Search for fugitive ex-cop sets region on edge

GILLIAN FLACCUS

TAMI ABDOLLAH

Asso­ci­ated Press

IRVINE, Calif. — A heavy police pres­ence blocked off a street in a typ­i­cally quiet South­ern Cal­i­for­nia sub­urb Sun­day, as res­i­dents adjusted to life in the midst of a sprawl­ing man­hunt for a fugi­tive whose police and mil­i­tary back­ground and vit­ri­olic online man­i­festo has put the region on high-alert.

Police are work­ing to pro­tect dozens of fam­i­lies con­sid­ered tar­gets based on Christo­pher Dorner’s Face­book rant against those he held respon­si­ble for end­ing his career with the Los Ange­les Police Depart­ment five years ago.

Dorner, 33, is sus­pected of killing three peo­ple, includ­ing one police offi­cer, and on the fourth day of the man­hunt, author­i­ties put up a $1 mil­lion reward for infor­ma­tion lead­ing to his capture.

“We will not tol­er­ate this reign of ter­ror,” said LA Mayor Anto­nio Villaraigosa.

After days with­out res­o­lu­tion, Dorner’s fugi­tive sta­tus caused con­cern among some and down­right fear among oth­ers in the upscale com­mu­nity that the FBI con­sis­tently ranks among the safest cities in the U.S.

“If he did come around this cor­ner, what could hap­pen? We’re in the cross­fire, with the cops right there,” said Irvine res­i­dent Joe Pala­cio, who lives down the street from a home sur­rounded by author­i­ties pro­tect­ing a police cap­tain men­tioned in Dorner’s posting.

“I do think about where I would put my fam­ily,” he said. “Would we call 911? Would we hide in the closet?”

The neigh­bor­hood has been flooded with author­i­ties since Wednes­day. Res­i­dents have seen police heli­copters cir­cle and cruis­ers stake out schools. Some have responded by keep­ing their chil­dren home. Oth­ers no longer walk their dogs at night.

Dorner’s back­ground added to the anx­i­ety. The for­mer LAPD offi­cer also served in the Navy, earn­ing a rifle marks­man rib­bon and a pis­tol expert medal. He was assigned to a naval under­sea war­fare unit and var­i­ous avi­a­tion train­ing units, accord­ing to mil­i­tary records. In his online man­i­festo, Dorner vowed to use “every bit of small arms train­ing, demo­li­tion, ord­nance and sur­vival train­ing I’ve been given” to bring “war­fare” to the LAPD and its families.

As tense Irvine res­i­dents went on with their lives, police looked into a taunt­ing phone call to the father of the woman they believe Dorner killed last week.

Two law enforce­ment offi­cers who requested anonymity because of the ongo­ing inves­ti­ga­tion told The Asso­ci­ated Press they are try­ing to deter­mine whether Dorner made the call telling retired police Capt. Ran­dal Quan that he should have done a bet­ter job pro­tect­ing his daughter.

The bod­ies of Mon­ica Quan and her fiance were found shot dead last Sun­day in Irvine, mark­ing the start of the high-profile case.

Things esca­lated early Thurs­day morn­ing, when police say Dorner got into a shootout with police in Corona, graz­ing an LAPD officer’s head with a bul­let before escap­ing. Author­i­ties believe he then used a rifle to ambush two River­side police offi­cers, killing one and seri­ously wound­ing the other.

About 65 miles away, the man­hunt con­tin­ued in the San Bernardino moun­tains near the ski resort town of Big Bear, where author­i­ties found Dorner’s burned out pickup truck Thurs­day. Police have since said they dis­cov­ered weapons and camp­ing gear inside the vehicle.

The search scaled down as the week­end went on, but a heli­copter with heat-seeking tech­nol­ogy scanned the area as two-dozen offi­cers went back to some of the 600 cab­ins they ear­lier vis­ited door to door.

With lit­tle appar­ent evi­dence point­ing to Dorner’s where­abouts, wor­ri­some ques­tions emerged: How long could the intense search be sus­tained? And, if Dorner coun­ties to evade cap­ture, how do author­i­ties pro­tect dozens of for­mer police col­leagues whom he has pub­licly targeted?

LAPD Cmdr. Andrew Smith said the depart­ment has deployed 50 pro­tec­tion details to guard offi­cers and their fam­i­lies who are deemed tar­gets in Dorner’s manifesto.

“It can’t be one guy with a gun in a liv­ing room,” Smith said, sug­gest­ing that more offi­cers would be nec­es­sary to keep fam­i­lies safe.

The depart­ment, how­ever, is look­ing for ways to econ­o­mize if the search for Dorner stretches on, whether it’s reduc­ing the num­bers of offi­cers assigned to the tar­gets or some­thing else, he said.

There were no plans to reduce pro­tec­tions until Dorner was in cus­tody, said Los Ange­les police Sgt. Rudy Lopez.

As long as Dorner’s where­abouts are unknown, the police depart­ment must pro­vide pro­tec­tion to those named in his rant, said Chuck Drago, a Florida-based police consultant.

If the search drags on, the LAPD will likely find safe houses for the tar­geted indi­vid­u­als, much as they would for wit­ness pro­tec­tion par­tic­i­pants, instead of post­ing offi­cers out­side their homes, he said.

“We real­ize it costs money and it gets expen­sive, but this is as clear of a threat as you can get,” Drago said. “We know that if he’s able to get to these tar­gets then he’s prob­a­bly able to hurt them. The money is always an issue but not when it’s somebody’s life at stake.”

LAPD remains on mod­i­fied tac­ti­cal alert, respond­ing only to pri­or­ity calls and not to those for lesser issues such as pub­lic intox­i­ca­tion or busi­ness disputes.

Author­i­ties Sun­day morn­ing had six cars pro­tect­ing Capt. Phil Tin­giri­des, who chaired a dis­ci­pli­nary panel that stripped Dorner of his badge. Black and white police cruis­ers were posted on each end of his street and four more were parked out­side his home. At least a half-dozen offi­cers were vis­i­bly stand­ing guard.

Mean­while Pala­cio, who has to nav­i­gate the heavy police pres­ence to get to and from his home, said his fam­ily is try­ing to keep rou­tines normal.

“Life goes on,” he said, “and we’re doing our thing.”

Posted by AP News on Feb 10 2013. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Comments can be made below.