What possible reason would motivate a progressive author to suggest that law enforcement and the media conspired to cover up a plan to burn Christopher Dorner alive? Unless it is to reinforce the victimhood of minorities against the system or feed the so-called right-wing militias red meat to encourage action against our government.
I can personally confirm most of the story as written as I was also monitoring the on-going standoff via remote scanner. But I came to a very different conclusion as you will soon read.
But look at how this author spins a story about the use of tear gas in a tense standoff where hundreds of rounds have already been fired, two deputies wounded, one of whom was pronounced dead at Loma Linda Hospital ?
The central notion that the media, complying with the safety and security precautionary requests of the sheriffs, is something sinister is both unfounded and unduly provocative.
How Law Enforcement and Media Covered Up the Plan to Burn Christopher Dorner Alive
Highly disturbing behavior by newspaper and Live TV sources in complying with the San Bernardino Sheriffs.
At approximately 7 PM ET, I listened through a police scanner as San Bernardino Sheriffs gave the order to burn down the cabin where suspected murderer Christopher Dorner was allegedly hiding. Deputies were maneuvering a remote controlled demolition vehicle to the base of the cabin, using it to tear down the walls of the cabin where Dorner was hiding, and peering inside.
In an initial dispatch, a deputy reported seeing ?blood spatter? inside the cabins. Dorner, who had just engaged in a firefight with deputies that killed one officer and wounded another, may have been wounded in the exchange. There was no sign of his presence, let alone his resistance, according to police dispatches.
?What doe this mean? With no apparent sign of overt aggression, the deputies should risk their lives should Dorner be laying back waiting for the approach of deputies to begin firing anew? There were deputies on all four sides of the cabin and nobody had the full picture at his point in time.
It was then that the deputies decided to burn the cabin down.
?We?re gonna go ahead with the plan with the burner,? one sheriff?s deputy told another. ?Like we talked about.? Minutes later, another deputy?s voice crackled across the radio: ?The burner?s deployed and we have a fire.?
Next, a sheriff reported a ?single shot? heard from inside the house. This was before the fire had penetrated deeply into the cabin?s interior, and may have signaled Dorner?s suicide. At that point, an experienced ex-cop like him would have known he was finished.
Over the course of the next hour, I listened as the sheriffs carefully managed the fire, ensuring that it burned the cabin thoroughly. Dorner, a former member of the LAPD who had accused his ex-colleagues of abuse and racism in a lengthy, detailed manifesto, was inside. The cops seemed to have little interest in taking him alive.
?Burn that fucking house down!? shouted a deputy through a scanner transmission inadvertently broadcast on the Los Angeles local news channel, KCAL 9. ?Fucking burn this motherfucker!? another cop could be heard exclaiming.
While live ammo exploded inside the cabin, the deputies pondered whether the basement would burn as well ? they wanted to know if its ceiling was made of wood or concrete. They assumed Dorner was hiding there, and apparently wanted to ensure that he would be burned to a crisp. ?Because the fire is contained, I?m gonna let that heat burn through the basement,? a deputy declared.
First, one-way listening to a single scanner frequency does not always tell the entire story. You would also have to be on the command net as well as the incident site frequency. Second, adrenaline is flowing freely as Dorner has been suspected of killing three people ? and who has just shot two San Bernardino Sheriffs Deputies ? one who died. And, third, at one point Dorner apparently used a black smoke grenade of his own to cover a possible escape and had actively fired at surrounding officers. The situation is fluid. Emotions are running high.
The conspiracy?
Yes, the choppers were backed off to 10,000 feet ? approximately five miles and told to widen their shots lest Dorner get a positional fix on surrounding officers and compromise their lives. Or possibly fire on a media chopper believing it belonged to the police. The media was requested to restrain themselves in their reporting lest Dorner gain a tactical advantage. The scanner feeds were also cut after the cabin was fully engulfed and collapsing. This is good police work to avoid giving a tactical advantage to a suspect (or his accomplice if one exists) as well as information that can be misinterpreted by the media and others.?
SWAT teams airlifted to the location were told to be ready in case Dorner did manage to escape. ?Guys be ready on the number four side [the front of the cabin],? a deputy declared. ?He might come out the back.?
Just after 7 PM (4 PM PT), right when the orders were given to deploy the ?burners,? the San Bernardino Country Sheriff?s Department Public Information Officer Cindy Bachman hastily gathered reporters for an impromptu press conference. Claiming to know nothing new, she told reporters that she had no idea why the cabin was on fire, or who started the fire. Reporters badgered Bachman for information, but she had none, raising the question of why the presser was convened when it was.
Around the same time, the San Bernardino County Sheriff?s Department requested that all reporters and media organizations stop tweeting about the ongoing standoff with Dorner, claiming their journalism was ?hindering officer safety.? As the cabin sheltering Dorner burned, the local CBS affiliate was reportedly told by law enforcement to zoom its helicopter camera out to avoid showing the actions of sheriff?s deputies. By all accounts, the media acceded to police pressure for self-censorship.
On Twitter, the Riverside Press Enterprise, a leading local newspaper, announced on Twitter, ?Law enforcement asked media to stop tweeting about the#Dorner case, fearing officer safety. We are complying.? The paper?s editors added, ?We are going to tweet broad, non-tactical details, as per the San Bernardino DA's request.?
?Per [San Bernardino Country Sheriff?s Department] request,? tweeted the local CBS affiliate, KCBS, ?we are complying and will not tweet updates on #Dorner search.?
The Incident PIO (Press Information Officer) does not independently develop or confirm information ? they convey the information that comes from the incident commander and others who are situationally aware. This is not a conspiracy. They are about the safety and security of the police, the media, and any bystanders.
At the time that I am writing this, some online media outlets are beginning to entertain the possibility that San Bernardino County Sheriff?s deliberately set the fire that killed Dorner ? a fact that I reported on Twitter as soon the sheriff?s department order came down. If there is any doubt about the authenticity of the YouTube clip containing audio of the sheriff deputies? orders to burn the cabin down, I can verify that it is the real thing. I was listening to the same transmissions when they first blared across the police scanners.
This is outrageous! Without a forensic exam nobody knew what killed Dorner ? a lucky shot, a police sharpshooter/sniper, or a self-inflicted gunshot. This is the type of speculation that drives conspiracies.
In the hours after the standoff, however, the police cover-up remained unchallenged thanks largely to local media complicity. An initial Los Angeles Times report recounted the incident in a passive voice, claiming ?flames began to spread through the structure, and gunshots, probably set off by the fire, were heard.? Similarly, LA?s ABC affiliate, KABC, quoted Bachman?s vague comment about ?that cabin that caught fire,? failing to explore why it was aflame or who torched it.
What cover-up? The police requested that the media take certain prudent precautions to avoid putting lives at stake. At this point, it is also possible that Dorner was laying back, waiting to kill as many deputies as would approach the house.
Today, the Los Angeles Times reported claims by anonymous ?law enforcement sources? that the sheriffs used ?incendiary tear gas? to flush Dorner out of the cabin. The sources claimed the deputies who had besieged the cabin were under a ?constant barrage of gunfire? and that, ?There weren?t a lot of options.?
This is almost certainly a lie. The only mention by a deputy at the scene of a gunshot from inside the cabin was the ?single shot? that occurred as soon as the ?burners,? or incendiary teargas munitions, were deployed. After that point, deputies made constant mention of ammunition exploding inside the cabin as a result of the intense heat of the fire they set, but said nothing about any shots fired at them.
Listening to radio traffic and proclaiming something a lie is the worst type of journalism imaginable. You could just as easily speculate that Dorner deployed one of his own smoke grenades to draw the deputies closer to the cabin or to create a sense of false security. The truth is: you weren?t there and don?t really don?t know.
If there were a ?constant barrage of gunfire,? it would have been the main source of concern among the police at the scene. Instead, they were preoccupied with ensuring that the fire burned the cabin completely without spreading into the surrounding woods.
Yes, they were worried about starting a forest fire which could threaten additional properties and people. Yes, they were concerned about ammunition and possibly explosives being cooked off and accidently wounding or killing officers. Once that fire started, the best course is to do nothing but monitor the fire and watch to see if the suspect attempts an escape. What were they to do ? move up the fire apparatus and risk the lives of fire personnel to put the fire out in the hopes that Dorner was already dead or disabled?
Now comes the real incendiary material ?
There have been a number of cases where flash-bang and teargas grenades have set fires. One of the inherent problems in using such devices. But they are not incendiary grenades. Look at how the author skillfully makes the case that police are wanton killers.
There is a grand tradition of law enforcement using incendiary devices to assault besieged suspects, and of covering up their use. One of the most famous examples of this tactic, and its horrible consequences, was the Philadelphia Police Department?s bombing of the compound of the radical black nationalist cult, M.O.V.E., dropping C-4 explosives by helicopter on the house, killing 11 members of the group, including 5 children, and destroying 65 homes in the West Philadelphia neighborhood.
It was not until the 51-day FBI siege of the Waco, Texas compound of the messianic Branch Davidian cult that ?burners,? or incendiary 40mm military grade cartridges, were used to burn a structure down. Six years after claiming that the Branch Davidians deliberately burned their own compound down, the FBI finally admitted that it used incendiary rounds, but insisted that none of them contributed to the fire that consumed the compound.
What, the San Bernardino Sheriffs are now guilty of acting improperly because of another incident? Foolishness at best, deliberate provocation of malcontents at worst.
Now we get to the pure speculation ?
The ?burners,? or pyrotechnic rounds the San Bernardino County Sheriffs used to torch Dorner?s cabin, are likely similar, and perhaps more powerful, than those employed by the FBI in Waco. Through the five-year-old ?Department of Defense Excess Property Program,? the US military has provided police departments across the country with billions of dollars worth of military equipment, from amphibious tanks to AR-15 assault rifles, allowing the military to circumvent Posse Comitatus regulations by outsourcing their firepower to local cops.
?Burners,? or military grade incendiary grenades, are very likely among the items passed down from the US army to local police outfits like the San Bernardino Sheriff?s Department.The ?burner? of choice for the modern American soldier is the AN-M14 TH3. It is a hand held grenade comprised of a thermite mixture that rapidly converts to molten iron when it is thrown, burning at a temperature of 4000 degrees Fahrenheit, hot enough to burn through a half inch steel plate or bring an engine block to a boil. It can also produce enough heat to set off unloaded ammunition, which would explain why the ammo inside Dorner?s hideout was popping.
If the San Bernardino Sheriffs employed the AN-M14 TH3 or something like it against Dorner ? and it appears they did ? they have good reason to attempt to cover their actions up. Without even a token attempt to establish communication with the suspect, who was, to be sure, a wanted killer hell-bent on murdering cops, they attacked him with what was likely a military grade weapon designed to destroy fortified structures. By burning Dorner alive, then misleading and deceiving the public about the operation, the sheriffs may have validated the rogue ex-cop?s sharpest indictments of the culture of American law enforcement.
This is an outrage. Unless the author has specific and credible evidence that the police employed military-style incendiary rounds for the purposes of insuring that Dorner would never be able to tell his story to the media, he should wait for official confirmation before suggesting this scenario. And, how does the author know that there was no attempt to establish communications? Perhaps such a communication was what caused a round of gunfire. It is known that a message ?enough is enough? was given to Dorner ? how or by whom I do not know. We don?t know if he was monitoring the media.
Yet no element in the Dorner drama was more disturbing than the performance of mainstream media. At every point, major news outlets complied with law enforcement calls for self-censorship, and still demonstrate little interest in determining how and why a lethal fire started on a snow-covered mountain in the dead of winter. As a quintessentially American tragedy reaches its denouement, the truth remains buried beneath a smoldering pile of ashes. Source: How Law Enforcement and Media Covered Up the Plan to Burn Christopher Dorner Alive | Alternet
Bottom line ?
There is no forensic proof that the body in the cabin is Dorner (although they found his California Drivers License nearby) or what caused his death. Here is a violent and skilled killer, surrounded by deputies in fear for their lives as one of their number is already dead and another in critical condition. Even if incendiary grenades were deployed, perhaps it was for the purpose of forcing Dorner from the cabin before nightfall when the deputies would be at a definite tactical disadvantage.
As for all of the profanity-laden commands and exclamations, this is what happens in the field ? not to be monitored by civilians with no idea of the extreme pressure or circumstances affecting the situation.
The liberal author is attempting to whip up emotion, perhaps because, like some others blogging on the internet, he considers this to be a struggle between a person of color and the corrupt system, rather than what it really is: a deranged, highly-trained killer who has murdered four innocent people, two in premeditated cold blood. This is not the military where the hero charges the machine gun nest to save his fellow troops. This is not a movie. This is real life. And, I resent those who try to make this a story about race, about police misconduct or a story to incite others to take copycat action against government officials.
How many people know that Tim McVeigh bombed the Murrah Federal Building on the second anniversary of WACO because he could not find a way to kill Lon Horichi, the FBI sniper who has been theorized to be the proximate cause of the deaths at Waco and Ruby Ridge? A militia-type wing-nut railing against system. Possibly the intended audience of this incendiary screed.
Until the final report is written, we know one thing. Southern California can rest easier because a deranged wanton killer of civilians and police officers is dead. And deservedly so ? no matter how it happened, or in this case, may not have happened.
-- steve
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