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Dorner remains confirmed

February 15, 2013

California officials have confirmed the human remains recovered from a burnt-out mountain cabin are those of ex-Los Angeles policeman Christopher Dorner. The alleged cop-turned-killer led a massive, week-long manhunt.

https://p.dw.com/p/17edl
San Bernardino Sheriff's deputies inspect a vehicle trying to get through a closed road at Highway 38 at Glass Road February 13, 2013 while San Bernardino Sheriff's deputies investigate the cabin where police believe they engaged in a shootout with fugitive former Los Angeles police officer Christopher Dorner on Tuesday. REUTERS/Alex Gallardo
Image: Reuters

The San Bernardino County sheriff and coroner's office confirmed the remains were Dorner's Thursday, saying they used dental records to make the identification.

The 33-year-old Dorner barricaded himself in a cabin near Big Bear Lake Tuesday following a shootout with police. He was believed to have died after law enforcement officers threw pyrotechnic tear gas into the cabin. It was not known if he died from gunfire or the ensuing blaze.

One officer was killed and another wounded in the shootout before the cabin fire.

A former Navy reservist, Dorner had been on the run for a week, vowing to bring "warfare" to the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) that fired him five years ago.

The chase came to a climax at Big Bear Lake, 80 miles east of Los Angeles, where police had first found Dorner's burned-out pickup truck abandoned five days earlier. On Tuesday, Dorner was spotted in a stolen vehicle, and fled on foot after crashing one vehicle and carjacking another.

During his run, he tied up a couple, Jim and Karen Reynolds, in their cabin. He fled in their pickup truck, but they eventually freed themselves and called the police.

Law enforcement then followed him to a cabin, where a shootout ensued. SWAT marksmen then surrounded the building before police set it alight.

Week-long manhunt

The manhunt for Dorner began on February 6 after authorities connected the killings of a former police captain's daughter, and her fiancé, to an angry manifesto against the LAPD they said Dorner posted on Facebook. Dorner was also alleged to have killed another police officer Michael Crain, 34, and wounding two others in Riverside County.

In his manifesto, Dorner pledged to "bring unconventional and asymmetrical warfare to those in LAPD uniform whether on or off duty."

Some 50 LAPD officers and families had been placed under special protection. Officers guarding one of the targets in Torrance, south of Los Angeles, last week shot and injured two women delivering newspapers because they mistook their pickup truck for Dorner's.

Dorner was fired by the LAPD for filing a false report and accusing his training officer of kicking a mentally ill suspect. In his manifesto, Dorner, who is black, claims he is the victim of racism and was fired by the department for doing the right thing.

dr/jm (AFP, AP, dpa, Reuters)