The sad case of Christopher Dorner
Posted on February 13th, 2013 –
I know that this is completely out off the “Toronto”, “City”, “Life” categories, but as you may probably know from reading this blog, social justice and abuse of police powers weigh pretty heavy on my heart.
So it was with dismay and disbelief that I watched US news networks last night vilify and outright lie about Christopher Dorner during his final hours in San Bernardino County, Los Angeles.
The fact of the matter is that Dorner was one of the last few good cops left, a guy who believed in justice and law, a guy who saw the ranks of his fellow law-enforcers filled with racists, liars, and the kinds of criminal scum that not only should be behind bars for a very long time, but should also never be allowed to carry guns and badges and be allowed to call themselves “justice”.
How Dorner went about bringing attention to the criminality he witnessed was misguided and, as he himself realized, ultimately doomed. He knew that the media would demonize him, focusing on his actions and completely ignoring or even misrepresenting the reasons behind them. The fact that he killed police officers is and was presented as valid justification for his assassination but his own recollections of police brutality and murder perpetrated on civilians (resulting with him being fired from the force instead), are hardly mentioned, if at all, except by “fringe lunatics” like me who believe people, regardless of their position in life, should be held to account for their actions. That means a fair and open trial in front of a non-corrupted judge, and ending with incarceration if found guilty.
To make matters worse, I was listening to police scanners live as his cabin was being raided and comparing it to what TV news was reporting, and the amount of misinformation and just outright lies was stunning to witness first-hand. There were reports coming over the dispatch, for example, of police putting a “burner(s)” in place, setting it / them off, shouting “Burn this motherfucker!”, calling for the fire department, and then raiding the cabin. The news, on the other hand, was speculating about why Dorner was setting his cabin on fire (or they’re probably smoke or “flash-bang” grenades set of by the loving police who only want to take him alive if at all possible), and debating why he would be shooting off ammunition (as he was being burned alive).
(Incidentally, I assisted Max Blumenthal, one of the few non-official sources, and one of the few to question the official story, to reconnect to the police scanner feeds when they were taken offline):
Did big media not know what was going on? How was it that some schmuck in Toronto knew exactly what was happening, and they didn’t? Is it possible that they’re so completely incompetent that they couldn’t tune into the publicly available police scanners (RadioReference.com, if you’re interested), to monitor the situation, or is it more likely that they were busy spinning and manipulating the story while it was happening? After all, it’s one thing to simply not report on what’s happening (as the police were demanding of everyone, including Twitter and Facebook users), but it’s something else entirely to spout off plain old lies and misinformation, backed up with so many “experts” waiting on hand to bring validity to it all.
I’m genuinely sorry for Mr. Dorner, his family, and the people who’s lives he took (assuming one buys official reports, all of which are currently unproven accusations). None of it would’ve happened if the police he was surrounded by weren’t such rotten criminals, if the media and the agencies responsible for keeping them in check weren’t in direct collusion, and if justice, truth, and the law prevailed. Will anyone bother to look into the upper echelons that Dorner directly accused of the highest corruption, or will their criminality be buried even deeper? It’s tragic that Mr. Dorner felt he had to resort to such drastic actions just to be heard, and more tragic still that even now the demonization of those who would stand up for the truth would be carried out so viciously. And before you remind me that none of Dorner’s allegations have ever been proven, I’ll remind you that Dorner was also never tried in a court of law before the cops decided it’d be more expedient just to kill him on the spot, and that big media haven’t raised on iota of criticism.
I guess George Orwell was right … in a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act.
If you consider yourself a “revolutionary” by this standard, you’ll probably also be interested to hear the police dispatch from San Bernardino County. I took the liberty of recording a number of channels live, as it was happening. Contrast what you hear against what the “news” are busy pumping out even today.
Unfortunately, I haven’t had a chance to arrange the audio files so they’re somewhat scattered, but here is what actually happened last night, along with Dorner’s own words in what big media love to term his “manifesto” (because, don’t you know, all the crazies have one):
... with pictures
... with sounds
... with videos
... with opinions
... that's shorter
... that's longer
February 14th, 2013 8:10 am
It’s the $1-million reward that threw me. How often does any police force offer a $1-million reward? Not very, I suspect. But the optics say ‘because it was us -the cops- who were Dorner’s targets, we REALLY want to get this guy’. What if the intended victim or victims were L.A. street people? Would the reward be $1-million? I think not. Maybe t’s time to modify the motto from To Serve And Protect to To Serve And Protect Us First.
February 14th, 2013 8:37 am
Excellent point, Daniel. These kinds of rewards hardly pop up when civilians are being murdered. But then again, being a “cop killer” is branded as the worst kind of killer, while being a “killer cop” tends to hardly raise eyebrows among the ranks. I’ve talked about why this is so upside-down and perverse, but just the simple fact that they have guns and “authority” means they should be held to a higher legal standard, not none at all. This particular case was especially interesting because now it’s cops versus cops — that thin blue line isn’t even there anymore.