When trained individuals go beserk

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Natey

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A case of a fraternity (this time, of cops) retaliating against a whistle-blower among them, and the end result.

Summary:
Cop tries to do the right thing by turning another cop in (for use of excessive force).
Department decides to fire him.
He retaliates by shooting a number of people.

Turns out the shooter had awards/ribbons from his prior US Navy career for pistol and rifle marksmanship.

Media perspective and timeline: http://www.cnn.com/2013/02/07/us/lapd-attacks-timeline

His side of the story: http://www.eurweb.com/2013/02/read-the-full-christopher-dorner-manifesto/

I think he would have had better legal representation had he NOT used the former/retired chief of police (who became an attorney) to represent him. There's almost a conflict of interest there. And this whole thing might have turned out differently.
 
It also would have turned out different if Dorner had used more reasonable means to address his grievances.
Lets not pretend that he was backed into a corner and had no other choice.
 
There was no excuse for him killing people.
 
I don't know what to believe. He had a eclectic and oddly diverse taste in music. Some of what he says seems to make sense and then there are parts where he calls Charlie Sheen "effin awesome" and you just have to wonder. ;) The whole case is disturbing. All I do know is that this man clearly believes that he is a martyr willing to die in order for change to take place for the greater good.

Regarding representation, it's difficult to know why the former chief of police was chosen. Perhaps it wasn't a conflict of interest but one of aligned interests and it was thought that the familiarity would be a benefit. I just don't know. I also don't live in Cali so I am not close to the situation to even begin to approach the subtleties and issues discussed in the manifesto.

Killing people... that's very extreme. Something clearly set him over the edge.
 
Yes, he clearly went berserk, and killing people was certainly not something he should have done.

Law Enforcement cornered him at Big Bear, used some special vehicle to rip down a side wall of the house (?) he was in and threw tear gas in, causing a fire. The charred corpse found may be his.
Sounds like a small-scale Waco all over again :(
 
It's one thing if someone threatens to physically harm your family. I can understand how much Donner's reputation meant to him and how it crushed him. In a way, even if you feel that he was justified for having extremely strong feelings of anger, this result seems greatly extreme in order to teach a lesson. In a strange way it reminds me of the movie Seven (stop reading this if you haven't seen the movie.) The killer is not completely insane. He has a legitimate point to make. Some of the people involved you might not shed a tear for but did they deserve to die or be so tortured in the manner they were? Of course not. But he justifies this sin as being a martyr dying to save the world from committing even greater sin and realizing their mistakes while there still is time. Both believe they are the flawed version of Christ who has decided to sacrifice self and a few lives for the sake of illumination. It's just a way of saying that the act was most certain a sin/crime but there is justification - if you buy into what he's selling.
 
When I first started reading the related articles all over the internet, Serpico came to mind.
It would appear Dorner came from a background (Navy) that may have had a better system of justice, reward and punishment, where he excelled, compared to the LAPD, and he could not deal with what he saw as grave injustices in the LAPD.

I still maintain that if he had a non-biased attorney representing him at that last trial/hearing, he might have obtained some kind of severance package, and he would have walked away maybe unhappy, but not berserk. Expecting a former police chief to find the LAPD wrong/bad would be like expecting Colin Powell or Norman Schwarzkopf to find the Army wrong/bad. I can't stress enough the importance of having fair and competent representation in these matters, which can be difficult in many situations in California. Now the LAPD is re-opening his case, reactively.

My thoughts and prayers go out to the families of the bereaved.
 
Self help remedies, insofar as the law is concerned, usually fail.

Violence is never a solution for correcting your grievances.

The law, as we know it, may not be the greatest solution; but its all we have.

That said, we all pay a huge price to live and coexist peaceably in a "free" society.

You can trade some of those freedoms to live in a more totalitarian state, but that has issues, too.
 
Very true.

I just read more about the Dorner case as I was mostly only familiar with the shootout and suffered from the lack of time this week to immerse myself in this kind of news. A superfluous amount of details regarding the final stand, a gloss over of the true atrocity and inability of the media to provide a concise account of what exactly happened. I didn't have time to read 2,500+ word accounts of Dorner's life leading up to the events. I was mostly responding to Dorner's manifesto from the link above, which I read after seeing this thread - and which doesn't reflect at all upon the true atrocity of his crimes.

Let's just start with the fact that Dorner intentionally murdered people who didn't even harm him directly or even indirectly. He rambles on incessantly in his manifesto about HIS rights. What about the rights of the two (3 I believe) completely innocent people he killed, one who didn't even have any relationship whatsoever to the man who he claims harmed him? Dorner appears to be a self-righteous, self-obsessed individual who showed that he lost total perspective - or whatever perspective he may have had at one time if he had it at all. Was he a stand up guy or was he just delusional, seeing the world in his preferred version of reality rather than the reality itself? I didn't know Chris Dorner before and whether he felt this way internally or he just completely snapped and suddenly lost all perspective.

There were many ways available to clear his name. We live in the age of the Internet. If he wanted to make a point he could have done so in numerous other ways instead of the calculated, cold blooded and completely unnecessary murder of innocent people. I think it speaks volumes that Dorner seems not to mention them at all. In the end, I don't know what to believe except that many innocent people are dead.
 
Amazing... the more I look for articles on the case just to gain perspective, the more I see a media and sizable, vocal group of people consumed with making this incident about LAPD corruption, failure of due process and the "murder" of a suspect without trial. Lost in all of this are the innocent people who had little to no involvement in Dorner's issue. There is little to be gained by his death and those of innocent people. Just saddens me.
 
Before more people start beating the dead horse aspect of this whole thing, I think we are all in agreement here that Dorner should not have gone round killing people under any circumstance.

I tend to look at things from the historical perspective; something triggered this guy to go beserk. He appeared normal until around the time he left the Navy.
The Navy should provide reports if they have evidence to the contrary.
So what happend at the LAPD? He goes into quite some detail in his manifesto, about injustices he saw there, and names people.
Watch Serpico (this was a real story about a cop in NY some decades ago who had to deal with similar injustices).

The real scary thing is when I read this statement Dorner made:
"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants" - Thomas Jefferson.
It appears Timothy McVeigh (ex-US Army decorated veteran who was the guy behind the Oklahoma City bombings; there are pictures of him (during his military deployment) shaking hands / standing next to General Norman Schwarzkopf) said the same thing.
See the documentary "The McVeigh Tapes" on Netflix; it's his (auto)biography.

These 2 guys had a number of things in common: they both excelled in a more disciplined environmnent (military), and couldn't adapt when something seemed to violate that order of things to a point where they thought they had to take the law into their own hands.
And the skills they acquired in the military caused them to do far more damage than the average Joe could do.

More details that emerged:
There are supposed to be 4 or 5 types of smoke/tear gas grenades; one of which has been known to start fires.
The one that starts fires is only supposed to be used outdoors.
Guess which one Law Enforcement threw into the cabin Dorner was in?

Police had stopped firefighters at the scene from putting out the fire.
They indicated "let it burn" (people who had access to police scanners/frequencies claim to have heard this).
I find it odd that they recovered his wallet with ID in it. I would have imagined it would have been destroyed in that fire (I saw pictures of the aftermath of the cabin).
Someone posted in the Comments section on that site: "Who is going to pay for this fire damage?"

A couple of days prior, police also had opened fire on 2 women who were delivering newspapers in the early hours of the morning close to one of the houses they were protecting from Dorner, injuring both of the women.
I'd say no two newspaper delivery women look anything like Dorner.

It almost seems like they didn't want to take Dorner in alive.
And I'd venture a guess that Dorner would not have wanted to be taken in alive too.
His military marksmanship skills would have caused more casualties had this issue gone on any longer.

In situations like this, the family of the accused bears the burden of the actions of their son/sibling.
I fear for their safety now. In the immortal words of Rodney King: Why can't we all just get along?

I am interested in what conclusion the LAPD will arrive at, as they re-open Dorner's case/trial that was closed.

Corporations have a better mechanism of dealing with employees they don't want to keep; they simply eliminate the position, sound bogusly apologetic about the "unfortunate" Corporate decision, and offer a small severance package and wish the employee off well.
There is no real reason to fire someone and rub it in, especially when something really bad did not occur at the LAPD.
The proverbial straw that broke the camel's back here might have been that his unjust (to be determined shortly) dismissal from the LAPD had very negative consequences on his Navy career; the only career that had actually worked out for Dorner.

I mean, what would it have cost the LAPD to have said to Dorner: "Look here buddy, you don't like the way we run our business here, why don't you go back to the Navy? We'll even give you a small bonus and a certificate of service if you leave voluntarily, unless you want us to fire you, which may possibly hurt your Navy career opportunities."

Now that I come to think about it, that's what super moderator cbg said to me here some weeks back when I posted my feedback about this site...
But I wasn't offered any bonus or a certificate :^)
 
At times I read huge sweeping generalizations that bear little resemblance to the truth. The LAPD, like any large corporation, is comprised of many individuals - most of whom are inconsequential with regard to actions taken by the entity as a whole. Those who either have an agenda to push or who are too focused on a specific issue seem to lack perspective about the truth - missing the entire forest due to being absorbed by the presence of a few trees. Individuals are the ones who can be held responsible for their own actions.

Perhaps I'm reading into this and perhaps I'm not. I prefer not to use Rodney King as any sort of "immortal hero" or example to reflect thoughtful and respectful conduct among members of society in a march towards civil rights. King admittedly endangered the lives of innocent people on multiple occasions, in addition to the time he drove drunk at an excessive rate of speed through residential areas solely to selfishly avoid police from arresting him and violating his parole. I'm not saying he got what he deserved at all. But I will point out how easy it is to ask everyone else to "just get along" after you're the one responsible for setting the entire series of prolonged, tense and highly dangerous events in motion. And I will point out my wonder as to why some seem to dispose of the importance of remembering who the catalyst of the event was as well as the nature of his own character and moral fiber. There are numerous other innocent, law abiding individuals who could be used as shining examples of victims of civil rights injustices. Take Abner Louima as an example - a name probably most of this generation have forgotten.

As I see you've been reminded, you speak of "they" as if the LAPD was one big force acting in concert. They didn't want to take him alive. They should have given him a severance package. They just shot two women who didn't look like Dorner. There was a man gone mad on the loose killing people. The salary of police officers isn't exactly stellar so that it can attract only the best and the brightest. I can't imagine that all of "them" had suspicious motives.

I also don't know why you're using Frank Serpico's name, as if there was comparison to Dorner. Serpico's life was in danger and any acts in self-defense woud appear to have been justifiable. Yet he never resorted to the kind of premeditated murder of innocent people like Dorner did, whose most significant complaint seems to be about recovering his name that was taken away from him.

What I enjoy about the members of the site so much is the freedom to post opinions here. I don't care for censorship and know there will be opinions of which I may not agree. But I have respect people who do have a different take than I do and that's not a bad thing at all. But where we need to be careful is in making sure that we aren't climbing on top of the soapbox so often that we forget the difference between discussion and promotion. Just my thoughts.
 
Re: Serpico - I was drawing a comparison to the situation within the NYPD at the time, and the LAPD Dorner wrote about. You are absolutely right that Serpico took a different approach; I believe he migrated to Switzerland thereafter too. Too dangerous to continue living in NY after blowing the whistle on the NYPD?

Re: Rodney King - I agree he is no model citizen by any stretch of the imagination, and needed to be punished for what he originally did, but he did realize that this was becoming a small-scale civil war between Law Enforcement in LA and the African American minorities there, and made that statement in an attempt to stop further confrontation in LA. It should be noted that he was not a politician trying to gain political points by making that statement. I think he realized things were really going to get out of control there otherwise. Anybody know the body-count after the National Guard got called in to stop the riots there?

Dorner did try the Legal approach (courts, etc). This last trial was his last hope at clearing his name, which he felt so strongly about, per his manifesto. And I have reason to believe his counsel (Quan) threw the case in LAPD's favor. But, I'm not an attorney, so what would I know, right?

What I enjoy about the members of the site so much is the freedom to post opinions here. I don't care for censorship and know there will be opinions of which I may not agree. But I have respect people who do have a different take than I do and that's not a bad thing at all. But where we need to be careful is in making sure that we aren't climbing on top of the soapbox so often that we forget the difference between discussion and promotion. Just my thoughts.
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And I thank you for that freedom here. It truly takes an individual of a distinguished caliber to say that though he may not agree with someone he will defend their right to say it.
Patrick Henry and a French Philosopher (Voltaire? a couple of hundred years ago) said the same.
 
I see that you misunderstood my meaning, although I will grant you in a forum such as this it can be difficult to hear the "tone" and thus it is easy to misconstrue meanings and motives.

I was not telling you to get lost. I was asking out of curiosity - since you did not (and still do not) appear to approve of either the members or the way we run the forums, what is/was your purpose in being here? Why did you (and do you) continue to come to a place that you evidently do not like? Not because you shouldn't be here, but because I would genuinely like to know what it is that motivates you to come to a forum of which you so clearly do not approve?
 
Now I have to wonder what gave you the impression that I don't like the members here... if you see a post of mine indicating such, please let me know. I have posted things many in the Legal profession/community may find incriminating, but I do find the information disseminated here very interesting, and useful, for the most part. The ocassional differences in perspectives and opinions is appreciated too, and provides a clue that there may be alternatives, rather than the "if you disagree with (insert name here), you must be a bad guy and don't know what you are talking about".

I locate and participate in many forums, on a variety of subjects, especially those available via Tapatalk. Never once was my account banned anywhere, nor was I asked why I still came back, even though I had posted facts and opinions which may not have been liked by people there too.

Here, I had my account banned on the pretext that my IP Address was used by spammers, had my initial posts deleted (have you figured out who did that yet, and why?), get issued a warning that I am posting nonsense simply to increase my post count (in a perfectly valid thread) by a super moderator, another warning that I am necro-posting in a thread that was asking for feedback on this site (why not lock THAT thread if no more feedback is sought?), etc.
Have you visited other forums on the internet?

I see that you are in HR, and I get the impression that any kind of perceived dissent is bad news for HR folks; which is usually accurate in a Corporate environment. That's why HR folks seldom become Patrick Henrys ;)
Despite all they do for the Corporation and its employees, during a merger, the HR and Accounting departments (in that order) of the smaller company are usually the first to get let go, so you really gotta wonder. Yes, I've seen it many times, but I digress..
 
Yes, I have visited many other forums on the internet. I moderate on - well, it was two others until one was closed down last week and the members relocated here - so I guess that's one other, and participate in many more.

I wasn't aware that I was supposed to be investigating who deleted your posts.

And as to why I think you don't like the members here? Well, to start with, see your description of HR folk, above. Was that supposed to be funny? It wasn't. It certainly doesn't show any kind of respect for the posters here, and there are many, who are HR professionals.
 
Natey said:
I locate and participate in many forums, on a variety of subjects, especially those available via Tapatalk. Never once was my account banned anywhere, nor was I asked why I still came back, even though I had posted facts and opinions which may not have been liked by people there too.

Here, I had my account banned on the pretext that my IP Address was used by spammers, had my initial posts deleted (have you figured out who did that yet, and why?), get issued a warning that I am posting nonsense simply to increase my post count (in a perfectly valid thread) by a super moderator, another warning that I am necro-posting in a thread that was asking for feedback on this site (why not lock THAT thread if no more feedback is sought?), etc.
Have you visited other forums on the internet?
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I'll answer this. This site has been online for a very long time and attracts a massive amount of spammers and hackers like you cannot believe. Every day I'll see numerous attempts to access files that don't exist in an attempt to exploit something. Over December I had to get our firewall updated, ban a few countries and take additional measures to ensure that the site was secure. I'm still working my way backwards regarding time since then (and am reminded right now I must follow through immediately on something way over delayed...)

We also instituted a new registration system that facilitates ease of posting first and allows users to register later. Their user name is connected to their account via the IP address you register with on the site. It was a good idea that worked most of the time. (We will be moving to an entirely new system imminently which I am sure everyone will love. Last parts being ironed out and I anticipate the big move some time this month or first week in March.) The back end allows us to mass delete posts and do so by IP address. If someone seems like a problem poster - and trust me, we get plenty - it's easy to mass delete messages quickly. Sometimes it's temporary, sometimes permanent and those with moderator abilities here are given much trust and for good reason. If mistakes happen, which they may, better on the side of caution.

Necro-posting. A spammer's favorite method of dumping links. There isn't any control built in to autolock threads and what was developed caused some unusual issues that left it better off removed without wasting more time. As a result and partially because of what happened with you, I queried our database to shut down posts that are made X days ago and lock them. I have been doing that periodically and thankfully will do so just one last time before the big switch. The new system will have many awesome features that will make it much more engaging for everyone, useful, and have automoderated scripting that will prevent necroposting before it starts.

Best of all, the documentation is in the process of enhancement (and thank you Betty!) so that all is, once again, in good organized working order.
 
Thanks, thelawprofessor! I appreciate your taking the time to answer my questions.
I was a FidoNet BBS sysop back in those days, and know how much personal time and work can be involved in maintaining a site, especially these days when the systems are far more complex.
 
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I "assume", thelawprofessor, you are talking about me but maybe not. If so, you're welcome. Thank you for all you did for the new users who came over from the closed down forum.
 
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