Ex-cop manhunt: Fresh tracks found in Big Bear snow

LAT ^ | February 7, 2013 | 3:27pm

[BenLurkin]

Authorities in Big Bear have spotted fresh tracks believed to be those of a fugitive ex-Los Angeles police officer wanted in connection with a series of shootings and are combing the area for him, a Fire Department official told The Times.

Big Bear Lake Fire Department Asst. Chief Mark Mills also said the burning pickup discovered on a forest road has been linked to Christopher Jordan Dorner, 33, sought in connection with a series of shootings that have left three people dead and two wounded.

TV helicopters showed the pickup being readied to be towed from the scene.

The truck was discovered hours into an intensive manhunt for Dorner that spanned Southern California. Although sources said there had been multiple reported sightings of Dorner's truck in the Big Bear area on Thursday, the burnt truck was too badly charred to immediately confirm it was his.

Meanwhile, the mountain community locked down schools and closed the nearby Bear Mountain Resort as a fatigue-clad SWAT team walked through the woods, rifles drawn.

Sean Jacques, director of loss prevention for Big Bear Mountain Resorts, said that after the burning truck was discovered on a forest service road, local law enforcement told resort officials to keep an eye out for Dorner and provided a description of the suspect.

[DuncanWaring]

Danny Horning escaped from prison in Arizona with just the clothes on his back about 20 years ago and evaded large-scale pursuit for two months.

[ZX12R]

I'm not buying mentally disturbed. I think he is just a normal liberal.

Agreed. A normal liberal, but doing what most of them only dream about doing. The only difference being he's after cops, not conservatives.

[justice14]

So is this manhunt, also a government practice run for attacking citizens? Asking for a friend.

/sarcasm

[444Flyer]

Per Big Bear scanner:

6:47 a.m. PT Reports of shots heard by resident in Forest Falls. “2 shots heard.”

Second call just in of hearing 2 shots ‘across the canyon’.

Forest Falls (population 950 + or -.)

Calls came from areaa’Highway 38 and Valley of the Falls.’

[444Flyer]

3rd call in reporting of shots heard in Forest Falls.

[444Flyer]

Now being reported as ‘vehicle backfiring’.

(Understandable they had calls in. Resident’s have to be on edge living anywhere near Big Bear.)

[TurboZamboni]

Just have Barry declare him a jihadist and then Barry can
launch a drone strike. /sarc

[Oztrich Boy]

I think his body will be found in the wilderness, a suicide
with three bullets in the back of his head.

[Joe 6-pack]

"He has manpads, like I have an Abrams tank."

He's almost certainly blowing smoke, but there was a 60 Minutes interview with the NYPD Chief back in September 2011 where the Chief let it slip that the NYPD had the capability to take down an airplane. In the days immediately following the interview, Chief Kelly and Bloomberg backpedaled, stating that capability consisted of firing a .50 sniper rifle from a helicopter. Needless to say, there was a lot of speculation that they probably had the capability to deploy at least a Stinger.

So, while I still find it extremely doubtful that Dorner has his hands on one, the thought that an NY or LAPD officer could gain access to one is not as remotely implausible as it might first seem.

Then (get your tinfoil ready), if you believe in goverment/media collaboration to gently float ideas into the public conscience and incrementally shift that Overton Window, there was that coincidental little news item from the Seattle gun buyback just over a week ago...

[old curmudgeon]

He was supposedly an expert with explosives.

If that is the case, that truck could have exploded in flames after he was 100 miles away.

Think about it.

He dropped his wallet in one place, his badge in another and his truck burned in another.

Can you imagine a street smart cop making so many mistakes?

They were not mistakes nor accidents.

Certainly we will not know until it is all over, but there is a really good chance that he is miles from there and stalking one of his targets.

[ctdonath2]

And he’s just one man with a gun.

No wonder the Left is freaked out about “assault weapons”.

[PA Engineer]

They were not mistakes nor accidents.

I agree.

[Stentor]

You can fault them for failing to realize that the object was a newspaper, but you really can’t fault them for the truck color issue because by that point, the guy could have switched vehicles.

I fault them for being trigger happy morons.

[Oztrich Boy]

Dorner had apparently switched plates on the truck, and the plate from the first Riverside shooting came back to an address in Torrance. Two LAPD detectives went to the address at 5:20am, roughly four hours after the Riverside officer was killed. On arrival, they spotted a vehicle driving toward them with lights out, and saw someone throw an object out the window in their direction. So.. middle of the night, at a residence associated in some unknown way with a cop killer, and having no idea by then whether he was still in the truck or some other vehicle he stole.

Someone's telling porkies