Nick Ut / AP file

Rick Heltebrake, with his dog Suni, on Feb. 15 looks over the burned-out cabin where Christopher Dorner's remains were found near Big Bear, Calif. Dorner stole his pickup during his escape attempt. Heltebrake, a ranger who takes care of a Boy Scout camp, said he was checking the perimeter of the camp when he saw Dorner emerge from behind some trees.

LOS ANGELES -- A Scout ranger who was carjacked by an ex-LAPD officer wanted in a series of revenge killings is seeking some of the more than $1 million reward money offered for information leading to the ex-officer’s arrest.

Rick Heltebrake filed a claim against the city of Los Angeles on Feb. 19, according to the LA City Clerk’s Office.

Complete coverage at NBCLosAngeles.com: Manifesto for Murder

He’s seeking reward money that the city announced it was offering for information leading to the capture of Christopher Dorner.

Dorner was accused of killing four people -- including two police officers -- in a rampage over his 2008 firing from the Los Angeles Police Department.

In an online manifesto, Dorner vowed revenge against several former LAPD colleagues whom he blamed for ending his career. He was fired after he allegedly falsified a report about an officer involved in a use of force incident.

Robyn Beck / AFP - Getty Images

Christopher Dorner

Dorner took his own life while he was hiding out in a cabin on Feb. 15.

Heltebrake was carjacked by Dorner on Feb. 12 as Dorner tried to elude police in the San Bernardino Mountain ski resort area of Big Bear. The 61-year-old ranger at Camp Tahquitz, a Boy Scout camp, said that a man resembling Dorner approached him with a rifle and demanded his pickup truck.

Heltebrake complied and called 911.

Heltebrake claims he is owed at least part of the $1.2 million because his call led authorities to Dorner.

Neither he nor his attorney were available for comment.

Numerous local, state and federal entities are involved in determining the distribution of the reward, said Peter Sanders, a spokesman for LA Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa.

"As you can imagine, this is a complex process and one that is often lengthy," he said.

Los Angeles Police Department Chief Charlie Beck on Tuesday called for a "rational discussion" of the issues raised during a deadly manhunt for a fired officer, who outlined a revenge plot against law enforcement agents and their families.

Beck spoke about the Christopher Dorner investigation and the reward connected to the Southern California manhunt at a Tuesday morning news conference.

Also on NBCLosAngeles.com - Manifesto for Murder: Timeline of events | Full manifesto | Manhunt map

Beck was joined at the news conference by an LAPD sergeant and captain identified in former officer Christopher Dorner's manifesto. The LAPD members were under protection during the manhunt for Dorner, who outlined plans to target law enforcement officials and their families as part of the revenge plot that ended with a shootout near Big Bear in California.

"We all sign up for some degree of risk," Beck, whose name also appeared in the Dorner document, said at the news conference. "Our families don't sign up for that. Our children don't sign up for that. These 50 families we protected -- think about their children."

The news conference came one week after the manhunt ended at a cabin in the Big Bear area. Dorner died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound during a shootout with San Bernardino County Sheriff's deputies, according to investigators.

Beck on Tuesday addressed the reopening of the investigation -- a move he announced during the nearly weeklong search -- into Dorner's 2008 firing. The fired officer was found to have falsely reported a fellow officer for excessive use of force.

An attorney has been reviewing the case, which will be presented to the LAPD Office of the Inspector General -- the body has oversight of the department's internal disciplinary process -- before it is released to the public at a police commission meeting, Beck said. The findings will be the subject of public comment so "everyone can see the transparency with which we address this," Beck said.

"Nothing should be considered closed and done," Beck said. "It's about fairness, and doing the right things for the right reasons."

Beck did not provide an estimate on the timeline for the review, but said the investigation will require at least "several months."

Beck also addressed the $1 million reward offered for information in the manhunt. The agencies -- about 30 -- involved in the reward will provide a recommendation to Beck.

"Not only is this reward the largest in local law enforcement history, it's also the most complicated," Beck said. "It is my desire that the reward money be used. We generated countless tips because of it. It had its desired effect."

Also on NBCLosAngeles.com: LAPD captain saw fear in his children during Dorner manhunt

The search for Dorner began when he was identified as the suspect in the Feb. 3 shooting deaths in Irvine, Calif., of Keith Lawrence and his fiancée Monica Quan. Four days later, Dorner shot and killed a Riverside, Calif., police officer in what investigators described as an ambush at a stoplight during the manhunt.

Earlier Feb. 7, Dorner was involved in a shooting with LAPD officers in the Corona, Calif., area. The officers were part of a security detail for one of the subjects mentioned in the Dorner manifesto.

Dorner's burned-out pickup was found near Big Bear later that morning. The search continued through the weekend before a stolen vehicle report led authorities to Dorner.

A San Bernardino County Sheriff's deputy was killed outside the cabin from which Dorner engaged deputies in a shootout. The 33-year-old's charred remains were found after the cabin burned.

Beck opened Tuesday's news conference by reading the names of the four victims.

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.” 

The chase, shootout, standoff and inferno that ended the search for ex-LAPD officer Christopher Dorner began when a married couple startled the suspect in his mountainside hideout.

When Karen and Jim Reynolds arrived to tidy their rental cabin not far from a police command post, they found the alleged cop killer holed up inside.

“He said four or five times that he didn't have a problem with us, he just wanted to clear his name,” said Jim Reynolds at a press conference late Wednesday. “He said I don't have a problem with you so I’m not going to hurt you.”

“I didn't believe him, I thought he was going to kill us,” he added.

Dorner, the target of the biggest manhunt in LAPD history, then tied them up, swiped their purple Nissan Rogue SUV and left.

"We haven't really been told what's happened to it," said Karen Reynolds.

Dorner might have had a chance to flee the Big Bear ski resort area where scores of police had conducted a door-to-door search for him — except Karen Reynolds got free, called 911 and alerted cops that a man who looked like Dorner was on the run, the officials said.

"What we did was kind of scoot our way — I went up and she went down," said Jim Reynolds. "then she got her gag off and then we both worked on trying to stand up."

Earlier reports, based on statements from law enforcement officials, indicated that it was a pair of housekeepers who had been tied up by the suspect.

"We really very much wanted to clarify things," said Karen Reynolds, "but, it was taking us a whole lot of time to get over the trauma too and, like even by the time all the police were gone last night you guys [reporters] arrived immediately and, wasn't, we never slept for one second, since this happened."

The 911 call set in motion a dramatic and tragic chain of events in which one sheriff’s deputy was killed in a gun battle outside a second cabin where the suspect’s charred body would be found before the day’s end.

“It was like a war zone and our deputies continued to go in to that area,” San Bernardino County Sheriff John McMahon said at a press conference Wednesday afternoon. “The rounds kept coming, but our deputies didn’t give up.”

Police have not officially determined that the corpse found in the burned-out county was Dorner, who kept southern California in fear for a week as, authorities say, he carried out a murderous campaign of revenge against the LAPD. They are waiting for forensics.

The San Bernardino Sheriff’s office has said they don’t believe the gunman who barricaded himself inside the cabin escaped before it erupted in flames.

“We believe that this investigation is over at this point and we’ll need to move on from here,” said McMahon.

McMahon said police did not intentionally set the cabin ablaze, but the pyrotechnic tear gas canisters — commonly referred to as “burners,” he said — generate a high level of heat.

 It was when police began using the pyrotechnic canisters to flush out the suspect that the fire began.

The charred remains of the cabin where ex-cop Christopher Dorner was believed to have been holed up.

The LAPD, which had been under a series of tactical alerts while Dorner was on the lam has returned to normal operations on Wednesday, although a dozen people on hit list remained under guard, said Lt. Andy Neiman.

"Thanks to the brave men and women of the San Bernardino Sheriff's Department, it looks like we have our man," Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa said on MSNBC's "Morning Joe" early Wednesday.

Investigators had been combing the ski resort area since Thursday, when Dorner’s burned out Nissan truck was found there hours after he allegedly ambushed cops in two cities, killing Officer Michael Crain.

Days earlier, police believe, Dorner executed the daughter of a retired police captain and her fiancé in Irvine to kick off a killing spree that sowed fear across the region and in the ranks of law-enforcement.

After the man believed to be Dorner fled the cabin where he had encountered the couple, wardens from the California Department of Fish and Wildlife spotted the purple Nissan and gave chase.

The suspect lost them and, it appears, ditched the Nissan and carjacked a white pickup.

Rick Heltebrake, 61, told TODAY on Wednesday that he was driving near the Boy Scout camp he operates when a heavily armed man he recognized as Dorner, 33, crawled out of the woods, pointing a rifle at him.

He said the hulking former Navy reservist was wearing camouflage and a ballistics vest and told Heltebrake, “I don’t want to hurt you.”

“He was dressed for action,” Heltebrake said.

Dorner commandeered the pickup, but let the man and his dog go. Shortly after Dorner sped off, Heltebrake heard gunshots.

That may have been the brief exchange of fire between Dorner and another game warden who spotted the pickup and pursued it. The warden’s truck was riddled with bullets, but he was not hurt, officials said.

Dorner then “fled into the forest and barricaded himself inside a cabin,” the San Bernardino Sheriff’s office said. “A short time later there was an exchange of gunfire between law enforcement and the suspect.”

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Det. Jeremiah MacKay, 35, was killed on Feb. 12, 2013, after exchanging gunfire with a man believed to be a fugitive ex-police officer accused of a revenge-motivated shooting spree.

Two deputies were shot and taken to Loma Linda University Hospital, where officials later confirmed sheriff’s deputy Jeremiah MacKay had died and another had surgery but was expected to survive.

MacKay, 35, joined the department in 1998 and was father to a 7-year-old daughter and 4-year-old son.

“Our department is grieving from this event,” said McMahon.

No further shots were fired from the Angelus Oaks cabin before police began to storm the building, according to a sheriff’s spokesman.

Deputies smashed the cabin’s windows, fired in tear gas, and tore through the structure’s walls using an armored personnel carrier, a source close to the probe told NBCLosAngeles.com. A single gunshot then rang out, according to the source, and flames and smoke began to emerge from the remains of the building.

It was hours before police were able to enter the cabin and find the body. Investigators continued to scour the crime scene Wednesday as other police gathered in Riverside for the funeral of Officer Crain.

Neiman said it was difficult to celebrate the apparent end to the rampage given the loss of four lives, two of them lawmen.

“This has been a very trying time,” he said. “To hear those words ‘officer down’ is the most gut-wrenching experience you can have as a police officer,” Neiman said.

Additional reporting by Andrew Rafferty

This story was originally published on Wed Feb 13, 2013 6:20 PM EST

Reuters / Patrick T. Fallon

Police opened fire on this blue Toyota Tacoma pickup truck in Torrance, Calif. while searching for a similar vehicle driven by murder suspect and ex-cop Christopher Dorner.

Published 6:30 p.m. ET: They were in the wrong car at the wrong time.

Two women who were delivering newspapers in Torrance, Calif., early Thursday were shot by jittery Los Angeles police officers who mistakenly thought cop-hunting fugitive Christopher Dorner might be in their vehicle, NBCLosAngeles.com reported.

One was shot once and the other twice; both were were expected to survive. Police did not release their names.

REUTERS/Patrick T. Fallon

Police detectives investigate a shooting scene involving a black Honda pickup truck in Torrance, Calif. Police opened fire on the vehicle in a case of mistaken identity while searching for former Los Angeles police officer Christopher Dorner.

The LAPD detectives were in the neighborhood to watch over a home they believed Dorner might target. Hours earlier, the fired cop had allegedly ambushed officers in two other cities, killing one of them.

Across the region, cops on high alert were on the lookout for Dorner's dark-colored Nissan truck. In the predawn dark, they saw a blue pickup rolling through the streets with no headlights on.

It's unclear what happened next, but LAPD Chief Charlie Beck confirmed the officers fired on the vehicle, hitting the two occupants. He said it was a tragic case of "mistaken identity."

Less than a half-hour later, cops fired on another vehicle in Torrance, just two blocks away from the first scene, NBCLosAngeles.com reported. No one was injured in that vehicle, which was similar to Dorner's truck, police said.

Dorner, 33, remains at large. Police say he waging a vendetta against the LAPD for firing him, and has already murdered a retired captain's daughter and her fiance, along with the officer slain in Riverside. They say he detailed his plans and hit list in a twisted online manifesto titled "Last Resort."

Related:

Hunt on for ex-LAPD officer in revenge slayings