You know I’m engrossed by the Christopher Dorner story, if for no other reason than I’m actually writing on my blog. Insert the requisite I’m-gonna-do-better statement wherever you so choose.
Anyway, the Rambo-type stuff seems way less interesting to me than the little stuff. Perhaps that’s because I’ve never seen any Rambo movies — wasn’t going down in my parents’ house — but so much is going on here. Of course, much of that has been prompted by the words of a man who has, as far as we know, killed three people. Another part of that comes from a reputation the Los Angeles Police Department has worked hard to shake, one many have decided is being unfairly held against it. So, in trying to make sense of everything, it’s the word of the LAPD against the word of a killer, two entities with little credibility at this moment (especially since both have made a bad habit of shooting people all willy-nilly this week).
Anyway, this has left me with 10 questions about what I’ve seen and read. They’re a varied bunch of queries, as you’ll see. I’ve got no desire to crack any case. However, as fast as this thing is moving, we’re on to the next thing before we got all the answers to something that happened before. Maybe these things will be dealt with while there’s neither hide nor hair of Dorner to be found. But, for now, I’m just wondering…
1. People aren’t really defending Dorner, are they? Hey, I don’t care what you think about the man’s cause or the legitimacy of his allegations. He’s allegedly killed three people so far, and not a single one of them did a damn thing to him. There’s plenty of time to discuss the things he said. I’ll even do so a little later. But one of Dorner’s alleged murder victims was two degrees of separation from the person with whom he had beef. Three degrees, according to the haphazard theory, is damn near half the world.
Hell, I’m two degrees of separation from someone who once supervised Dorner. Defend him? Get the fuck outta here.
2. Did Dorner smile in every picture he ever took in his life? When you’re accused of killing three people, they don’t just put any ol’ picture of you in the newspaper. Sorry, but that great picture you and your date took at the prom? They’ll only use that in the paper if you got hit by a drunk driver on the way home.
But every time I see Dorner, he’s got the biggest grin on his face. Trust, no one saw those pictures and stopped digging for one more “appropriate.” Yet and still, we’ve got a character from the movies hiding out, claiming he has a missile launcher, got the cops scared half to death. But seriously, what picture of him do you have in your head? Cuz here’s what the first three rows of Google images turn up.
I’m not saying this guy is the Jolly Green Giant because he smiled in his pictures. I’m just saying it ain’t every day America’s only visions of a mass murderer have him looking like he just won the lottery.
3. What exactly happened in Irvine? This is a preliminary account of the murders of Monica Quan and Keith Lawrence, but every other link I’ve found has basically said the same thing: at 9:10 pm Sunday, someone called the cops reporting they saw someone slumped over in a car in a condominium parking structure. No door open, no broken glass, and no one heard any shots. I’ve got no reason to doubt the accounts of what happened. I just can’t figure out what the hell happened. Given that this case is still kinda open, you’d think we’ll get some more information on this one soon. But you know we’ve got a helluva story when we can’t even get enough information on the point of origination.
4. LAPD let Dorner keep his badge? Really, you get fired from the force, and you get to keep your badge as a souvenir? That would have to be the case if Dorner dropped his badge in San Diego, right? How in Hades does that work? At the same time, I’m totally confused as to why Dorner dropped that stuff in the first place, or why he’d leave obvious “CHRIS WUZ HERE” mementos along the way. Or why this cat, who has a clear hit list, would try to go to Mexico on a boat. What, he think he was just gonna sail back and no one would notice his big, black ass floating back ashore?
People have kinda imagined Dorner as a mastermind in total control of the situation. The manifesto certainly gives that impression. But all this San Diego stuff reeks of panic, as did shooting the cops in Riverside. When, in the course of this, did he lose his water? And when did he get it back? Guess it’s easier to be professional with the first kill (in Irvine) than it is to elude the cops?
But for real…LAPD gotta start taking badges back. How am I supposed to know who I have to stop for if you’re just letting people hold on to their badges? I bet Dorner never paid for lunch with that badge in his pocket.
5. Yo, what’s crackin’ in Torrance? I, like many others, have had questions about the reckless way some police officers have handled the search for Dorner. Upon further review, that’s a little unfair. Why? Because, it seems, two worst stories — the shooting of the L.A. Times carriers and another gentleman — came from the same side of town, where officers are protecting a high-ranking LAPD official. I either wanna know more about the guys doing the protecting, or the guy being protected. Why? Because no one seems more hopped up to shoot Dorner than them. In San Diego, when two cops approached someone they were told fit Dorner’s description, he had time to see them coming in his rearview mirror. Maybe — though hopefully not — we’ll see the same enthusiasm shown in Torrance in the rest of the manhunt. For whatever reason, that hasn’t happened. I figure we’ll find out the reason, one way or another. Speaking of which…
6. What’s going on with the LA Times? I’ve had questions about how the paper has covered this story, questions that were answered by this CNN story where it’s made abundantly clear the Times gives zero-credence to any of Dorner’s accusations against the LAPD. I’m not in a position to discuss whether their approach is the right one or not, so I’ll leave that part be.
However, I did read the story about the paper carriers being shot in Torrance, and I read the one about the other gentleman. If you can explain to me why these two stories, effectively about the same thing, were treated so differently, I’d love to know. That’s to say, why does the story about two employees of the paper lead with the spin from LAPD, while the second story is presented with the victim’s story first. Oh, and highly sympathetic art to convey how poorly he was treated.
Now, it would make sense one of the carriers couldn’t take such a photograph. She, after all, caught some hot ones. However, you’d think her attorney would lead the story about her shooting, right?
And yes, stuff like this matters. A lot. This op-ed could have just as easily been about the Times as the LAPD.
7. Do people really understand what was wrong with the LAPD? Understandably, the force wants to remove its current self from its past. With a little nudge from the Feds, work was done toward that end, and the government saw fit to end the consent decree that came after the Rampart Scandal. Now, to dismiss Dorner’s allegations, the chief of police — and others — pointed to the demographics of LAPD, how it’s no longer a majority-white police force policing black and brown people with impunity. That’s an interesting point, but I’m not sure why anyone thinks that matters. Or maybe no one else has ever heard of the Prince George’s County Police Department. Or remembers the man who did the most talking in the Rampart scandal was Afro-Puerto Rican.
The issue wasn’t the demographics of the force, even if changing that might have helped. The issue was the absolute lack of respect the LAPD had for the people it was supposed to be protecting and serving. That’s the only way so little regard was held for innocence or guilt, or how innocence just seemed to get in the way of the cops’ fun. No decree from the government could change that, nor could simply hiring new officers.
And look — this is tricky for LAPD. Affirming a negative is damn near impossible, and there is little reason to trust what they say in this regard. But when LAPD tells us about its demographics to speak to what’s different about the force, you almost have to wonder if they realized what was the problem in the first place. And when citizens, without warning, have dozens of rounds hurled at them in the course of an investigation they’re unconnected with, what other conclusion could one draw?
8. So are we gonna treat LAPD like a gang or not? It’s pretty simple — once this is put in the context of the police losing “one of their own,” this turns into an us-vs.-them scenario. Yes, police are under a greater threat given what Dorner’s alleged to have done already, but as soon as we legitimize us-vs.-them, we’ve got a big, big problem. Yeah, Dorner’s made it about him and the police, but ignoring that the police are part of a much larger “us” is how you get the chief of police trying to explain why we shouldn’t trip over a 71 year-old woman taking bullets while delivering the damn newspaper. Christopher Dorner, directly or otherwise, is a threat to all of us. Once we isolate this as something that only affects cops, everyone else has the potential to become collateral damage. Cuz that’s how it tends to work when gangs shoot it out.
9. But really, where is this dude? We’ve got evidence of great planning. We’ve got evidence of panic. And we have no idea where this dude is. The longer he’s ghost, the longer it’s gotta be scary as hell in Los Angeles. Yeah, people may let their guards down, but the cops won’t. Hell, they can’t. And right now, it seems citizens are more frightened by the cops than Dorner. They’re the ones carrying guns around them. As of now, they can do little more than wait on him, and all anyone else can do is hope no one mixes him or or her up with the fugitive.
Oh, and law enforcement can deploy drones.
10. Yes, DRONES! At the very least, I hope the cops in Torrance aren’t the ones deciding of they have the right guy.
