The Dorner Manifesto

The following column was written Feb. 24.

In the news business, yesterday’s news is — well, no longer news.

It’s stale, old and useless.

Yet this rush for what’s new often ignores that which bears closer scrutiny.

I speak of the memorandum written by the Los Angeles Police Department’s former elite officer, Christopher Jordan Dorner, reportedly later killed during a fiery armed conflict with cops in the frigid hills of Southern California.

This document, titled “Last Resort,” runs some 10 pages long, and news accounts have frankly not given it a full or fair portrayal. Many, perhaps most reporters opined that [Dorner] was obviously “crazy,” thereby suggesting that his own stated basis for his anti-LAPD actions were unworthy of consideration.

These were the journalists who performed their services to the powerful rather than purveyors of information to the public. One well-known journalist all but bragged that he received a package from Dorner, yet hadn’t bothered to read it.  He dutifully turned it over to police!

Amazing.

I don’t have internet access, but someone had the kindness to send me a hard-copy text. What I read was, to say the least, stunning.

If you want to see behind the so-called “thin blue line,” I urge you to read it.

It really is a remarkable  first-person account of [Dorner’s] life in the LAPD, and his treatment there, including his vigorous responses when someone used a racial epithet in his presence.

In one example, he cites the free use of the n-word by a cop in his vehicle. He told the guy it was unacceptable, and the guy repeated it. Dorner stopped the car, grabbed the offender — and choked him.

When the incident was reported, all of the cops present, but one, said they had heard nothing.

But, I urge you — read it for yourself. It will give you insight into the inner workings of the LAPD, but, perhaps more importantly, of the media.

Dorner repeatedly implored journalists to investigate his claims, but there’s little chance now.

It’s old news.