Former Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) and ex US Navy Reservist, Officer Christopher Dorner died, apparently by his own hand on February 12 2013, in a blazing mountain cabin set on fire by surrounding police after a gun battle lasting several hours. Variously described by the media as ‘rogue’, ‘insane’ and ‘revenge-seeking’, Dorner had allegedly killed two police officers, two civilians with a police connection and wounded two more officers. Thousands of police officers spent days searching for the ex-cop in an unprecedented manhunt extending through California, surrounding states and Mexico, with a reward of $1 million.
Early on, it became clear that LAPD wanted Dorner dead rather than alive. On February 7, in Torrance, LAPD officers shot-up a blue Toyota Tacoma, which they believed to belong to Dorner, wounding 71 year old Emma Hernandez in the back and showering 47 year old Margie Carranza with shrapnel and flying glass. Dorner’s truck was grey; the two women were working, delivering newspapers. Vehicles belonging to nearby residents were left with bullet holes and some even penetrated surrounding houses, forcing occupants to seek cover – when they called the emergency number 911, they were reassured that police were already on the scene! A block away, a white surfer (Donner was black) had his truck rammed by police cars and shot up, leaving him with a concussion and shoulder injuries. A number of other innocent civilians were shot at, and some 400 warrantless searches carried out.
If Dorner was insane, then the LAPD drove him to insanity: ‘I am a man who has lost complete faith in the system, when the system betrayed me, slandered and libeled me’, he wrote in an online manifesto he left behind. Dorner had reported his training officer, Teresa Evans, for kicking a mentally ill homeless man. A subsequent hearing, with a panel composed of people with links to Evans, exonerated her and terminated Dorner for lying. After exhausting subsequent appeals Dorner announced to the world that he was taking matters into his own hands: ‘You’re going to see what a whistleblower can do when you take everything from him … Self preservation is no longer important to me … I was told by my mother that sometimes bad things happen to good people. I refuse to accept that. … I am here to correct and calibrate your morale [sic] compasses to true north.… The attacks will stop when the department states the truth about my innocence … Let the balance of loss of life take place. Sometimes a reset needs to occur. … I have nothing to lose. … I will bring unconventional and asymmetrical warfare to those in LAPD uniform whether on or off duty.’
However, Dorner’s motivation was not purely selfish: ‘From 2/05 to 1/09 I saw some of the most vile things humans can inflict on others as a police officer in Los Angeles. Unfortunately, it wasn’t in the streets of LA. It was in the confounds [sic] of LAPD police stations and shops (cruisers) [cars – SP]. The enemy combatants in LA are not the citizens and suspects, it’s the police officers.’ Dorner lifted the lid a little and gave us a glimpse inside the racist terrorizing LAPD where officers cheerfully engage in racist abuse and brutality without sanction. In fact, as Dorner shows in his manifesto, it is the innocent who get punished and the guilty who are promoted. The vicious videotaped beating of Rodney King in 1991 triggered massive rioting and Federal prosecutions of officers involved. The subsequent Christopher Commission Report revealed major management failures in the handling of complaints of brutality. The Ramparts investigation in 1999-2000 exposed unprovoked beatings and shootings, planting of false evidence, framing of suspects, narcotics stealing and dealing, bank robbery and perjury by officers in the LAPD. Yet ‘those officers involved in the Rampart scandal and Rodney King incidents have since [been] promoted to supervisor, commanders, and command staff, and executive positions.’ Dorner adds details of his own personal experiences of racism and brutality within the department. If Dorner was insane, then the conduct of LAPD drove him mad.
When Dorner’s manifesto surfaced, it hit a raw nerve within the Los Angeles community – Angelenos, especially black and Latino, but of all colours, have widespread experience of LAPD’s true behaviour. Signs appeared on vehicles: ‘Run Dorner, Run’. T-shirts with the slogan ‘Don’t shoot – I’m not Chris Dorner’ went on sale. Social media erupted, with many posting their videos of police brutality under Dorner’s Twitter hashtag. Dorner’s fight against injustice had become politicised, threatening the ‘rogue cop’ narrative. Dorner had to go, to protect the department from renewed inspection, to preserve individual reputations and to deter any thought by other officers of going public with the true nature of the LAPD and to criminalize a political issue.
Yet, however noble Dorner’s personal motivation might have been, his fight was inevitably quixotic because he tried to solve the problem individually. As Dorner’s manifesto shows, the issues he faced personally were not the fault of a few individuals, but part of a much larger problem of endemic police brutality, corruption and racism: a social problem which needs a social and political solution. This kind of police behaviour is not simply an organizational problem, but is essential to imperialism which needs to terrorize and criminalize the poor and oppressed in order to maintain its domination. The fight against it needs a movement which starts from the fight against imperialism.
Steve Palmer
