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Subscribe to RSSSan Bernardino County (Calif.) Sheriff's Department officials describe the series of events that led up to their armed confrontation with Christopher Dorner.
Christopher Dorner, the former LAPD police officer who carried out a vengeful rampage against his fellow ex-cops and others, died of a single, self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head at the end of an intense firefight with police in rural Big Bear, Calif., authorities said Friday.
At a late-afternoon news conference, San Bernardino County authorities said that the cause of death was determined by an autopsy conducted Thursday by the county Coroner’s Office.
Authorities had been unsure whether Dorner killed himself, had been struck by a deputy's bullet or had died in a fire that engulfed the cabin during the shootout. The coroner's finding still must be finalized.
In their most detailed account to date of the final days and hours of the hunt for Dorner, 33, San Bernardino County sheriff’s officials said they tried to force the suspect to surrender before accidentally setting the cabin where he was holed up on fire when they shot a pyrotechnic chemical device inside.
Sheriff John McMahon also detailed the extent of the arsenal that Dorner had with him in his final days, which he spent eluding searchers in the mountainous area east of Los Angeles. Among the items recovered from the cabin where Dorner died and other locations and vehicles were numerous assault weapons; semiautomatic handguns; a .308-caliber, bolt-action sniper rifle; high-capacity ammunition magazines; a total of 10 suppressors or silencers; tear gas and smoke canisters; a military-style load-bearing vest; and a military-style Kevlar helmet, he said.
The sheriff also confirmed that Dorner spent most of his time on the run hiding in a condominium just steps away from the command center set up to find him. He said deputies had visited the unit, which was locked, on the evening of Feb. 7, but received no answer when they knocked on the door and then moved on.
Robyn Beck / AFP - Getty Images
Christopher Dorner
“It was locked and nobody answered,” he said. “… We were not going to kick the doors in.”
Sheriff’s Capt. Gregg Herbert also elaborated on the tactics used during the confrontation with Dorner at the cabin in the Seven Oaks area, saying that when deputies responded to the scene they noticed tracks in the snow in front of the cabin where Dorner had taken refuge. As Deputy Alex Collins, Detective Jeremiah Mackay and other officers were conversing in the street in an attempt to devise a plan to check on the cabin, Dorner opened fire on them, striking both deputies multiple times, Hebert said. The other deputies returned fire, and dodged an onslaught of bullets to get to the injured officers and drag them out of the line of fire, he said.
MacKay died later at an area hospital; Collins remains hospitalized after undergoing multiple surgeries. Dorner died hours later inside the cabin, after he and law enforcement officers exchanged hundreds of rounds.
Police had been seeking Dorner since last week, when they say he launched a deadly revenge campaign against the Los Angeles Police Department over his 2009 firing.
Related story
Police chief named in manifesto recalls 'the Chris Dorner that I knew'
Before launching his onslaught, he posted a rambling 1,400-word manifesto on Facebook in which he allegedly wrote that killing was “a necessary evil” to avenge his firing and also threatened other law enforcement officers and their families.
Before killing the deputy in the San Bernardino mountains, Dorner is suspected of slaying a couple in Irvine and a police officer in Riverside.
“Self Preservation is no longer important to me,” he wrote in the manifesto, a copy of which was made available to the media by authorities. “I do not fear death as I died long ago on 1/2/09.”
Leave a Comment:
Wthe phuck
Hired
The pyschotic looking as--hole Sheriff
In the photo with this article
He has to keep his uniform on
AT ALL TIMES
To keep from getting shot as a crazy idiot he looks like
Whatever happened to all those people
Shot by cops during their professional search fo Dorner.
Dat look like hims truck.Fire!!.
Oh sh-t it was two innocent women delivering newspapers.
Da white guy in a gray truck! Shot.
Anyone HEAR ANYTHING ABOUT THEM ?
Their condition ? How much the civilians of BROKE CALIFORNIA
Are going to have to pay
For their the cops STUPIDITY
It amazes how many ignorant people defend the cowardly actions of this individual. At least he was honorable enough to kill himself.
Sh-t For Brains
shooting cops
who are and have the ability to shoot you
you say is cowardly
compare to an as--hole shooting little kids
I say
is cowardly
I say Audie Murphy and Alvin York and people
such as these are HEROS
u probably think pain mccain
who bombed innocent civilians and got his dumb-as- shot down
is ure hero
Ah, been ignorant is bliss! Doner was the biggest coward, plain and simple! Sorry your hero is dead! Ignorant POS!
"before accidentally setting the cabin where he was holed up on fire when they shot a pyrotechnic chemical device inside."
They burned him alive ON PURPOSE and they are STILL crooks and murderers if you really rile them. I wouldn't live in L.A. to save my life .... Amazing. And this is going to gradually spread all over the country because of the law enforcement officer mentality of total aggressiveness ....
One day , it's going to be the whole town against the sherrif's department a la new orleans. I wonder how that will be spun at the time ....
LEO's ... stand down and don't be so aggressive. You are DANGEROUS to the public with all your aggression.
Obviously you have never had to depend on a police officer to assist you! Russia is always open to new citizens!
I have it on extremely reliable souces that the San Bernardino Sheriffs refused to allow FBI swat to handle the situation and decided to do it Wild West Style. This all goes back to the top of the chain where setting guidlines and procedures policy with adequate training on handling situations falls to. Dorner accomplished nothing except hurting the wrong people and pointing out what a woefully unprepared Law Enforcement community we have.
Reliable Source? Do tell!!!!!
Gutless faggot. It would've been better if one of the victims' family did the job. Who cares how they got to him . Bomb him w/ a military jet for all I care
The police get scrutinized for what they do. Same with the military. Thank God it was not this way in World War II. No way would the Normandy invasion had worked. The media would have had it on the air days before it ever happened. "Mr. Churchhill, is it true that allied troops are preparing to land in France?" And afterward the investigations would go on forever to make sure the guys who hit the beach had not not brutalized any of the enemy troops. The police and the military would do well to have a policy of just not giving any news releases period.
Nobody seems to notice that there are a lot of "suicides" when democraps are in office.
There are many reasons, not to make sense at all, from the beginning. We keep hearing different stories about Christopher Dorner, the former LAPD police officer.
Deathman cannot tell story and only winners write history book.
The Police are bad cops in LAPD... they created the victim they bullied.
then the person they bullied snapped like all other bullied victims... its human nature, even animals snap.
So they had it coming, they are no different after they shot innocent women that were in a different vehicle .
They used assault weapons and fired multiple rounds before making any identification prior to shooting or not announcing their unfollowed protocol .
I did a couple of radio reports giving Big Bear residents' perspectives. They're at soundcloud.
Sure, he did! This guy killed how many cops and cop family members? I am so convinced that they had him surrounded in that cabin, with 20 sharpshooters in riot gear, state & local PD along with the FBI...and this lone Black man was given enough time to squeeze off a shot at leisure. LOL. Don't get me wrong, the guy deserved to die, but don't insult our intelligence either.
No he didn't. The cops executed him.