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Comment by dukeofdoom | Hacker News Reader

Anyone remember a fews ago, one of their LAPD police officer went rogue and started shooting at them. It took a few days to hunt him him down. In the process ended up shooting two totally innocent people through a back car window. I totally forget the names of the people involved, its been a few years. It seemed like something a mafia movie more than real life. Made me wonder why the guy turned against them.

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The guy you're referring to, Dorner, apparently published a manifesto, detailing why he did what he did (he claims to have reported excessive use of force, and that he was fired in retaliation for reporting it). Wikipedia has some of the details:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Dorner_shootings_a...

And how about this police lunacy, related to the manhunt for Dorner:

"Torrance to pay $1.8 million to settle surfer David Perdue’s lawsuit in mistaken Christopher Dorner shooting"

"The city of Torrance will pay $1.8 million to a Redondo Beach surfer who was mistakenly shot at by its police officers during the manhunt for rogue Los Angeles police Officer Christopher Dorner, officials announced Thursday. The agreement settles David and Lizzette Perdue’s lawsuit against the city and its Police Department, ending the acrimonious battle over what occurred that chaotic week in February 2013. Officers rammed Perdue’s truck thinking he was Dorner fleeing a shooting, then fired three shots at him."

https://www.dailybreeze.com/2014/07/24/torrance-to-pay-18-mi...

Apparently there were three separate mistaken shootings by police in one day, where they thought it might be Dorner. Including one instance where police fired dozens of bullets without warning at two ladies in a Nissan truck delivering newspapers (both survived it amazingly).

"In three separate incidents in the early morning hours of February 7, 2013, police fired on people who turned out to be unrelated to Dorner. Dorner was not present at any of the incidents."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Dorner_shootings_a...

Dorner himself doesn't get much sympathy (he murdered people who weren't police, despite having grievance with the police.) But the exact circumstances of his death are probably worthy of examination, since it seems the police opted to burn him out of a building instead of wait him out in a siege (he was obviously going nowhere, and had no hostages.) He probably shot himself after the building was partially demolished and lit on fire, but what justified that demolition and fire-starting in the first place? Why were they in such a big rush to drive him out of the building?

I think they wanted him dead. They knew if they lit the building on fire, they could either shoot him when he ran out, wait for the fire to kill him, or let him kill himself. I believe the police had already decided he would not be taken alive.

I agree on the no sympathy, even if his grievance against the LAPD (regarding retaliation against him) was legitimate. No question they wanted him dead in the case of what happened. There was probably no scenario where they didn't end up killing him. They nearly murdered several other innocent persons that had nothing to do with Dorner, in the process of the manhunt, so it's clear they were very eager to murder him on sight (officers opened fire on the ladies in the Nissan truck with zero warning, so the intent was clear; and they rammed the surfer's truck and immediately fired upon it, similarly).

I still remember listening to the livestream radio broadcast of that happening and hearing "burn this motherf**er down"

https://youtu.be/cNk-bV40XMc?t=39

This ended in my neck of the woods; a friend of a friend is who spotted him. Before they found him, they closed down the roads for vehicle searches to make sure he didn't flee the area.

I rolled down my window at the stop, the cop looked around, and waved me through. I hesitated and said, "what if he is in the trunk?" - the cop's eyes got wide. I then said, "no, he is not back there, but that's what I'd do, I'd hold a family member hostage back there."

The next morning at the check point, they were checking trunks.

The guy they were chasing was named Christopher Dorner.

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