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A protest in response to the death of fired LAPD officer Christopher Dorner – the subject of an extensive manhunt who is accused of killing four people – brought out about two dozen protesters in front of police headquarters in downtown Los Angeles Saturday.
Organizers said the demonstration would be peaceful and had expected about 200 participants to show up by noon.
The demonstrators called themselves "We Stand With Christopher Dorner." Some wore Guy Fawkes masks -- the ones known as a symbol of hacktivist group Anonymous -- to represent victims of police brutality.
They carried signs that read "end police brutality" and "clear his name."
Dorner, who was killed Tuesday after a fiery shootout at a mountain cabin near Big Bear, elicited sympathy from some who read his 11,400-word manifesto. In the document, Dorner described his firing from the LAPD after a review panel found he falsely reported another officer for excessive use of force against a suspect.
Timeline: Revenge-Plot Slayings | Read: Full Manifesto | Map: Dorner Manhunt
In the document, which he posted on Facebook, Dorner vowed to reclaim his name, and included a list of targets that he planned to eliminate. He also said the LAPD was a racist organization that had failed to reform after a series of scandals in the 1990s.
Dina Escoto, one of several people carrying signs at the protest, said she wished "in a way" that Dorner had survived so that the public could "hear his side of the story."
Robyn Beck / AFP - Getty Images
Christopher Dorner was fired from the LAPD in 2009.
She said she hopes the protest "sheds some light and police change policies so we won't have another Chris Dorner."
Escoto and others said they were focused on police brutality and on the shooting of innocent civilians -- in an incident in Torrance in which two women were shot up in their truck -- in the pursuit of Dorner.
"We're protesting some of the police brutality -- not just LAPD, but all over the nation," said protester and Lomita resident Vincent Namm, a former Marine. "With Chris Dorner, habeas corpus just got thrown out the window.''
Namm added: "They didn't seem like they were even interested in apprehending him."
Authorities said Friday that Dorner had likely died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound after a firefight at the cabin, which burned down during the confrontation. San Bernardino County Sheriff John McMahon said authorities did not intend to start the conflagration. He defended his deputies' actions when asked about audiotape recorded at the scene that seemed to indicate a desire on the part of officials to intentionally burn the cabin down.
Protesters were skeptical of the official version of events. Namm compared the Dorner gun battle and fire to the 1993 federal siege of a Branch Davidian compound in Waco, Texas.
Saturday's demonstrators began to gather a little before 10 a.m. near the corner of First and Main streets before making their way to 100 W. First St., where they were met by yellow police tape bordering LAPD headquarters.
There were at least three officers at different positions in front of the building, along with three parked television vans.
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It appears their program is near completion.
"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the US public believes is false." - William J. Casey, 1981
The initial investigation which got this madman fired is now a moot point. To quote Hillary,"What difference, now, does it make?" Regardless of whetehr there was some discrepency in the initial firing, once this idiot started killing people, he gave up all reasonable expectation of having the earlier situation readjudicated. Maybe he had a brain tumor which made him become a murdered (like the Texas Tower shooter) or maybe he just had a failure of coping skills, but whatever made him a murderer took away any chance fo sympathy from reasonable people. Only idiots would now be standing with him. Where were they for John Wayne Gacy or Jeffrey Dahmer? Their energy would make more sense if expended on the survivors of this barbequed animal.
I know of two incidents of police brutality last week in our area; one involved our relatives in which the Metairie police brutally arrested my brother-in-law, his fiancee, and her son (all white); they thought the fiancee was drunk (no, she just hadn't slept in 2 days because of a sick pet and made the mistake of going to Mardi Gras and nearly passing out). When my brother-in-law and her son tried to intervene, instead of listening to them, they just arrested them too. But, witnesses will testify otherwise on these cop thugs.
In the other case , undercover New Orleans cops attacked a black youth apparently because he was past curfew. They were cruel about it, too. When confronted in the press, they lied about their motives. Unfortunately for them, video caught the whole thing.
Something in your story smells "fishy" Dr. Trout!
"PROTESTERS CALL FOR CLEARING FIRED LAPD OFFICER CHRISTOPHER DORNER'S NAME"
What big writing! Catches my eye right away.
But... I only see ONE protester holding up a sign calling to clear Dorner's name and she isn't even interviewed. Interviewed are one protester (and another, who organized the event) and they are protesting:
1) Dorner did not get his day in court and at the same time disagreeing with Dorner's tactics and stating that Dorner's acts were "horrible."
2) Dorner being pursued with apparent disregard for any effort to capture rather than kill him; depriving him of our system's due process of law and also protesting the shooting of the women in the truck as an acceptable police tactic.
Yet, the headline states they are protesting to "clear his name." This is blatantly inaccurate reporting of the purpose of this protest. Either people commenting here did not read the article or they did not watch the video or they are not worried about authority circumventing the laws of our country when it suits them or don't care if the media obviously twists an event and says one thing while something else is going on right in front of them... or they're not intuitive enough to have anything but a knee jerk reaction on any subject after recognizing a key word or two on the matter. I condemn what Dorner did and have great sympathy towards those injured and killed as a result of one man's inability to deal with his anger and frustrations as an adult. I am not ready, however to throw our legal system out the window when it suits those in authority or is convenient or when it will "save money" or satisfy a need to "get even." Laws are written for everyone and that includes police and government. Do you not wonder why the media cameras were ordered to leave before the fire started? Do you not wonder, either; why the huge and false headline before this particular article? If law enforcement can shut down media cameras and that makes you clap your hands, then you're beyond help anyway. If media's headlines can make you make up your mind what you are to think about something... this doesn't worry you? No? Then take a big load off and tune in to Honey Boo Boo Child for all your entertainment needs... relax.
Reading is difficult for you? And, I wasn't implying wrongdoing. I was stating it as fact. Now you can have another little fit for yourself... anger is so hard to control, I know. I sympathize with you.
Once again a cold blooded killer is being glorified in the Media, waiting for the next one. As for the protesters, what is with the masks, criminal or want be criminal hiding their identity. They hard to take serious.
To all of you who think it was acceptable for this killer to take innocent lives to be heard, add you names the Terrorist list for you are no better. Innocent lives aren't just bumps in the road as the president stated over American deaths in Libya
But Al Sharpton wasn't at the protest so it doesn't count.
Oh thats right, he only protests when white people kill blacks not the other way around.
If the LAPD is messed up it's more than likely from dealing with all the stinking @!$%# in L.A.
MURDER is murder no matter what and killing people does not solve anything.
The man was practically lynched. The standard of ethics is higher for a government sanctioned paramilitary force like the LAPD regardless of what any citizen does. All deserve a trial. Yeah - he commited murder. But the law and Constitution cannot be stomped on by LAPD because of vengence. Tried, convicted and hanged if guilty - but that's not a police function. Now as far as his name - he destroyed that himself.
dorner was most wanted and found because he was an ex-cop and would have screwed up the whole department had he been caught alive. The other 5 un caught weren't the same
I thought of that. He should have contacted a lawyer and arranged for a time and place to surrender. If he had done that, he would be alive and I also believe that is the ONLY way he would be alive today. I don't believe there was ever a plan in place to take him alive and how he died and how other people became innocent targets of the police, I think clearly proves that point. Peaceful protests are still an American right even when others, who have the right to disagree, think protesters should "suck it up and get a life." I'm wondering why you feel so much anger towards them. How does their exercising their rights as American citizens affect YOUR life?
Setting the log cabin on fire containing Christopher Dorner is like burning someone at the stake which is like an ancient, obsolete, occult practice which makes the hunt for Christopher Dorner seem like a witch hunt based on faulty superstitious and supernatural thinking easily doubted and deemed questionable by modern civilized people.
So, how do the bleeding hearts justify the taking of life by Dorner? Capital punishment prevailed this time and it worked... He's gone! Not hurting any one else. Amen! NOTHING JUSTIFIED HIM TAKING OUT INNOCENTS!
All the pain caused should be credited to him. He had a chance to walk away. And then he was too cowardly to stick around and face the consequences......
bill,This was not case of capital punishment.A person has to have a trial,be convicted and sentenced to death.The sheriffs decided to be judge,jury and executioners.That's not how our justice system is supposed to work.The protesters believe that he was railroaded and that his allegations were true.Therefore,I defend their right to protest to clear his name.I do not agree in anyway with what he did,murdering innocent people.I don't agree with the way the police handled this either.
If he is guilty of murder, what should happen to the cops who almost killed a 71 year old woman and her daughter because their truck looked like Dormer's. Do you want cops killing people at random because the thought it was someone else. The people he killed in LA were specifically targeted so it is important we hear what really transpired. I will never condone a person who kills nor a person who randomly shoots at a vehicla and gets paid leave and has to see a psychologist before going to work. Even if it was Dormer he had the right to be taken into custody and tried. Hell, we even give terrorists the benefit of the doubt.
Oh puleez.....the guy may have had legitimate gripes, but once he morphed into a killer and criminal, he's just like every other killer and criminal.
Get over it people.
Perhaps he was wrongfully fired I don't know. But that in itself does not justify his killing others because he felt he had been wronged. And how do his actions clear his name? Now he is just another Murderer.
I have been avoiding commenting on NBC News for a while because they piss me off so much with the lies they spread, like editing a video to falsely make ME look like a heckler to the entire world. After watching all the gun-control rhetoric on all their new shows today I decided to stop by again today.
This story gives me mixed feelings.
If Dorner really did murder innocent people I believe there is absolutely NO excuse for it. And I believe that would show just what kind of people are actually employed in many places in our government.
Where my mixed feelings come in is with all the conflicting information, and lack of information, as to what really happened. NBC said he was dead before the body was even seen. He committed suicide after going to such extremes to prove his innocence. The cabin burned somehow.
I can not comprehend how he would murder the family of the person that was supposed to be defending him...
My old reliable gut says there is much we don't know, yet.
Some years back I ended up in a battle fought against corruption in the Connecticut State Police. In the end now even with all the powerful supposed allies we had , and all the supposed change to stop corruption, as far as I have seen nothing really changed here in Connecticut. A Cop can still basically do whatever they feel like no matter what the law says, and get away with it because the system protects them.
Here is a link with some old info:
http://behindthebluewall.blogspot.com/2008/02/ct-state-police-whistleblowers-seek.html
No matter what the truth is I will always believe there is NEVER a justification to kill anyone unless they are trying to kill you. There are always other, and better ways to fight back against injustice.
I Don't know if Dorner had legitimate gripes about the LA police or not, but you can't expect to clear the name of a man who went around killing people, willy-nilly. There are courts that may have found for him, but after killing several innocent people, he does not deserve to have his name cleared.
occamsedge,That's your opinion and these protesters have theirs.That's the beauty of America.We have freedom of speech and they are exercising theirs.Whether I agree with them or not I stand by them for exercising that freedom.
only in California would people protest for a cold blooded murderer, poor little murderer, he was mistreated, he was just misunderstood, he was really just trying to let everyone know how nice he was by killing people.
many of us have been wronged and mistreated but we do not pick up a gun and kill people
Gene,I am a native Californian and am glad that people who decide that they have a cause are not afraid to stage a peaceful and legal protest in front of the LAPD.I wouldn't live in any other state.They are exercising their freedom of speech whether or not you agree with them or not.
all you guys are so sure he did it. Remember "innocent until proven guilty"? Since he got burned to death, we will never know. I hope for your sake the frankenstinian mob never shows up at your door thirsty for blood.
Then who did?...
Kaiser Soze ...
He didn't burn to death he shot himself...he didn't have the guts to fight against who he thought wronged him and he don't have the guts to pay for his crimes. He has created his legacy.
TJHarris,He was wrong and so were the cops.If these protesters want to go in front of the LAPD,they had a permit which is required to demonstrate,they are entitled as American citizens to do so.Whether posters agree with these people has no relevance to any of them.Dorner should have been captured alive,tried and convicted, if found guilty.That is the way our legal justice system was set up.I don't care if they say he shot himself.If the autopsy said he died from being burned alive I assure you there would be protesters in the thousands.The way the police departments went about trying to capture him is unacceptable.This isn't the wild west.
The violence was not a good thing but pushing a man beyond reason is not a good or conscionable act either. So I believe that while Mr. Dorner has paid the ultimate price for his actions it does not exonerate those who committed wrong doings or who violated his civil rights and may have inflicted extreme levels of emotional and mental stress on someone who had honorably served this country.
We have a growing culture of individuals who believe that harassing, intimidating and coercing free and innocent people is an acceptable behavior. Let me assure you, it is not. And we have a growing number of veterans out there who are now civilians and who view actions of war against them very seriously. It is not a wise decision to engage and enact in war games with free citizens without expecting that some may take these idiots up on their offers.
While I do not condone the violent actions of Mr. Dorner; I also do not condone the actions of racists who use their positions to ruin others in their mist. I believe that people who use their positions to push such agenda's should be brought into a court room and charged accordingly and it should not matter if those individuals who practice such behaviors wear badges. It makes the act all the worse when civil rights violations are committed by those we have entrusted the safety of our communities to.
Doc Hollidaye,Excellent comments.
They should have arrested the protesters and run background checks on them. Dorner was a murderer, plain and simple. No one should give a damn whether his name is cleared or not. I'm clearing it from my memory which is the only clearing he deserves.
America is dumbing down at an exponetial rate and _everyone has an opinion courtesy of the internet. Most of them are wrong or stupid or both.
Glad I won't be around in 50 years to witness the downfall of the US. I hope it doesn't happen sooner.
michael10sley,why should they run background checks on protesters?They aren't breaking the law.They are exercising their freedom of speech.The only downfall this country will have in 50 years is if people accept having their freedoms stripped away..except.The type of world you want is that of Nazi Germany.
Be sure not to miss this headline NBC article here.
Bunnies invade Denver airport, nibble on car cables
http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/02/16/16988299-bunnies-invade-denver-airport-nibble-on-car-cables?threadId=3668612&commentId=74263234#c74263234
I am glad I am old and wont ' have to deal with this crap much longer myself.
Sometimes I wish I was still young and would still be ripping lies out of peoples throats...
You have a different perspective when you no longer worry about death...
Hey world:
I Have been surviving on 1/5 of of what I normally earned for a while now. There were times I survived on 0/5 since 2008. I am still surviving!
All of Obamas big lips flapping never helped me survive at all!
Now Obama says I should not be allowed to own guns I owned long before I ever heard his name.
I will not waste the pages here posting all the increasing home invasions and other violent crime happening in my rural neighborhood in Connecticut now...
But I would like to know how exactly Obamas gun control agenda he is so big on now would have prevented the tragedy in my state of all those children slaughtered.
Connecticut has had a assault weapons ban since 94, and has some of the very toughest gun laws in America already.
How is his new lip flapping going to help us?
I apologize for previous comment earlier ,I under stand dormers greivences police brutality is wide spread and vicious I know I had bad expierence with police myself and it aint right that they continue to get away with it.