Ex-Officer Is Suspect in Killing of Officer in California
A former Los Angeles police officer
sought for two weekend killings — and who threatened to kill police — is
a suspect in an overnight shooting in nearby Riverside that killed one
officer and critically wounded another, police said Thursday.
The
shooting happened early Thursday morning in the Los Angeles suburb of
Corona. The wounded officer is in surgery. A third officer suffered a
graze wound.
Two Newton station
officers on security duty in the same area were also involved in a
shooting overnight, but they weren't hurt, police said.
Former
Los Angeles police officer Christopher Jordan Dorner is the suspect
who's wanted in the killings of Monica Quan and her fiancé, Keith
Lawrence, who were found shot to death in their car at a parking
structure Sunday night, Irvine police Chief David L. Maggard said at a
news conference Wednesday night.
Dorner,
33, implicated himself in the killings with a multi-page "manifesto"
that he wrote that included threats against several people, including
members of the LAPD, police said. They gave no further details on the
document or its contents.
Autopsies
showed that Quan and Lawrence were killed by multiple gunshot wounds in
the parking structure at their condominium in Irvine, Orange County
sheriff's spokesman Jim Amormino said earlier Wednesday.
Quan,
28, was an assistant women's basketball coach at Cal State Fullerton.
Lawrence, 27, was a public safety officer at the University of Southern
California.
The killings brought
mourning and disbelief at three college campuses, Fullerton, USC, and
Concordia University, where the two met when they were both students and
basketball players.
Police do not know Dorner's whereabouts, and authorities were seeking the public's help in finding him.
"We
have strong cause to believe Dorner is armed and dangerous," Maggard
said, adding that the LAPD and FBI are assisting in the case.
Police
said the U.S. Navy reservist may be driving a blue 2005 Nissan Titan
pickup truck. His last known address was in La Palma in northern Orange
County near Fullerton.
Dorner was with the department from 2005 until 2008, when he was fired for making false statements.
Quan's
father, a former LAPD captain who became a lawyer in retirement,
represented Dorner in front of the Board of Rights, a tribunal that
ruled against Dorner at the time of his dismissal, LAPD Capt. William
Hayes told The Associated Press Wednesday night.
Randal Quan retired in 2002. He later served as chief of police at Cal Poly Pomona before he started practicing law.
According
to documents from a court of appeals hearing in October 2011, Dorner
was fired from the LAPD after he made a complaint against his field
training officer, Sgt. Teresa Evans. Dorner said that in the course of
an arrest, Evans kicked suspect Christopher Gettler, a schizophrenic
with severe dementia.
Following an investigation, Dorner was fired for making false statements.
Richard
Gettler, the schizophrenic man's father, gave testimony that supported
Dorner's claim. After his son was returned on July 28, 2007, Richard
Gettler asked "if he had been in a fight because his face was puffy" and
his son responded that he was kicked twice in the chest by a police
officer.
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