Man hunt for ex-soldier who shot police chief's daughter and killed policeman
POLICE plan to use spy drones in the hunt for a Rambo-style ex-soldier and policeman who has murdered three people and vowed to kill again.
They believe
burly, heavily-armed Christopher Dorner is holed-up in the wilderness of
California’s snow-capped San Bernardino mountains 80 miles east of Los
Angeles.
The burnt-out shell of his pick-up
truck was discovered in the nearby resort of Big Bear, where residents
and tourists have been warned to stay indoors as the search continues.
Yesterday,
as a task force of 125 officers, some riding Snowcats in the rugged
terrain, continued their search, it was revealed that Dorner has become
the first human target for remotely-controlled airborne drones on US
soil.
A senior police source said: “The thermal
imaging cameras the drones use may be our only hope of finding him. On
the ground, it’s like looking for a needle in a haystack.”
Asked
directly if drones have already been deployed, Riverside Police Chief
Sergio Diaz, who is jointly leading the task force, said: “We are using
all the tools at our disposal.”
The use of
drones was later confirmed by Customs and Border Patrol spokesman Ralph
DeSio, who revealed agents have been prepared for Dorner to make a dash
for the Mexican border since his rampage began.
He
said: “This agency has been at the forefront of domestic use of drones
by law enforcement. That’s all I can say at the moment.”
Dorner,
who was fired from the LAPD in 2008 for lying about a fellow officer he
accused of misconduct, has vowed to wreak revenge by “killing officers
and their families”.
In a chilling, 6,000 word
“manifesto” on his Facebook page he has threatened to “bring warfare” to
the LAPD and “utilise every bit of small arms training, demolition,
ordinance and survival training I’ve been given.”
Dorner,
33, who rose to the rank of lieutenant in the US Navy and served in
Iraq before joining the LAPD, also ominously warned that he has
shoulder-launched surface-to-air missiles to “knock out” any helicopters
used to pursue him.
Last night, Brian Levin, a
psychologist and professor of criminal justice at Cal State University,
San Bernardino, said: “We’re talking about someone who basically
perceives that a tremendous injustice has been done to him that took his
life and identity.
“Now he is, quite literally, at war.”
Dorner’s
rampage began last Sunday when he shot dead Monica Quan, 27, the
daughter of a former LAPD captain, and her fiancé Keith Lawrence as they
sat in their car outside their home in Irvine, California.
Three
days later, he stole a boat at gunpoint from an 81-year-old man at a
yacht club in San Diego, near the Mexican border. He abandoned the boat
when he could not get its engine to start.
The thermal imaging cameras the drones use may be our only hope of finding him. On the ground, it’s like looking for a needle in a haystack.
The following
day, last Thursday, he was involved in a shoot-out with police in
Cornona, 110 miles north of San Diego. The officers, one of whom was
wounded, had been guarding one of his intended online targets.
Later
that day, in nearby Riverside, he killed one police officer, whose name
has not yet been revealed for security reasons, and wounded a second
after opening fire on their car at a set of traffic lights.
As
the manhunt for him broadened across numerous police jurisdictions,
police mistakenly shot and wounded a mother and daughter delivering
newspapers in a pick-up truck similar to Dorner’s.
That
incident, in the LA suburb of Torrance, was astonishingly followed two
hours later by another in the same area, when police again opened fire
on a pick-up. This time, there were no casualties. Hours later, Dorner’s
actual pick-up truck was found on a forest road near Big Bear City.
“He had torched it,” a San Bernardino police spokesman said. “We assume it may have broken down before he set fire to it.”
Since
then, the huge manhunt for Dorner has focused on an area where hundreds
of log cabins, both owned and rented out to tourists, are dotted around
the mountainside.
“There is a strong possibility he is using an empty or abandoned one as a bolt-hole,” the police spokesman added last night.
LAPD
police chief Charlie Beck, who has pleaded on TV with Dorner to
surrender, accepted he might be “difficult to find”, adding: “He knows
what he is doing. We trained him and he was also a member of the armed
forces. It is extremely worrisome and scary.”
Police
have also pleaded with local residents not to try to mount a civilian
vigilante force or try to aid in the hunt for the fugitive.
However,
one Big Bear resident, Dennis Pollock, said: “I did 12 years in the
Marine Corps. Give me a sniper rifle, some gear, and point me in his
general direction and get out of my way.”
Another
local said: “We know every inch of this terrain and could be a real
help to the cops, but all they’ve told us to do is stay at home and lock
all our doors.”
Last night, America’s National
Weather Centre warned that the hunt for Dorner could be further hampered
by an expected snowfall of up to 6ins in the mountains. Wind gusts of
up to 50mph are also forecast, creating an extreme wind-chill factor in
the already freezing conditions.
San Bernardino
County Sheriff John McMahon said: “To be honest, he could be anywhere
right now. Torching his own vehicle could have been a diversion to throw
us off track. Anything is possible with this man.”
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