How many cops would you allow to die in order to take him alive?
Not a martyr. It’s possible if there was racism or something improper in his dismissal, this could result in a needed second look at the LAPD.
However, early reports I’m hearing don’t seem to really indicated Dorner was dismissed improperly. Obviously it’s all relatively one sided, but there is some documentation to support it in the form of witness statements. Like I said, this is early information and we do not have the full story, but it doesn’t appear his dismissal was inappropriate.
It looks like Dorner started as a problem with LAPD right in the academy. He was still active duty Navy at the time, and apparently treated the academy as a joke and acted as though he knew everything already because he was in the military. When the academy instructors told trainees to show up for physical fitness wearing plain colored (white or black) clothing, he showed up in neon colored sneakers. He basically was a problem child throughout his time at the academy, including accidentally discharging a weapon into his hand, showing he’s not a very trustworthy person in a job that requires being able to safely handle firearms. This culminated in him being dismissed from the academy. Later, he was admitted into a subsequent academy class and graduated, but shortly after his probationary period as an officer began he was deployed to Bahrain again with the military.
When he came back from his probationary period it appears that for many weeks, his female trainer/partner criticised him repeatedly for doing dangerous things against procedure and regulation. For example he confronted an armed person by walking into the middle of the street to confront them, instead of working from behind cover. Apparently she told him many times that he was not ready for the streets and needed to go back for retraining. Dorner apparently agreed, even saying he had repeatedly requested he be sent back for more training.
Finally, Dorner and his partner are investigating a passed out or possibly drunk homeless person with a mental illness, and during the encounter Dorner grabs the sitting man by the arm and pulls him up off the bench he was sitting on. The guy becomes violent at what could be considered instigation and his partner has to use a TASER to subdue him. Later, his partner files a report basically reflecting Dorner’s current unfitness to be on the streets. At that point, and only after that, does Dorner file a statement claiming his partner kicked the guy in the head (who was only violent in the first place because Dorner had pulled the guy to his feet while talking with him.) Witnesses at the scene deny ever seeing Dorner’s partner kicking the guy in the head, although the guy’s father says he believes his son was kicked in the head.
So it’s possible Dorner was reporting a genuine act of brutality, it’s possible. But it doesn’t appear likely given the narrative as we know it right now.
Do Dorner’s actions fit into the narrative that citizens need access to guns in order to fight a oppressive government? He felt that he was denied due process and thus had to make warfare on the government. To do so he had to employ asymmetrical tactics similar to those used by insurgencies around the world.
Wouldn’t people who argue that we need the second amendment to fight our own government see Dorner’s actions as reasonable and perhaps even heroic? If not, why not? He put his life on the line to engage in an armed struggle against the state.
Sociopath and murderer. Lots of serial killers have grudges. The only difference in this case- which Ibn Warraq alluded to- is that in this case, other people also think the target of the grudge is a bunch of fuckers.
When it comes down to justifications for murder, being fired because you’re black is pretty small potatoes. Try years of horrifying child abuse.
I would tend to think that based on his reaction to getting fired, he had probably done something to deserve getting fired. I can’t really take his claims seriously after what he’s done - it makes me think he was probably a problem employee and that’s why he got fired.
No
No. He was not denied due process. Due process has nothing to do with employment.
No, he did engage in armed struggle against “the state”. He killed innocent people. And his beef was with the LAPD as an employer anyway, not as a state agent.
But I can see why you would post this line of reasoning because it is being proclaimed so frequently in “gun nut” circles. :rolleyes:
I think the only people who will see him as a martyr will be the people who think he was somehow framed. Unfortunately, the shootings at innocent truck drivers and the whole “body burnt” thing will only fuel the conspiracy theories, I’m sure.
Actually, it has plenty to do with employment when you’re talking about a state employee. Whether or not he was denied due process is in question, but there’s no question he was entitled to it.
I am quite sure that whatever the Lapd says regarding Dorner, his employment and what happened at the cabin and also their own conduct in firing mistakenly at two older hispanic women in Torrance (shooting both women) will all be the truth and nothin but the truth 
Because tgey always tell the truth about what they do and fellow officers never cover for other officers.
I have the weirdest sense of cognitive dissonance whenever I see a picture of Dorner. He just looks like such a nice guy.
Yeah, I know—I had exactly the same reaction. He just looks like somebody you would want to go out drinking or rock climbing with.
Apparently the coroner is still chipping away at the charcoal, trying to figure out if it’s him or not. It will be quite the PR kerfuffle if it turns out to be the owner of the cabin.
Combing through the thousands of responses on CNN, I’m surprised that only a handful of people are beatifying Dorner. I didn’t seriously expect anybody here to, but I’m surprised that the overwhelming reaction of the public is an expression of disgust directed at both the LAPD and Dorner. I pretty much thought he was going to be the next Claude Dallas. Still, we may get a folk song or two out of this yet.
I thought I read that Dorner’s ID was found on the body and every piece of logic says it’s him, but you know what’s going to happen if they can’t ID the body with DNA or something similar. In fact you can be reasonably sure it’ll happen anyway.
The accidental shooting is unrelated to Dorner’s firing, I’m confused about why they are linked by several people here on these forums. I’ll also note that the shooting of those people was not actually by officers who were hunting for Dorner, it was by officers assigned as protection for one of the people Dorner might have been going after as a “target.” They saw a truck coming (in this case delivering newspapers) that superficially they thought looked like Dorner’s and they panicked. That is what it is, and we can talk about that as we see how the LAPD and local prosecutors respond.
But there was an investigation of Dorner, fellow officers at the academy, his training officer, the sergeant he knew from the Navy, and two eye witnesses to the incident that got him fired. I think considering all that’s happened a second look is worthwhile, but just based on what we have right now I see no reason to conclude Dorner wasn’t a problem employee who needed removal from service.
The police really can’t win with the SDMB. If they don’t send every police officer accused of wrongdoing to prison and fire them, it’s corruption. Yet, when they get rid of a guy that accidentally discharges his firearm, was reported as being a danger to himself and other officers, and who escalated a situation by inappropriately accosting a subject and only after a bad review decided to say the fellow cop who gave him the bad review did something wrong they’re accused of corruption. So they’re corrupt for not getting rid of any cop presumed bad, and they’re corrupt for getting rid of cops who they consider bad. Should we just disband the police and be done with it? I’m sure society can self-police.
I had the opposite reaction. The latest banned troll, resting, trolled me good in MPSIMS with his “Dorner is a hero” shit. And I responded the way I did because … who the eff would every consider a guy who killed the innocent daughter of someone he has in issue with a fricken’ hero?
Literally, for the past couple of days Dorner has register nothing but, “another violent asshole with a gun,” to me. Then I tripped across Rush Limbaugh’s act today and he’s going on and on about how the left is holding Dorner up as hero, fighting the man, against oppression, and aren’t all those hippies stupid, yuk, yuk, yuk. I’m listening to him, laughing because, again, who – outside of Limbaugh’s rotten brain – would consider Dorner a hero?
But there you have it. Apparently Rush wasn’t completely wrong this time. There are people who are actually in admiration of Dorner.
You’d have thought my impenetrable wall of cynicism would have prevented that little flash of optimism from leaking out. I must be slowing down.
Honesty and some others seem to be quite consumed with admiration for Mr Dorner, over in MPSIMS.
I believe Honesty said (among other things), “…he’s our Black Knight.”
Martin hyde, you are confused why people here have concern about the torrance shooting where by the lapd opened fire on two older hispanic women in an aqua blue truck? I can see how it would be easy for them to mistake a 71 yr old hispanic grandmother and a 47 yr old hispanic woman for a single large black man in a grey truck of a diferent model. No big deal them not in some way giving any command first, they simply opened fire on them and now the grandma is hospitalized from two bullets they fired into her back.
Even CNN’s Don Lemon stopped me in my tracks with some of his comments about Dorner. Maybe I misheard, I’ve not looked it up, but he seemed to indicate that we need to take a look at why he was doing this, that the manifesto shows he’s not crazy. Eh, no thanks.
So Dorner’s complaints weren’t(/aren’t?) ust that the LAPD is racist; it was also that they’re a gang of roving thugs who brutalize suspects and have a culture of retaliation against whistle-blowers. In any case, there aren’t a whole lot of people who aren’t disgusted by Dorner’s murdering of innocent people, which generally kind of kills the whole martyr card.
More from Honesty in Post 216in the MPSIMS thread linked above:
*"I know, right? I’m still scratching my head why he did not just kill the captives instead of tying them up and hoping they wouldn’t escape. He fucked up. A real Dark Knight would have beheaded the hostages with the blessed black-handled scythe of righteousness +1 as a pre-emptive means of damage control.
Still, far as things go, Dorner won: He’s caused incalculable emotional damage to the victims and their family and likely millions in overtime pay and lawsuit will be spent in the future. That doesn’t even touch the property damage, the loss of economic activity in Big Bear, and the real, present crimes that were allowed to transpire due to police climbing a mountain. All that for a 270 lb corpse and the ability to sweep Dorner’s allegations under the rug. Pretty poor bargain I’d say. The moral of the story: THE TRUTH MATTERS."*
A spectacular victory! Causing incalculable emotional damage to completely innocent victims and their family, along with millions of dollars in various damages.
I am nearly persuaded by the quality of this analysis to change my own opinion from “murderer” to “martyr.”
You can find a few people who will defend any violent nut up to and including Charles Manson, to say nothing of Hitler. That said, Honesty’s comment about killing “racist motherfuckers” is that much more ironic because Dorner’s first victims were an Asian-American woman and a black man.
It’s not the owner of the cabin. She’s alive and recognized her own property on TV. It’s part of a group of six rental cabins and none of them were supposed to be occupied yesterday. Even if somehow this wasn’t Dorner, it’d be some other person who waged a long shootout with the cops.