Police officers across Southern California are on the defensive and scaling back their public exposure today, no longer responding to "barking-dog calls" and donning tactical gear outside police stations as former-cop-turned-alleged-gunman Christopher Dorner, armed and apparently on the hunt for cops, remains at large.
Dorner is suspected of killing one cop and two civilians during a rampage that began Sunday, injuring two other officers along the way.
Police departments have stationed officers in tactical gear outside police departments, stopped answering low-level calls and pulled motorcycle patrols off the road in order to protect officers who might be a target of Dorner's alleged rampage.
"The person we suspect of doing this is mobile, and with California's interstate highway system, every hour that goes by that's another 60 or 70 or 80 miles or greater circumference, it is a very wide net," Chief of Police Sergio Diaz of the Riverside police department said.
"We've made certain modifications of our deployments, our deviations today and I want to leave it at that, and also to our responses. We are concentrating on calls for service that are of a high priority, threats to public safety, we're not going to go on barking dog calls today," Diaz said.
Sgt. Rudy Lopez of the Los Angeles police department said Dorner is "believed to be armed and extremely dangerous."
Police have also put Dorner's license plate number and car description on highway signs, although they warn Dorner might have changed his license plate.
A former Los Angeles police officer and Navy reservist, Dorner released an online manifesto before the shooting saying that he was targeting law enforcement and would be hard to capture because of his knowledge of police tactics.
The Los Angeles police department has sent dozens of patrols to guard specific targets named in Dorner's manifesto, which cops say he posted online.
Dorner wrote a long letter posted to his Facebook page in which he explained that he had been wrongly fired from the Los Angeles police department and would take revenge on those that wronged him.
The fired California cop went to a yacht club near San Diego overnight where police say he attempted to steal a boat and flee to Mexico.
He aborted the attempted theft when the boat's propeller became entangled in a rope, law enforcement officials said. It was at that point he is believed to have headed to Riverside, where he allegedly shot two police officers.
"He pointed a handgun at the victim [at the yacht club] and demanded the boat," Lt. David Rohowits of the San Diego Police Department said.
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Police say the rifle marksman shot at four officers in two incidents overnight, hitting three of them: one in Corona, Calif., and the two in Riverside, Calif.
Lopez said two LAPD officers were in Corona on special detail to check on one of the individuals named in Dorner's manifesto and encountered Dorner. Dorner allegedly grazed one of them but missed the other.
"[This is an] extremely tense situation," Lopez said. "We call this a manhunt. We approach it cautiously because of the propensity of what has already happened."
After Dorner allegedly shot at LAPD officers in Corona, he fled and encountered two Riverside police officers stopped at a red light in their police car. Dorner used a rifle to shoot through their windshield, killing one officer and injuring the other.
The deceased officer was a 34-year-old, 11-year veteran of the police department. The injured officer, age 27, is expected to make a full recovery.
Diaz said that the names of the officers are being withheld to protect their families, who might be targeted by Dorner if the names are released.
"They were on routine patrol stopped at a stop light when they were ambushed," Lt. Guy Toussant of the Riverside police department said.
In the manifesto Dorner published online, he threatened at least 12 people by name, along with their families.
"Your lack of ethics and conspiring to wrong a just individual are over. Suppressing the truth will leave to deadly consequences for you and your family," Dorner wrote in his manifesto.
A badge and identification belonging to Dorner have been found in San Diego, according to San Diego police Sgt. Ray Battrick. Dorner's LAPD badge and ID were found by someone near the city's airport, and turned in to police overnight, The Associated Press reported.
Los Angeles Police Department Chief Charlie Beck said today that 40 protective details have been deployed to protect officers and their families.
"We are taking all measures possible to ensure safety of our officers and their families," he said.
Dorner is also believed to be responsible for the weekend slayings of an assistant women's college basketball coach and her fiancé in what cops believe are acts of revenge against the LAPD, as suggested in his online manifesto.
Lawrence was found slumped behind the wheel of his white Kia in the parking lot of their upscale apartment complex in Irvine Sunday and Quan was in the passenger seat.
"A particular interest at this point in the investigation is a multi-page manifesto in which the suspect has implicated himself in the slayings," Maggard said.
Police said Dorner's manifesto included threats against members of the LAPD. Police say they are taking extra measures to ensure the safety of officers and their families.
The document, allegedly posted on an Internet message board this week, apparently blames Quan's father, retired LAPD Capt. Randy Quan, for his firing from the department.
One passage from the manifesto reads, "I will bring unconventional and asymmetrical warfare to those in LAPD uniform whether on or off duty."
"I never had the opportunity to have a family of my own," it reads. "I'm terminating yours."
Dorner was with the department from 2005 until 2008, when he was fired for making false statements.
Randy Quan, who became a lawyer in retirement, represented Dorner in front of the Board of Rights, a tribunal that ruled against Dorner at the time of his dismissal, LAPD Capt. William Hayes told The Associated Press Wednesday night.
According to documents from a court of appeals hearing in October 2011, Dorner was fired from the LAPD after he made a complaint against his field-training officer, saying in the course of an arrest she had kicked a suspect who was a schizophrenic with severe dementia.
After an investigation, Dorner was fired for making false statements.
Alleged Cop-Killer Has Calif. Region on Edge
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Alleged Cop-Killer Has Calif. Region on Edge
