The manhunt for ex-LAPD cop Christopher Dorner intensifies. He allegedly killed the daughter of a former LAPD police captain, her fiance on 3 February 2013 and
Riverside Officer Michael Crain last Thurday, 7 February 2013. The case is also spawning a very strange Internet phenomenon, with opposing Cyber-sides mirroring a profound moral confusion about rightful authority.
"Murdered: Monica Quan (right) and her fiance Keith Lawrence (left) were shot to death in their car outside their home in Irvine. Miss Quan was the daughter of the LAPD police captain who represented Dorner when he was fired." Image Source: Daily Mail.
The LAPD placed a $1 million bounty on Dorner's head and they are using a military drone to hunt him - a
bizarre first in American history. The story started with a
2007 professional altercation in the LAPD, which moved from
Internal Affairs into the courts, and ended with this internationally-watched shit storm. The story gets weirder and weirder. Hollywood star
Charlie Sheen has stepped forward to mediate ...
Dorner, once honoured as a navy hero who found
$8,000 of lost church money and handed it in, is equally well known for previous professional accolades and for his marksmanship. His manifesto is posted
here, including some of the LAPD proceedings that led to his dismissal; the document was oddly published in two parts; the
first part appeared on Dorner's
Facebook page, the
second part apparently did not, prompting conspiracy theorists to challenge the authorship of the second part.
The first part reads differently from the second. The first part details Dorner's problems at the LAPD, in which he accuses the department of endemic racism, expressed in an atmosphere of ironic political correctness. He argues that the officers involved in the
Rodney King scandal from the 1990s have been promoted to positions of authority.
He also claims he saw the "most vile things humans can inflict on others," not on the streets of Los Angeles, but inside the Los Angeles Police Department. He accuses officers of being callous and inhumane, perceiving dead victims at crime scenes merely as blocks of overtime pay, whose gruesome photos they trade, and whose deaths they translate directly into time, spent as extra money: "ATVs, Waverunners, RV's and new clothes for their kids."
Dorner states:
"I am a man who has lost complete faith in the system, when the system betrayed, slandered, and libeled me. ... You're going to see what a whistleblower can do when you take everything from him especially his NAME!!!"
This statement has appealed to anti-authority cultists on the Web, who equate suspicion and rejection of authority with liberty and a new moral code. The
LAPD's critics claim Dorner's comments about the Los Angeles police force have some substance, although they of course agree that his murderous response is horrific. In his manifesto, Dorner turns on a dime from the speech of administrative complaint to absolute terrifying intention toward his intended victims on the police force:
"There will be an element of surprise where you work, live, eat, and sleep. ... I will utilize
OSINT to discover your residences, spouses workplaces, and children's schools. ...
The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of partriots and tyrants. ... You will now live the life of the prey."
Profilers claim that Dorner is a
narcissist, that this is not about problems in the LAPD (founded or not), but rather about a personal mythology Dorner concocted in his head about himself. Indeed, Dorner's apologists should consider that
declaring the moral bankruptcy of our institutions and professions cannot be justified by killing sprees. To do so is to declare revolution.