Dennis RomeroCops were on the lookout tonight for Christopher Jordan Dorner, a disgraced ex-LAPD officer who left a note stating that the shocking Irvine murders of Monica Quan and fiancé Keith Lawrence were retaliation for her father's role in his firing from the department, police said tonight.
Retired LAPD Capt. Randy Quan was a source of his firing and thus had to pay, the suspect allegedly wrote:
I never had the opportunity to have a family of my own. I'm terminating yours …
City News Service reported tonight that elite LAPD Metropolitan Division officers, who also make up the department's SWAT teams, were dispatched to protect some of those mentioned in the threatening “manifesto.”
The 20-page document says Dorner had allegedly taken “drastic and shocking” actions because he was “innocent” vis-a-vis his firing.
Credit: Monica Quan
Among those mentioned in the note, says the Los Angeles Times, are officers and commanders active in the department.
An LAPD spokesman had no comment on the special deployment, saying that a ranking official would hold a news conference at 9:30 outside LAPD headquarters.
Dorner was fired in 2008 after he was accused of making false statements about his training officer, says the Times.
He has a blue 2005 Nissan Titan pickup with a license plate 7X03191 and is considered armed and dangerous, Irvine cops said in a statement tonight. He lives in La Palma. Update: Police as of Thursday morning report that Dorner probably switched plates on his gray Nissan Titan with a ski rack on top. Throughout California, freeway Amber Alerts were flashing “Call 911” if you see a Titan pickup with California license plate number 8D83987W.
The couple, 28-year-old Quan, a basketball coach, and 27-year-old USC public safety officer Lawrence, were found slain in a vehicle in the parking garage of their Irvine condo complex Sunday night.
O.C. law enforcement and coroner's officials said today the pair died of multiple gunshot wounds.
If you've seen Dorner, African American, 6 feet, 270, and possibly driving the vehicle described above, call 911 or Irvine police: 949-724-7192.
[Added at 9:05 p.m.]: LAPD Chief Charlie Beck is among those receiving “extra protection” as a result of the manifesto, KCAL News reports.
[Added at 9:28 p.m.]: We found part of the alleged manifesto, still cached on Google:
I never had the opportunity to have a family of my own, I'm terminating yours. [Redacted names] and BOR members. Look your wives/husbands and surviving children directly in the face and tell them the truth …
BOR apparently refers to Board of Review.
[Added at 9:45 p.m.]: The LAPD canceled its news conference, deciding to issue a statement instead. The statement acknowledges threats against some of its personnel and says …
… Dorner is to be considered armed and extremely dangerous.
[Added at 10:29 p.m.]: We took down a embedded window to the manifesto at the request of the LAPD, which is concerned for the safety of those named in the document. We're keeping some of the quotes from it, above, but taking out the names.
[Added at 10:33 p.m. Wednesday]: Here's another key part of the LAPD's statement tonight:
The Department has learned that Christopher Dorner has made threats against members of the LAPD and we are taking those threats very seriously as we do all threats against our personnel and the public. Our Department is implementing all measures possible to ensure the safety of our LAPD personnel, their families and the Los Angeles Community, and will continue to do so until Dorner is apprehended and all threats have been abated.
[Added 10:35 a.m. Thursday] Here are the dead and wounded victims so far in the largest manhunt in memory in California as suspected cop-gunman Dorner continues to evade authorities, killing and injuring as he goes:
According to City News Service, late last night and early this morning, all hell broke loose from Torrance to Riverside County:
A press conference about Dorner at LAPD headquarters.; Credit: Ted Soqui for LA Weekly
A Riverside police officer was shot to death today and another was wounded in an ambush that police believe was committed by Christopher Jordan Dorner, the fired Los Angeles Police Department officer wanted for the revenge slayings of a college basketball coach and her fiance in Irvine, authorities said.
The gunman, who fled after shooting, ambushed the two Riverside officers while they were stopped at a red light, said Riverside police Lt. Guy Toussaint, adding that the two were on “routine patrol'' and were not searching for Dorner at the time. The shooting occurred near Magnolia and Arlington avenues around 1:20 a.m. The wounded Riverside officer was undergoing surgery this morning, Toussaint said.
Before that tragic attack, Dorner allegedly aimed his gun and fired at two Newton Station LAPD officers in Corona, who were assigned to protect someone named on the eerie hit-list Dorner published in his Facebook manifesto, officials said.
As reported by City News Service:
… a shootout in Corona also believed to have involved Dorner left a Los Angeles police officer with a graze wound to the head but his partner was not hurt, police said. The two officers are assigned to the LAPD's Newton Station, said Newton Station Sgt. Ike Ornelas.
According to the LAPD, the attack in Corona occurred near the Magnolia Avenue exit from northbound Interstate 15. The officers had gone to Corona to protect someone named as a potential target by Dorner, a U.S. Navy reservist whose last known address was in the 4900 block of Sharon Drive in La Palma.
Police are posted outside LAPD headquarters today.; Credit: Ted Soqui for LA Weekly
The killings and shootings and Dorner's vow to kill numerous LAPD police and others has left police trigger-nervous.
LAPD officers this morning mistakenly shot at two women in Torrance innocently trying to deliver newspapers in the predawn hours. One of the paper delivery women was shot in the hand and the other in the back, according to Jesse Escochea, who captured video of the victims being treated.
LAPD Chief Charlie Beck told reporters today, “Tragically, we believe this was a case of mistaken identity by the officers.”
Early reports indicate a team of perhaps overly keyed-up cops may have been protecting a neighborhood in which Dorner was believed to have fled, or in which Dorner was believed to be targeting another victim.
According to the Los Angeles Times:
Two women who were shot by Los Angeles police in Torrance early Thursday during a massive manhunt for an ex-LAPD officer were delivering newspapers, sources said. The women, shot in the 19500 block of Redbeam Avenue, were taken to area hospitals, Torrance police Lt. Devin Chase said. They were not identified. One was shot in the hand and the other in the back, according to Jesse Escochea, who captured video of the victims being treated.
It was not immediately known what newspapers the women were delivering. After the shooting, the blue pickup was riddled with bullet holes and what appeared to be newspapers lay in the street alongside.
Another indication of the extreme tensions among law enforcement, from LAPD to FBI, in what is shaping up as the biggest manhunt in California memory and perhaps history, was a nervous but inaccurate report that Dorner was holed up in a barricaded hotel in Point Loma near San Diego.
[Added at 11:11 am Thursday] How has Dorner has eluded huge teams of local and federal law enforcement as they (almost certainly) wield high-end anti-terrorist and surveillance technology such as roving cameras atop police cars that photograph every car license they pass by — and feed it into a sophisticated computer system?
At his packed press conference a short time ago, LAPD Chief Charlie Beck responded to one reporter's question: “Of course he knows what he's doing. We trained him.”
[Added at noon Thursday]: Some of the action is centered now on San Diego, near Naval Base Point Loma, after San Diego police said this morning that a man believed to be Dorner tried to steal a vessel from an 81-year-old man at the Southwestern Yacht Club about 10:30 p.m. Wednesday.
When the heavyset black man couldn't start the boat's engine, some reports said, the elderly man was tied up and allowed to live.
In a huge search of the area, local and federal authorities found an eerie cache of Dorner's personal items: The bold Dorner apparently threw his wallet and disgraced LAPD badge in a Dumpster close to Civic Center Drive and Roosevelt Avenue — directly behind the National City Police Department.
About 9:40 a.m. police an active-duty sailor at Naval Base Point Loma alerted cops that a man matching Dorner's description was on the base, while yet another person thought he saw Dorner at a nearby Holiday Inn.
In an extremely rare development, a perimeter was set up around the locked-down naval base as a manhunt descended on the area.
The San Diego UT newspaper reports:
Greg Pruitt, 36, of Portland, said he had just flown into San Diego with his boss when he was mistaken for the suspect.
He was sitting in his rental car when he several saw officers pointing guns at him yelling to put his hands up. He was ordered out of the car and to the ground where he was handcuffed.
Dorner was honorably discharged from the Navy reserves and would have an official identification, which is how he was able to gain access to the base, the official said.
Cops say Dorner worked at the LAPD from Feb. 7 2002 to September 4, 2008, when he was “terminated.”
Tomorrow is the anniversary of his hiring.
Note: If you have personal knowledge of Dorner that could help, please contact police immediately. If you know those who have died or been injured in this tragic crime, please leave your Comments below.
[Added at 1:25 p.m. Thursday]: A burned-out pickup matching the one cops believe Dorner has been driving was found this afternoon in Big Bear, authorities told the Weekly.
It's not yet clear if that's his vehicle, but cops are searching the area and reportedly put an area school on lock-down.
[@dennisjromero / djromero@laweekly.com / @LAWeeklyNews]
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