The weapon of choice employed again?

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Manta what I at least am basing my arguments on is the evidence I heard with my own ears, the recordings.
Unless you have information that refutes these recordings, which I will be happy to listen to by the way, then I am basing my questions on fact, rather than someone else's reports of what happened.
What might be happening here however is this. LAPD has had quite a few highly publicized incidents where they clearly stepped over the line, quite often with cover ups to some degree later.
If you'll pardon the expression, there's been a lot of smoke over the years, it's tough not to figure that there is a fire here somewhere. They have earned the reputation they have with decades worth of incidents. I'll admit I'm less inclined to give them the benefit of the doubt. That may be what you're seeing here.
 
If you'll pardon the expression, there's been a lot of smoke over the years, it's tough not to figure that there is a fire here somewhere. They have earned the reputation they have with decades worth of incidents. I'll admit I'm less inclined to give them the benefit of the doubt. That may be what you're seeing here.
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The stereotype in the uk of police officers in America is that they are trigger happy. Is their not a investigations into such incidents that most people would have confidence in. ? I know the police can't fart here without their being a independent investigation. Example if a police officer uses a taser or removes his firearm from his holster it has to be reported to the police ombudsman.
 
Manta, I don't think Police here are monitored as closely outside their department. An internal LAPD investigation is likely, but how honest or in depth it would be would be open to question. Yes there can be federal or state oversight, but I think someone has to initiate an investigation it's not automatic. That's part of the problem. If I had seen some agency step up and say it was going to investigate this I'd be a lot happier, and probably be willing to let the chips fall where they may. There may not be an outside investigation without public pressure.
 
To begin with, I'm not going to second guess the officers on the scene. Could they have taken other measures? Sure. However, if they felt setting the house on fire was the best way to end the stand off, then burn it down. Deadly force for deadly force, be it a gun, knife, fire, rock, pointy stick, or MLRS. He had shown he wasn't going to come quietly. To those saying he may have surrendered, he was surrounded in a backwoods cabin with no help, and he continued to engage the officers. He was being asked to surrender by the police chief from the first murders and publishing of his manifesto. There were multiple people calling for Dorner to turn himself in, after which he went and killed one officer and wounded another. To those talking about how 'the single gunshot was the only out he had', the fact that he was able to fire 'the single gunshot' showed that he still had the capability to cause deadly harm to officers on the scene. What officer in their right mind would have walked through any door of that cabin to arrest him? He probably would have shot them on sight. Make him walk outside? I wouldn't put it past him to have a suicide vest on for the arresting officers as a final statement.

Some folks here have been stating that the military would be punished for doing the same; I beg to differ. This is a picture of Uday Hussein's house after the 101st was done with it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Uday_qusay_house.jpg If I remember correctly, there were multiple TOW missile launches into the building. And they knew there were other people inside.

There are many, many stories about the military taking out buildings they were taking fire from. Difference is, the military uses explosives. If the police burnt Dorner out, I say good for them. It was the option least likely to put officers at risk. The word 'fair' has no place in a firefight, warzone, or self defense situation.
 
Historically, the LAPD has been the "the international poster child for police abuse and corruption in the 1990s in cases ranging from the beating of Rodney King to the trial of O.J. Simpson." (source below)

The LAPD is currently overseen by a semi-independent body, the Office of the Inspector General, which according to its charter, is "empowered to audit, investigate and oversee the Department’s internal disciplinary process." The OIG is under the authority of the civilian Police Commission. It's these bodies that will carry out the investigation into his firing in 2008.

This was all put in place after a period of 8 years, ending in 2009, when the department was under Federal supervision following a series of scandals and a consent decree which ended the investigation of the LAPD by the US Department of Justice. As part of that agreement, an outsider, William Bratton, was installed as chief in 2002, and he made significant progress in reforming the department. However, he left in 2009, and the current chief (Charlie Beck) is a lifelong member of the department who is not considered to have been such a strong supporter of reform. Chief Beck was also the head of the division where Mr. Dorner was assigned at the time of his firing, so he's not a disinterested party to all this.

This article from the Christian Science Monitor gives an overview of much of this, and also explains why local people haven't much confidence that any such investigations will be carried out impartially. Many people in LA, especially in the black community, don't regard the Police Commission/OIG as genuinely independent.

Investigating Mr. Dorner's death would involve the San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department, which presumably has its own forms of oversight. They have an internal affairs office, but I haven't been able to find out what, if any, independent oversight there is for the SBSD.

One hopes that there will be an outside investigation, preferably at the Federal level.
 
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The Associated Press is reporting that an S.B. Co. Sheriff's captain has said in a press conference that Mr. Dorner died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head.

The Sheriff, John McMahon, is also the county coroner. His official title is Sheriff-Coroner.
 
As far as hero, lets also remember anti-heroes. If I asked you if a man who rapes women while saving the town from bandits was a hero, you'd say no. Then we could watch the Man with no Name trilogy and cheer for the Clint Eastwood character. Oops.

And we have mentioned infra-red here a couple times. For those most part we have toed the "don't know but want to be informed pretty soon" line pretty well on this forum.

I don't think the SB Sheriff-Coroner should be the guy to tell us the gunshot wound was self inflicted. Or if it was pre or post fire start.

I want to know how many gunshot wounds he had.

I want to know when he got them, when the fire started, and what the effects of those gunshots may or may not have had on his ability to exit the cabin after the fire started.

I want to know how many attempts there were to deliver a communications device to him, and when they were.
 
Yes to all the above, JimDandy.

P1090 said:
There are many, many stories about the military taking out buildings they were taking fire from. Difference is, the military uses explosives. If the police burnt Dorner out, I say good for them. It was the option least likely to put officers at risk. The word 'fair' has no place in a firefight, warzone, or self defense situation.
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And this was not a military matter. The rules of war apply in combat. They do not apply in civilian police work. It's unfortunate that this distinction is becoming blurred as police are more and more militarized.
 
And this was not a military matter. The rules of war apply in combat. They do not apply in civilian police work. It's unfortunate that this distinction is becoming blurred as police are more and more militarized.
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I'd like to argue that this is precisely why the police are becoming more militarized. We have a ex-police officer with military training attempting to conduct asymetric warfare in California. It was combat. You have a man using military tactics and you want them to counter with police tactics. Recipe for disaster. It doesn't make sense to tell police to fight with one arm behind their backs. Don't limit their options. If military tactics work better to address a problem, use them. Train with the military; share what works best. Whatever allows the good guys to go home and see their families at night is fine with me. Is it harsh? Yes. Will whoever gave the command second guess themselves? I hope so. But him and his men are alive to second guess, and to me that matters more than being nice to what was shaping up to be a deranged mass murderer. I'd shake that officer's hand well before I would condemn him.

Put yourselves in place of the guys who would have had to breach the cabin. I'd rather not have to go busting into that cabin with Dorner alive inside if there was another way.
 
Put yourselves in place of the guys who would have had to breach the cabin. I'd rather not have to go busting into that cabin with Dorner alive inside if there was another way.
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false dichotomy. There were other choices available other then the two you list.
 
Fair enough. They could have pulled back the cordon and starved him out. I believe he also was reported to have had a .50 cal rifle. How far do you want them to pull back? No way of knowing what he had in the cabin with him. He was in a heated cabin in winter, most likely with some sort of supplies. I'd say he was in a better position than the guys who had to stand outside in the snow surrounding the cabin. Eventually the officers on site would have had to apprehend Dorner, be it inside or outside. If the fire was on purpose, maybe it was to flush him out; still would be a very dangerous situation. Looks like the best possible outcome. Suspect is stopped with no further police casualties.

The rest still holds true. I'm not going to arm chair quarterback on the internet for men who were in a life or death situation and had already taken casualties. The officers stopped his rampage quickly, while keeping a fairly low body count for what it could have been. Maybe it could have been prettier and more PC-friendly, but they got the job done.
 
Vanya said:
Historically, the LAPD has been the "the international poster child for police abuse and corruption in the 1990s in cases ranging from the beating of Rodney King to the trial of O.J. Simpson."
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Not just the LAPD but they have been at the forefront.

See the Mollen Commission, the Christopher Commission, the Knapp Commission, and the Rampart Division Investigations.

In ‘The Development of the American Police: An Historical Overview’, Craig Uchida notes that "If there is a common theme that can be used to characterize the police in the 19th Century, it is the large-scale corruption that occurred in most police departments across the United States" (Uchida, 1993).

In ‘Forces of Deviance: Understanding the Dark Side of Policing’, Kappeler, Sluder, and Alpert point out that corruption among police is not new or peculiar to the late 20th century. "To study the history of police is to study police deviance, corruption and misconduct." (Kappeler et al., 1994.)
 
JimDandy, I think you are confusing your Eastwood movies. High Plains Drifter wasn't in the trilogy; the rape that occurs there involves the ghost of a murdered sheriff, who exacts varying forms of revenge on the townsfolk who allowed or caused his death.

OK, back to the thread.

P1090, assuming he had a .50 rifle, the determining factor would not only be its potential range. Bear in mind this was a heavily wooded area. Line of sight would not be long, so now you are talking about un-aimed fire through dense trees. Again, the cordon could have been pulled back, and barricades could have easily been put in place (sand bags or HESCO barriers brought in by truck, or berms raised by armored bulldozers). Remote sensors could have been left in place closer to the cabin, or aerial sensors employed from overhead.

Dorner was not going anywhere.

The tactics used, based on the results and the radio transcripts, were not intended to effect an arrest. They were intended to result in a kill, no matter what.

Do we have all the facts? No. But the prima facie evidence indicates an intention to commit murder; if these were private citizens, and not cops, they would be arrested even in a Stand Your Ground state.

Would they be convicted? Perhaps not. But they would be arrested.
 
A man that shot and killed 8 people in Appomattox, Va in 2010 was sentenced yesterday. The reason I mention this man, Christopher Speight, is because seeing he was sentenced reminded me of the way he was captured.

Long story short, this guy shot members of his family and friends of his family. The police arrived and had him "surrounded" in a wooded area. During the time they had him surrounded, he managed to shoot the state police helicopter forcing it to land. Anyway, the police set up a perimeter around the wooded area and waited. The next morning, a man walk up from *outside* of the perimeter and stood with the police and a roadblock. The police decided to tell the guy to leave, the guy said "I could have killed you all if I wanted to" or something to that effect.

My point being, setting up a secure perimeter in a wooded area is not as easy as it sounds. It was going to be dark soon at that cabin and trying to contain this nutball was going to get more difficult.

That is not to say the police were correct in their actions, it is only to say that setting up a secure perimeter before night fell in a wooded area might not be as easy as it sounds.
 
jimpeel said:
In ‘Forces of Deviance: Understanding the Dark Side of Policing’, Kappeler, Sluder, and Alpert point out that corruption among police is not new or peculiar to the late 20th century. "To study the history of police is to study police deviance, corruption and misconduct." (Kappeler et al., 1994.)
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Well, yes. In particular, the racist, corrupt culture of the LAPD dates from long before the Rodney King incident.

I grew up in Los Angeles in the '50's and '60's. The corruption, and especially the racism, of the police force were facts of life. The zoot riots of the '40s, and the police response to them (in which officers stood by as white servicemen assaulted blacks and Hispanics, and then arrested hundreds of the victims), were recent memories, and I was there during the Watts riots in 1965 (a reaction against police racism and brutality), when Chief Parker famously described the people in Watts as acting like "monkeys in the zoo."

It was common knowledge at that time that one of the main functions of the LAPD was to keep "those people" in particular geographic areas (South Central and East LA), and that they turned a blind eye to drug trafficking in those districts, as a way of keeping the residents pacified and under control.

It's a pity that after 8 years of Federal oversight brought on by these and subsequent problems, the underlying culture doesn't seem to have changed all that much.
 
It was common knowledge at that time that one of the main functions of the LAPD was to keep "those people" in particular geographic areas (South Central and East LA), and that they turned a blind eye to drug trafficking in those districts, as a way of keeping the residents pacified and under control.
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IIRC, every time someone from those areas was arrested for drug trafficking, the PD was hit with discrimination lawsuits? They were attacked for trying to enforce the law and now attacked for not enforcing it???

If the PD could not figure out a way to contain one bad guy in a cabin that did not have any power for the night, then they have more important issues to deal with.

I think the PD is no better than Dorner in this situation
 
Originally posted by MLeake

Dorner was not going anywhere.

The tactics used, based on the results and the radio transcripts, were not intended to effect an arrest. They were intended to result in a kill, no matter what.

Do we have all the facts? No. But the prima facie evidence indicates an intention to commit murder; if these were private citizens, and not cops, they would be arrested even in a Stand Your Ground state.

Would they be convicted? Perhaps not. But they would be arrested.
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^^^^ YES

Dorner may not have survived but the angry cops made sure he couldn't. I do not doubt Dorner's guilt. To me, the guilt of the angry cops is beyond a shadow of a doubt.
 
I don't understand all the concern for someone who murdered at least two innocent people and threatened more. He was making a stand in the house and the fire was used. He could have come out hands up. Instead he shot himself in the head. He didn't burn alive.

Argue police tactics all you want. It's easy to second guess those who are in combat. Politicians do it all the time.

He got what he deserved.:mad:
 
We, or at least I, am not second guessing whether Dorner forfeited his right to life. But I have questions and concerns about how things ended up where they did.

Can you honestly tell me you don't hope or assume they knew beyond doubt:

He was alone.

It really was him in there.

They did give him a chance to get out before fire closed off the exit.

They would have taken him alive had he come out.

The "Burner" brand tear gas they were using wouldn't start a fire they couldn't control if some form of take him alive order came down from on high?

I've listed questions of this type before in this thread. I'm not saying Dorner shouldn't be fried, but as someone else said two wrongs don't make a right, and I want to know if they added a second wrong here. I want an uninvolved party to do an investigation. I want them to answer the questions we all have, no matter our opinion of Dorner himself, on the conduct and tempered justice with mercy provided by the officers involved. For future reference, bullet to the head or burn to death is not tempering justice with mercy.

I'd also like to point out that if your best answer is they were just "fighting fire with fire" euphamistically- i.e. that Dorner was military and police rules handicap them.. aren't the good guys supposed to be "Better" than the bad guys? Isn't "stooping" to their level a bad thing?
 
JimPage, part of my career was spent doing collateral damage estimation, and threat identification.

So spare me the theatrical references to politicians, thanks.

Edit: While you are at it, last I saw, he allegedly killed four, not two. The retired captain's daughter and her fiance, a Riverside cop, and a San Bernardino deputy.

Nobody is crying over Dorner. The issue is the manner in which the police conducted their operation, and the potential for repeats of the same. After all, in a way this one was just a repeat of MOVE and Branch Dravidian, no?
 
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