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Fiery end to Christopher Dorner hunt | |
(about 3 hours later) | |
The biggest US police manhunt in living memory appeared to be over on Tuesday night after Christopher Dorner was cornered in a mountain cabin outside Los Angeles in a siege which ended with the building engulfed in flames and his fate still uncertain. | |
After a dramatic shootout with law enforcement officers in which one sheriff's deputy was killed and another injured, the fugitive ex-police officer, who had already murdered three people in his revenge killing spree, barricaded himself inside the unoccupied rental cabin in the San Bernardino mountains. | |
Hundreds of officers backed by helicopters and military equipment surrounded the building, and a Swat team moved in. The blaze began soon after teargas was fired into and around the cabin. A single gunshot was heard, after which no more shots were fired from inside. | |
Officers surrounding the cabin visibly relaxed as hours passed and the blaze slowly reduced the structure to a charred skeleton. | |
But around 8pm local time, LAPD commander Andrew Smith dismissed media reports that a body had been found inside the burned-out wreckage. "That cabin is still too hot to make entry. That cabin still has not been searched. Any reports of a body being found (are) not true." He said further information would come from the San Bernardino sheriff's department. | |
Much of the climax to Dorner's bloody vendetta against the force unfolded live on television, transfixing viewers. A reporter for a local station, KCAL, broadcast the sound of screaming and hundreds of gunshots at the beginning of the siege. | |
The drama had begun around midday when the former navy reservist stole a white Dodge pick-up truck near Angelus Oaks, a remote wooded area about 20 miles from Big Bear, which had been the focus of the search. | |
The vehicle's owners notified authorities that a man fitting Dorner's description had stolen the vehicle. Fish and Wildlife officers intercepted and pursued Dorner. He crashed, exchanged gunfire with the officers and broke into an unoccupied rental cabin, authorities said. | |
Reinforcements from the San Bernardino sheriff's department swiftly surrounded it. Dorner threw a smoke bomb and tried to flee on foot, only to retreat back inside. In the fusillade two deputies were shot. Both were evacuated to Loma Linda University medical centre. One died of his wounds. The other underwent surgery and was expected to survive. | Reinforcements from the San Bernardino sheriff's department swiftly surrounded it. Dorner threw a smoke bomb and tried to flee on foot, only to retreat back inside. In the fusillade two deputies were shot. Both were evacuated to Loma Linda University medical centre. One died of his wounds. The other underwent surgery and was expected to survive. |
The live images were likely to boost Dorner's status as a heroic outlaw to a small but vocal online community that has cheered his rampage as comeuppance for an allegedly racist and violent police force. | |
The deputy's death brought to four the number Dorner is blamed for killing in a vendetta against the LAPD, which sacked him in 2008. | |
Before his rampage Dorner posted a lengthy online "manifesto" that accused the department of racism and deception, and named about 40 people on a hit list. | |
"You're going to see what a whistleblower can do when you take everything from him especially his NAME!!!" he wrote. "You have awoken a sleeping giant." | "You're going to see what a whistleblower can do when you take everything from him especially his NAME!!!" he wrote. "You have awoken a sleeping giant." |
The killing began on 3 February with the murder of Monica Quan, 28, the daughter of a retired police captain, and her fiance, Keith Lawrence, 27. They were shot dead in their car. | |
Last Thursday, four days later, a man believed to have been Dorner exchanged shots with a patrol, grazing one officer in the head, and later two other officers were ambushed. Michael Crain, 34, a veteran, was killed and a trainee officer was wounded. | |
Dorner vanished after abandoning and burning his damaged pick-up truck on a forest road in Big Bear, a snowy ski resort. He eluded a massive manhunt, prompting a $1m bounty for his capture. | |
Dorner apparently trekked about 20 miles over a ridge to Angelus Oaks and invaded a home, tying up its two occupants and laying low while police searched the mountains in vain. | |
With the search in that area winding down it was unclear what prompted his attempt to flee on Tuesday. | With the search in that area winding down it was unclear what prompted his attempt to flee on Tuesday. |
As TV showed a raging battle around the cabin, its owner, Candy Martin, 85, tuned in from LA and watched "in a state of shock", she told the LA Times. The house was easy to break into but had no cable, phone, internet or firearms, she said. "I hope that they catch him and this whole horrible thing is put to rest." |