A manhunt was under way overnight Thursday for a heavily-armed former policeman with a grudge against his superiors who is suspected of killing three people and shooting three police officers. Christopher Jordan Dorner, 33, released a chilling manifesto earlier in the week threatening to target police in retribution for being fired four years ago.
Dorner was named as a suspect Wednesday in a double homicide that occurred on Sunday. On Thursday he is alleged to have shot police officers who were stopped in their car at an intersection in Riverside, Southern California, killing one of them. Earlier he is believed to have shot at officers who were guarding one of the police officials he had explicitly threatened.
In a shooting that did not involve Dorner, two women were injured when police opened fire after mistaking their vehicle for Dorner's. One was lightly injured, while the other was said to be in stable condition. Police also shot at another truck in another case of mistaken identity but no injuries were reported in that incident.
The victims of Sunday's double homicide were identified as Monica Quan and her fiance Keith Lawrence. Quan is the daughter of Randal Quan, the officer who handled Dorner's appeal against his firing from the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD), where he had worked from 2005-08. Dorner claimed that he had been unjustly fired from the LAPD after reporting a colleague for using excessive force when making an arrest.
"I never had the opportunity to have a family of my own. I'm terminating yours," Dorner allegedly wrote, according to a document released by CNN. "I will bring unconventional and asymmetrical warfare to those in LAPD uniform whether on or off duty." The dragnet for Dorner stretched all over southern California and into Nevada. He is armed with multiple weapons, police said, including an assault rifle.
"Our department is implementing all measures possible to ensure the safety of our LAPD personnel, their families and the Los Angeles community, and will continue to do so until Dorner is apprehended and all threats have been abated," police said in a statement.
Los Angeles Police Chief Charlie Beck said the situation was "extremely worrisome and scary" and called on Dorner to turn himself in. "Of course he knows what he's doing - we trained him," Beck told reporters. "I would tell him to turn himself in. This has gone far enough. No one else needs to die."