During Dave Chappelle’s new free comedy special, “8:46”, the comedian brings up former LAPD officer Christopher Dorner.
Dorner was a United States Navy Reserve officer who was honorably discharged as a lieutenant in 2013. However, after becoming a Los Angeles police officer he began getting fed up with the system of policing.
Dorner filed a complaint that another officer had kicked a handcuffed, mentally ill man in the head and chest during an arrest outside a hotel. However, he sat before a Board of Rights hearing in December 2008, accused of making the story up.
Dorner was deemed a liar and fired.
Then beginning on February 3, 2013, he committed a series of shootings in Orange County, Los Angeles County, and Riverside County, California.
The victims were police and other civilians, including police families. Dorner killed four people and wounded three others. On February 12, 2013, Dorner died during a standoff with San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Deputies after a shootout at a cabin in the San Bernardino Mountains.
A lengthy manifesto posted by Dorner on Facebook declared “unconventional and asymmetric warfare” upon the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD), their families, and their associates, unless the LAPD admitted publicly he was fired in retaliation for reporting excessive force.
In His Own Words
“How do you know when a police officer is lying??? When he begins his sentence with, “based on my experience and training,” Dorner writes.
“No one grows up and wants to be a cop killer. It was against everything I’ve ever was. As a young police explorer I found my calling in life. But, As a young police officer I found that the violent suspects on the street are not the only people you have to watch. It is the officer who was hired on to the department (pre-2000) before polygraphs were standard for all new hires and a substantial vetting in a background investigation.
“To those children of the officers who are eradicated, your parent was not the individual you thought they were. As you get older,you will see the evidence that your parent was a tyrant who loss their ethos and instead followed the path of moral corruptness.
“They conspired to hide and suppress the truth of misconduct on others behalf’s. Your parent will have a name and plaque on the fallen officers memorial in D.C. But, In all honesty, your parents name will be a reminder to other officers to maintain the oath they swore and to stay along the shoreline that has guided them from childhood to that of a local, state, or federal law enforcement officer.”
Donner felt like a crusader against the system and became a vigilante in the process. Death of any “innocent” can never be condoned. However, Christopher Donner’s death is a teachable lesson during a time when the policing of our nation is being considered for extreme rehabilitation.
