I don’t live in LA any more but I used to.
The problem I’m having with Dorner is that he makes a lot of sense. There’s a lot of logic to what he’s saying, and I certainly do believe most of his allegations. I have no doubt the LAPD treated him terribly and treats other people terribly. As I’ve mentioned elsewhere, if “hands red with innocent blood” is a disqualifier then we should no more listen to the LAPD than to Dorner.
There is also the uncomfortable fact that he is clearly not dangerous to me. The police in LA, just like in the rest of America, are a privileged class. Their children are very much part of that class. I am clearly not. I’ve lived with the awareness of what it’s like to be the victim and prey of the police for a long time, and I’m not having an easy time acting super upset when one of their own turns against them for a host of reasons, all of which I find cogent. He is right, he shouldn’t have been able to get the guns he got. He shouldn’t have lost his job over whistleblowing. The LAPD should have done a much better job of screening and counseling with him, and he should have been treated for his major depression. I’ll go one further and say the Navy should never have made him into a sniper.
It is very, very difficult to not see this as rough justice coming to the LAPD for their multiplicity of sins against society, and the fact that the LAPD wasted no time making a farce of themselves and shooting innocent people does not make me feel worse for them. They have summoned up their own nemesis. It is fascinating how completely this is a LAPD screwup, and the extent to which it affects civilians (“drones,” as I hear they call us) is only the extent to which the LAPD screws up and shoots the wrong people. Again.
While I’m on the subject, it’s not Dorner that LA needs to be afraid of right now. Dorner is not going to shoot you if you are driving a truck. I would hate to be a tall black guy in LA right now, and that sucks, and that is sort of on Dorner. But when the system is this decrepit, something is going to happen. The LAPD has been killing people for a long time now.
Hope this makes sense and is not too much of a self-serving rationalization. I’m not going to waste your time reminding you that murder is bad and people should not kill people. I’m just trying to tell you why even I, a pacifist, can’t quite bring myself to condemn the guy.
