If I had been in Los Angeles, I would most likely have been locked up for an incident like that. Forget about any warning. You aren't supposed to talk back to cops in L.A. And if you are black or Latino, the results of such an arrest could be much worse.
I remember once witnessing LAPD cops stopping a few Latino youths who had been joyriding in what might have been a stolen car. There was a helicopter overhead, and perhaps a dozen patrol cars that had converged on the scene, outside a shopping mall in Silverlake. I ran over to see what was happening and watched as the cops grabbed the kids, none of whom was armed, out of the vehicle and slammed them against the car brutally. It was looking pretty ugly, but by then neighbors from the surrounding homes, most of them Latino, who had poured out onto their lawns because of the commotion, began yelling at the cops. One man shouted, "We see what you're doing. These boys are all healthy. If anything happens to any of them after you arrest them we will report you!"
The cops grudgingly backed off in their attack on the boys, and took them away in a squad car. I don't know what happened to them after that, but they were most certainly saved, by quick community response, from an on-the-spot Rodney King-style beating that could have seriously injured them, or worse.
As things stand right now, with the LAPD gunning for Dorner, and wanting him dead and silenced, not captured, the public has to worry that it has more to fear from the LAPD than it has to fear from Dorner himself. At least Dorner, in his own twisted way, has specific targets in mind. The LAPD is in "spray and pray" mode.
Hopefully, Dorner will realize he can do more by figuring out a safe way to "come in from the cold" so he can try to testify about LAPD crimes, than by killing more cops. If he does manage to surrender, he'd better have a lot of support lined up to keep him safe while in custody.
It's already clear that a lot of people in the LAPD want him dead.
DAVE LINDORFF is a founding member of ThisCantBeHappening!, the new independent Project Censored Award-winning online alternative newspaper. His work, and that of colleagues JOHN GRANT, LORI SPENCER, LINN WASHINGTON, JR. and CHARLES M. YOUNG can be found at www.thiscantbehappening.net
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