Why the LAPD's Hunt for Dorner Is Indefensible [View all]

[MrScorpio]

Salon / By David Cay Johnston

The hunt for Christopher Dorner, which injured innocent civilians, reveals how little the department has changed.
February 16, 2013

In hunting down Christopher J. Dorner, hell-bent on murderous revenge over being fired from the Los Angeles Police Department, officers twice fired without warning on three innocent civilians, wounding two of them.

That innocent people get shot by cops who think their own safety is paramount, whose actions show they value their own lives more than those of people they are sworn to protect, is part of a major problem in America that has not abated much despite decades of efforts to make policing more professional and less brutish. It is the policy of police departments that police cannot kill innocents to save themselves, in effect, that sometimes your sworn duty is to die. But, on the streets, it is far too often another story entirely.

The victims of this Feb. 7 police violence bore no resemblance to Dorner or his vehicle. The deranged Dorner drove a gray Nissan Titan pickup, while LAPD fired a fusillade into a bright blue Toyota Tacoma pickup from behind, while minutes later Torrance, Calif., police rammed a black Honda Ridgeline pickup and then fired three shots.

Dorner was a large, even hulking, black man. In the blue truck were two Hispanic women. Torrance police shot at a surfer, a white male slight in stature.

Luckily none of these innocents died, though one of the women was shot in the back.

http://www.alternet.org/why-lapds-hunt-dorner-indefensible?page=0%2C0