WTF is so "special" about Dorner & the LAPD, that unleashes Attack-Trolls on DU?

[haele]

141. I really, really hate to wade into a mess like this, but here goes -

My quarter and a half's worth of thought on this based on what I've read of his manifesto, the actual evidence of what he's done, the cess pool that is the LAPD, and my own personal experiences with various types of heirarchal cultures that are prone to corruption.

1) Dornan's page, manifesto, and other writings and interviews with people who know/knew him suggest that he has very, very strong opinions on what he is and what the world should be, whether or not it really is that way.
He is also very smart and has developed a talent to activity related to warfare.
In my experience, people who function according to an overly strong self-identification to their personal worldview have, well, rather brittle filters when it comes to dealing with others in social interaction.
They don't actually see other people as people separate from that personal world.
They tend to have hair-trigger reactions to what is perceived as threatening, disrespectful, or condescending, and they tend to internalize and work up their agitation against those perceptions and eventually explode, convinced that the world is against them.
Their intentions and actions are always justified by the strength of the feelings that they hold about a subject or person.

2) LAPD as an entity has been a cess pool of corruption from when the city was transitioning from the old Ciudad de los Angeles to Mulholland and others turning it into a real-estate and oil field boom town - it was that way in the 1960's when my parents left LA, and so far as I can see, it never really changed over the years.
TPTB within love the image they are the "thin blue line" against the "masses of unwashed animals and speculators" that inhabit LA, and as with all hierarchal organizations, the attitudes seep downwards and have become so entrenched so that while there are quite a number of good people who are great police, the majority get stuck in morass that is "the culture" from the top.
If those good people don't play the "don't see nothin' game or don't have a thick enough skin to live with being constantly stepped on, they get taken down or driven out.
The corruption in the LAPD in itself is not a surprise, and is constantly an issue that has been discussed by concerned Angelinos for decades - my parents talked about it, my relatives talk about it, and when I worked up there occasionally, I saw it and discussed it with co-workers and friends.
Basically, while there have been efforts to clean up in the past, until those at the top - especially those established power bases within the city infrastructure and politics themselves - make a serious, almost generational effort to clean house, the corruption and police attitudes will not change.

3) From these two things, my comments start simple - Dornan ran afoul of "the LAPD culture".
He was too wound up in his personal world from the hurt of their casual treatment of him for being "a nail" (in their cultural view) to be able to step back and see what could be done to damage the LAPD without turning it into a personal vendetta.
And it is his vendetta and the threats of death that are making this whole situation "news".

But beyond his situation my complaint is this - why don't we instead discuss the hundreds of other former LAPD officers who were drummed out or who quit in disgust and did other things to strike back at the corruption in the force that drove them out - who wrote articles, provided evidence because they didn't fit in with a corrupt culture and who didn't get pissed off and go on a killing spree?
The hundreds who have raised their voices to complain, who have been ignored, but went on to make the best of their lives?
No.
We discuss an angry ex-cop with military training, an arsenal, and a hit list that could endanger thousands of people who had nothing to do with his situation.
And of course, it's "good TV" - like a Mob movie - it's a chase between an corrupt organization and an anti-hero who couldn't think beyond his own sense of revenge to become a murderer who bloodied their nose?

Other than the damage done to people who had nothing to do with this sorry, threat to the general public situation Dornan put himself in when he went on this spree, there's very little more he could have accomplished if he hadn't let his temper and thirst for revenge get in the way of his brain and pushed him "over the edge".
Certainly his actions have not been near any level of the heroic efforts the many police and civilians who, over the years, have worked to blow the lid on the corruption in the LAPD that seems to keep coming back because of that "thin blue line" attitude of theirs.

Haele