I am also troubled by this. Self-defense and public safety is a pretty shaky argument here once he's inside the cabin. Even if it's dangerous, they need to make some attempt to arrest him alive.
Sure. I'm a voter who has an interest in the protection of my civil rights to due process. If they have a good argument why they're allowed to burn suspects to death instead of arresting them, I think they should tell it. Maybe they do have a good argument, and I'm sure a judge in a civil rights violations case could evaluate whether it had merit. As citizens, it is our job to second-guess the decisions of public servants and make sure they operate within the confines of the law.
Nothing is right about what Dorner did but LAPD has always had the history of being judge, jury, and executioner. Do as I say and not as I do. Pushing people to their limits because they have the power and you don't. Well Dorner was pushed to his limits.. unfortunately he had military/leo training and wasnt going to submit to the corrupt forces that he was trying to expose in his manifesto. I wonder where the "reopening up Dorners" case will go now that he's supposedly dead. We won't hear anything from it. Asking LAPD to investigate itself was just a ploy to soften up Dorner. It was never going to happen.
They wait 5 days for the man in Alabama in the bunker with the boy hostage and here they burn the cabin down within 2 hours. They both "allegedly" killed people before sheltering down and had guns with them. I don't get why you can take such force and simply kill a guy just because he doesn't have a hostage.
If anything, having a hostage gives you more justification to kill instead of capture, to relieve the danger the hostage faces. No one (I've heard) is second-guessing the decision to kill the guy who took that boy hostage because the cops said they felt the danger to the boy was escalating. Maybe it's one of those things the LAPD figured it'd be better to ask for forgiveness than for permission.
Correct me if i'm wrong, but has the police department admitted to intentionally setting off the fire? Or is that what everyone is just assuming for convenience of argument sake?
No assumption. There are multiple audio sources of police saying "bring the fire", "Ok, let's burn this mother#ucker", etc.
What QAA said. My initial inclination was to think it was accidental or that Dorner set it himself. But, reading some transcripts of the scanner, it sounds like it was intentionally lit. If that's wrong and the fire was not their fault, then I don't have a beef with them. But, if it what it sounds like turns out to be true, I don't like it. I wonder if the Justice Dept would steer clear to avoid bringing up comparisons to Awlaki. Or maybe they'd seize on it to draw a bright contrast with Awlaki. Just musing aloud here.
The police's job isn't revenge and there is a big difference between exchanging gunfire with a suspect and burning down a house with him inside. There is a reason why cops aren't equipped with napalm and high explosives.
Why should we be surprised? The government has shown that it does not care one iota about the privacy or protection of its citizens unless there are political points to be made. This was true during Bush, but it was reported on. It's even more true during the Obama, but yet noone seems to do any kind of reporting on it, and even when they do, there is no traction. It's baffling. Terrorists deserve the death penalty, but the guy was still a frigging US citizen. Taking him out with a drone is the equivalent of a cop shooting a criminal in cold blood without a warning. It's extremely troubling to me, and I just don't understand why people aren't that much bothered by this.
Except he wasn't going anywhere at that point and was no threat to anyone outside of the immediate vicinity. Police have waited out far longer sieges than four hours. Anyway that still misses the point that if the police deliberately killed him in that manner (trapping him in a burning house with no chance of surrender) that would violate the due process. Further as the police mission isn't just public safety burning down the cabin would also ruin any chance of actually investigating the case further. There might be other issues out there such as did Dorner have help. From the video I've seen it looks like there are trees relatively close. Anyway snow isn't necessarily a signal that a fire can't happen. It greatly lessons the chances of one spreading. Further with a cabin like that there are also things like propane tanks that could explode in a fire. http://mythbustersresults.com/episode85 Bullets thrown into an open fire can explode with lethal force. BUSTED The Mythbusters dropped a box of bullets with varying calibers directly into an open fire. While many of the bullets immediately discharged,, it appeared that none of the bullets could be lethal. Like the oven test, most of the damage was being dealt by the shell casings, which could not travel fast enough to be lethal.[/quote] It's noted many bullets immediately discharged. While mythbusters under somewhat controlled conditions showed that this could be safe that is still a big risk to take in an uncontrolled situation. As noted the police have waited out far longer sieges. With all due respect to Reddit I am skeptical about a transcript coming out so soon. I think we are still sorting out the facts.
Because, people are only scared of the government when they're banning guns or giving people health care. But, everyone has a dirty harry "waste the ****ers" mindset when it comes to crime.
As I said above I am skeptical of transcripts coming out so soon and think there is a lot to sort out and verify. Further comments made about "OK lets burn the mother f*(%er" might actually not mean literally burn him or could be expressions of frustration on the part of the police. There is still a lot we don't know about and I think we are jumping to conclusion that the police deliberately set fire to the cabin to kill him. One other possibility that I am not sure has been considered is that the police actually did start a fire with the intention of a very limited fire in one part of the cabin to force Dorner out and either the fire got out of control quickly and/or Dorner never came out before the whole thing burned down. I doubt the Justice Dept. want's anything to do with this but as I noted earlier there is a very clear distinction between this and Awlaki. The argument for Awlaki was that he was in league with a declared enemy with a Congressional authorization of force against it and was outside the country in an area under the control of that enemy. None of those apply to Dorner.
The LATimes reported this. they used tear gas at first and when it didn't work, went to incendiary type
I wonder why I see very left leaning blogs constantly hammering Obama over this but it doesn't get MSM play. I suspect it just doesn't fit the narrative that some millionaire media types find interesting. Seems the Obama versus House Republicans angle fills enough air time.
I think it's clear that at this point, the police did start the fire deliberately. The official statements indirectly refer to this and the audio logs aren't exactly helping their case. Very surprised that they have not officially identified the body in the cabin though. You would imagine they'd scream their triumph off the top of their lungs if they were sure they got him.
I think it's clear that at this point, the police very likely started the fire deliberately. The official statements indirectly refer to this and the audio logs aren't exactly helping their case. Very surprised that they have not identified the body in the cabin though. You would imagine they'd scream their triumph off the top of their lungs if they were sure they got him.
