choked.
Navin_Johnson

Something about only criminals having guns…….
- http://www.facebook.com/buddhaflow Sasha Shepherd
  
  It’s not only criminals having guns, it’s only criminals and police/military/other agents of the state having guns.
http://bemyblog.com/ Conrad Heiney

Correction: the “secret clique” story is about the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, not the Los Angeles Police Department: totally different organization.
- Preston Sturges
  
  How about Keanu Reeves, Forest Whitaker, Hugh Laurie in “Street Kings”
liquidstar

The main story makes me think of Bryant:”
I need ya, Decks. This is a bad one, the worst yet. I need the old blade runner, I need your magic.” The second story is sooo The Dead Pool it s scary.
- dean_544
  
  If you mean the Sheriff Secret Clique story, isn’t that more Magnum Force?
  - liquidstar
    
    Yes, meant Magnum Force, thanks. Don t know why i always get it confused with Dead Pool.
    - Preston Sturges
      
      Don’t forget the armored bus in “The Gauntlet”
oldtaku

So let’s see… this guy is only targeting crooked (according to him) cops. He was kicked out for reporting excessive force by other officers. He’s not shooting anyone not related (he tied up the boat owner). The cops are just indiscriminately shooting at innocent people in Nissan trucks.

If you read this as a Hollywood movie setup, he’d be the ‘good guy’, played by Samuel Jackson, Forest Whitaker, or Chi McBride. The killing family members is a wrinkle, but movies have no problem with ends justify means if you paint the other guys as evil enough (Zero Dark Thirty).
- nerdycellist
  
  No, he actually is threatening the families of the officers. It’s buried in the text of the manifesto. He killed two non-officer family members earlier this week.
  
  I sympathize with him to a point; I have no doubt that the corruption he lists in his screed exists. If he had hooked up with a decent editor he could have had a helluva book on his hands. Instead, he has some sort of obsession with his NAME (it’s like watching Downton Abbey every time some privileged white dude mentions his HONOR when he makes a shit decision) and thinks that killing people will somehow make things better. Fuck him. Even if they are guilty, it doesn’t clear his NAME and it doesn’t improve the situation. Killing those who have nothing to do with the corruption he alleges is reprehensible.
  - UVaGrad
    
    None of his three alleged murders have anything to do with injustices he suffered at the LAPD’s hands or the corruption that runs rampant in the LAPD. He stands accused of killing:
    
    1) The daughter of his own defense attorney;
    2) The daughter’s fiance; and
    3) A Riverside–not LAPD–police officer.
    
    None of those people have anything to do with what he complains of in his manifesto. His behavior is, as you say, completely reprehensible.
    - http://profiles.google.com/marc.k.mielke Marc Mielke
      
      In the action movie version, those three would have been killed by a corrupt cop in on the scheme and intended to frame him.
  - oldtaku
    
    That obsession with his name and his manifesto all work into the movie thing. To be clear, I’m not saying he’s a good guy – there probably aren’t any involved here. But the parallels between this and quite a few movies (like Dirty Harry as urpBurp mentions) are fascinating. People would happily watch and cheer for him there, especially when sanitized by the ‘based on a true story’ people. (Almost) everyone loves a good revenge fantasy.
- dean_544
  
  Considering he targeted family members of those he considered evil. He would probably be the type of villain who doesn’t see himself as a true villain, but of the wrongly prosecuted Jean Valjean type, just more of an avenging and unforgiving version. Granted his feelings of prosecution is more in his mind and he starts targeting civilians thinking they are undercover detectives after him as the hero of the piece is after him.
  Wasn’t this a episode of Deep Space 9 or Law and Order Criminal Intent?
  - http://incandescentquill.tumblr.com/ Quill
    
    Forget Valjean, reading that manifesto I thought Carcer (from Pratchett’s Night Watch.) He /does/ have some good ideas. He’s just…not processing things like death and collateral harm in the same way as most of us.
    - Thebes42
      
      No great surprise given his cop background.
- RayCornwall
  
  He kind of resembles a fat LL Cool J, if we’re playing casting call…
  
  Horrible story.
  - dean_544
    
    You are the only one to say what I’m sure is what a lot folks are thinking.
    Hopefully it won’t end too horribly
  - Just_Ok
    
    And the other guy is Dick Martin
  - marilove
    
    Oh, GOOD, I am glad I’m not the only one. ”Fat LL Cool J” is what I thought!
  - Guest
    
    Yeah I was going to post that LL Cool J looks like he replaced the ‘roids with donuts.
urpBurp

Right on the nose. Sounds like all the Dirty Harry movies.

Fun on film, …but keep it there. Does not work in real life.
- Brainspore
  
  I’m pretty sure even Dirty Harry only murdered bad guys.
grimc

The LAPD’s plan is to avoid the hassle of a trial and allow him to escape to Mexico, where the US Border Patrol will claim he was throwing rocks and shoot him.
- http://www.nathanhornby.com/ Nathan Hornby
  
  Sick… but well done.
- TacoChuck
  
  In the mean time, they are just shooting up anything that looks like it might be his car. Just look at this truck that had the two women in it:
  
  http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2013/02/ex-cop-manhunt-newspaper-delivery-women-shot.html
  
  What led to that sort of shooting needs to be investigated and those officers probably need to be let go at a minimum.
  - anansi133
    
    Gad Zooks!
    I can just see the news bulletin- “For your own safety, if you drive a car that resembles the one we think the fugitive is driving, stay off the roads!”
toobigtofail

The only thing that will stop a bad guy with an assault rifle is a …

wait a minute…

I’m confused…
eldritch

Is anyone else disgusted by the mentioning of Bill Cosby? Cosby has only ever been a force for positive human interaction, community, tolerance, and peaceful coexistance, and this bastard has the gall to invoke his name to defend his violent rampage? Worse still, Cosby’s son Ellis was shot dead in a random act of violence in 1997, while changing a tire on the freeway in… you guessed it… Los Angeles. You’d think a veteran police officer would be aware of that fact.
- flickerKuu
  
  Why would a cop be aware of a single murder in 1997? The guy was probably in high school at the time.
  No, I’m not disgusted in his mention of Bill Cosby. He was making a point about race, and a valid one. Do you even know why or what he’s referring to?
  - eldritch
    
    You honestly don’t comprehend why would a cop be aware of a high profile celebrity murder that made national news in his own city during the years he worked there?
    
    You honestly aren’t disgusted that a murderer has invoked the name of a pacifist to attempt to defend his actions?
Navin_Johnson

The manifesto is fascinating. There’s some more bizarre stuff in there, but the accounts of racism, and his thoughts on assault weapons are interesting and pretty coherent.
Sparg

Wonder what his specialty is in the Navy. I can’t imagine an LT in the Navy wanting to become an L.A. cop.
- eviladrian
  
  It seems like he’s had a hard time fitting in to groups, while at the same time being desperate to belong.
  His manifesto goes back to incidents from elementary school where he felt he was being singled out and unfairly dealt with by authority figures, and the pattern just continued since then.
  /pop psych
  - Navin_Johnson
    
    Seems very likely that he was singled out, or at least experienced a lot of racism.
http://twitter.com/zhasu Zhasu

Criminal and murderer? Yes. Crazy? No.
He did try to go about this the right way, but the way our society works is little bit screwed up. He tried to fight an honest fight. They totally destroyed his career. I can see how things can go out of hand when somebody is totally destroying your life and career just because you’re trying to do the right thing. I am NOT justifying it. I can see the dots that connect one situation to another. It’s not like the guy went: “Oh yeah, you fire me I’ll murder everyone”. Now, what he did was wrong no doubt, but he did try to do something good initially. And we are already seeing the results. Dirty cops are getting arrested, there will be an inquiry on a higher level, and some people will go to jail.
In the long run, that’s worth something.
- flickerKuu
  
  I agree. A part of me is cool with it too. I know innocent and “innocent” people are getting killed, that’s bad. But on one hand, if the system is so corrupt and spoiled that it needs something like this to fix it – then so be it. Maybe now we can get rid of corruption seeing as the “correct” way to handle it was scoffed at and denied. If they would have just let him report the brutality, and discipline his FTO, none of this would happen. As far as I’m concerned- all the blood is at the hands of the LAPD and Internal Affairs.
- Dv Revolutionary
  
  It’s psychologically ultra hard to deal with being railroaded. It’s awful that people would lie about you, it’s worse when others who might be adjudicating believe them or pretend to. That on it’s own fires up the feeling paranoid.
  
  But to top it off your kicked out of wherever you’ve spent your working hours. A place you enjoyed and thought you fit in. You are no longer welcome there. They may make it ultra difficult for you to contact any co-workers or friends.
  
  Before you can fully process all this the free market kicks in with some huge crushing stress to add to this situation. You are on your own. The record now says that you were fired with cause! No unemployment for you and you need to work now but your resume is trashed. But those fuckers who fucked you are still getting paid and who knows how awful they are running things with you out of the way.
  
  As someone who has been fired from a much lower and less important position for not taking a bribe, a bribe that my immediate supervisor wanted in on – I can feel this guy.
- brian_x
  
  You can be crazy and still be more or less correct, you know.
http://www.rickhargett.com techbuzz

What scares me is that it appears police departments are shooting first and asking questions later when it comes to anyone driving a “vehicle matching the description of the suspect”. Two separate incidents so far.

Local news reportedly telling residents to not drive blue pick-up trucks and if they do, to obey all traffic laws lest they be shot by stressed police officers. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/02/07/lapd-shooting-at-innocent-people_n_2638701.html
- Antinous / Moderator
  
  it appears police departments are shooting first and asking questions later when it comes to anyone driving a “vehicle matching the description of the suspect”.
  
  If it’s good enough for movies that show up on MST3K, it’s good enough for the LAPD.
http://bradhicks.livejournal.com/ J. Brad Hicks

I remember long ago an episode of Politically Incorrect with Bill Maher, where two of the guests were Ice T and Quentin Tarrantino. Maher was reading Ice T the riot act over the song “Cop Killer” and insisting that it was never, ever, ever, for any reason moral to shoot a cop or to advocate shooting cops. Tarrantino interrupted him in mid rant, cut him right off on his own show, and told him that, not being from Los Angeles, Maher had no idea what he was talking about. And I quote: “The LAPD are brownshirts.”

That was at least one police chief ago, maybe two (I lose track). Since then, there’s been a major effort to reform the district, to weed out the dirtiest and most brutal cops. But the problem that created that culture is still there: because of low tax rates, the LA area has nowhere near as many cops on duty as it needs for its size and population, and cops go nuts when they’re afraid that backup isn’t available. They get into this self-defeating mindset that says that if they don’t brutalize the neighborhood, if people aren’t afraid of them, then people will turn on them. THIS NEVER WORKS, but it’s human.

This guy could be crazy; the LAPD may be innocent. Even if this guy is right, I can be unhappy about the collateral damage (from both sides). But I’m extremely grateful that I don’t have to have a strong opinion about whether or not his war is justified.

(I do think that it reflects badly on his intelligence if he thinks he’s going to find honest cops in the middle of the current Mexican civil war.)
Gilbert Wham

Aaaaand, the LAPD have unloaded into a blue pickup killing two innocent women: http://jalopnik.com/5982580/a-case-of-mistaken-truck-identity-caused-la-cops-to-shoot-two-innocent-women
- Brainspore
  
  Typical. You can’t spell “slapdash” without L-A-P-D!
  - Antinous / Moderator
    
    Or ‘backpedal’.
    - Brainspore
      
      OK, but I think it’s kinda cheating if you rearrange the letters. “Lapdance” works, but it’s hard to work that one in to most LAPD scandals.
      - Antinous / Moderator
        
        That’s just flapdoodle.
- TacoChuck
  
  Ya that photo is amazing. There is no excuse for that, I certainly hope those officers are at the very least fired.
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100000444450214 Genre Slur

Wow, the police are just trying to kill the guy, so much so that they shoot at trucks that are not even the same model as the one they’re looking for? The guy may be a threat, or nuts, or both. But history tells me that the police force in question may also be a threat, or nuts, or both. Regardless, most unprofessional behaviour, there. I kind of hope the target gets away, to the extent that I would like him to ‘transmit’ his ‘information’. Then again, I’m tucked away in Canada — the only real threat here is the RCMP(making a half joke…). I hope no more innocent humans get attacked, by the lapd or by the cop-on-the-run.
- Brainspore
  
  I don’t want him to get away completely, but I kind of hope he gets nabbed by some other police department. A lot of people need to be held accountable for their actions and summary execution isn’t the best way for that to happen.
flickerKuu

His manifesto is pretty non-crazy. The more I read about this, the more I blame the LAPD. A simple case of squeezing a man until he breaks. No killing is ever justified, but man I don’t feel so bad for the people he’s after- looks like they had it coming.
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=781802224 Marty Blanket Ingels II

The manifesto I read doesn’t contain any of the wacky Bill Cosby stuff you mentioned. I don’t know if what I read was truncated or if the wacky elements were added later by someone seeking to make Dorner’s claims of an LAPD internal affairs cover-up look uncredible/not worth verifying.

http://content.clearchannel.com/cc-common/mlib/616/02/616_1360213161.pdf
- flickerKuu
  
  Yeah, that is a very truncated version. I suggest this one: http://www.crimefilenews.com/2013/02/fired-lapd-officer-obama-lover-and.html
Preston Sturges

Wow it sounds like they really really really want to shut this guy up before a grand jury can question him.
Preston Sturges

I don’t think 11,000 words really rates being called a “manifesto.” Ted Kazinsky wrote 35,000 words, and Anders Breivik’s ran much longer (although he plagiarized).
Promethean Sky

No wonder the LAPD is taking a shoot first and ask questions never stance towards him. I too have been reading his manifesto, and he is dangerous with words. If he’s killed, the media can write him off as a nut. If he’s caught alive, the fallout will be (or should be, anyway) UGLY.
hidflect

” He also posted a wacky 11,000-word manifesto..”

Nothing “wacky” about it. You’re just slurring because you think it’s the right thing to do.
donovan acree

Do we need any more evidence that the LAPD are a gang of thugs and criminals?
- Antinous / Moderator
  
  I’m pretty sure that I heard them described that way the first time that I ever met someone from LA back in the 1970s.
elix

Thank you, that was just the kind of batshit out-of-nowhere non sequitur political rant this comment page needed.
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100000444450214 Genre Slur

I’m guessing you don’t appreciate communism.
Antinous / Moderator

I thought it was a joke. I just poked a little deeper, and it’s pus all the way down.