A former police officer emails his perspective on the end of the Dorner manhunt:
Observations/Questions
I’m not sure of the circumstances concerning what the media said as to why the truck had burned, but why would Dorner have burned out his own truck along with survival gear, etc. knowing he would be on foot in snow territory? He wasn’t worried about concealing evidence of a crime.
When my wife and I saw the first pictures of his truck days ago, she said…. “his body will be found in a burned out building.”
I was watching media coverage of what was called a “raid” on Dorner’s mothers house. I don’t recall the timing, but my first thought was..”they should have been there days ago.” During the raid, the camera angle was from directly in front of the house. The “team” that was moving in on the house was one of those you see that are wearing blue jeans, t-shirts and tennis shoes as opposed to the “black ops” with helmets and shields and battering rams…..
They ALL walked up to the front of the house… the front door…. My thought was…. they KNEW this guy wasn’t in there. The other cops are shooting at ladies in trucks and these guys walk up to the front door of Dorner’s mothers house??? Go figure.
We are entertaining the notion that they got him earlier (drone practice?) and the rest was for show.
People do strange things when they are on the run. Foolish and insensible things that in retrospect look downright crazy. And Dorner might have been marginally more intelligent than the average LAPD member, which quite clearly isn’t saying much. And knowing that Dorner isn’t at his mother’s house shouldn’t be confused with knowing where he was or his health status.
I very much doubt they got him earlier and were simply going through the motions for public consumption. This is my opinion: The police bumbled around until Dorner’s carelessness caught up with him. Having already been outshot by him twice, and with the police-only body count standing 3-0 in Dorner’s favor, (remember that the daughter’s fiance was a cop), they weren’t about to take any chances with him. So, they chased away the media and set fire to the building, hoping that he’d either come out and get shot or shoot himself before the flames got too hot.
That is, of course, assuming that Dorner isn’t much more clever than he appears to be and the body in the building is a black man of similar build that he took hostage. But there is no reason to believe that to be the case, unless LAPD police suddenly start dropping dead in a few months.
I’m a little surprised Dorner tried to go to the wilderness when he could have simply stocked a hiding place somewhere in the city, then emerged only at night to hunt police.