Christopher Dorner the former LAPD officer who was on the run for the past week is dead..  Many who hoped that he may have escaped and that the body inside the cabin that was allowed to burn before our eyes on live today have to face that fact.. Christopher Dorner is dead..He’s dead and there’s lots of work for us to do in the aftermath.

Folks will also have to face the fact that Christopher Dorner is NOT Django.. In the past few days there have been discussions comparing Dorner to the fictional Django played by actor Jamie Foxx in the Quentin Tarantino movie..I guess it’s nice water cooler discussion, but for the most part  its wasted intellectual capital especially if we have access to the masses..

It’s been said over and over again…Dorner, like him or not left us a solid trail of information in which he lays out a litney of wrong doings by LAPD.. and it’ll take time, keen organizing and persistence to follow-up. During the manhunt for Dorner we saw three innocent people who look nothing like Dorner get shot by officers in both LAPD and nearby Torrance PD. Their names are;  Margie Carranza, her 71-year-old mother, Emma Hernandez and David Perdue a white man on his way to do some early morning surfing.

None of the victims who were shot in cases of mistaken identification came close to resembling Dorner nor did their vehicles. The names of the officers who shot these folks have not been released. I called LAPD this morning and they said they had no idea when the names would come out. They also wouldn’t tell me the status of the officers, whether they were on paid administrative leave, suspended, still working etc.. LAPD spokesman said, no further information was available because they were still investigating.

We do know from the initial reports that the officers were placed on administrative leave and that the shooting involved 6 officers and not 2 which was what was commonly reported. We also know that a new truck was being bought for the women via donations and that Chief Beck of LAPD apologized to the women admitting they made a mistake. We wanna know why weren’t those officers arrested for such a mistake?

We also know that due to the protection and privacy clauses found in Cali’s Policeman’s Bill of Rights, there’s no way for us to know the records of those officers once their names are released.  In other words, we don’t know if any of these 6 officers involved have a history of deadly force or abuse or if they were just hard-working folks with clean records. We’ll have to trust that a department accused of coverup and distrusted by large segments of the population they serve will do right by the people and give us a thorough investigation..

David Perdue

The case around David Perdue also identified as ‘Dan’ in some news stories who was shot by Torrance police is even more troubling..He was on his way to surf when he was stopped by police who ran a check on him and sent him on his way.. A few minutes later there were gun shots…Those gun shots were LAPD shooting up the bright blue pick up truck of the two Latina ladies delivering newspapers..

According to the Torrance police report:

As Torrance Police Officers responded to the location, they observed a truck suddenly leaving the area matching a similar description of suspect Christopher Dorner’s vehicle. A Torrance Police patrol unit, occupied by two officers, encountered the black truck, collided with the vehicle, and an officer involved shooting occurred.

Both officers involved in the collision were not injured. The sole occupant and driver of the truck was not hit by gun fire and had no visible injuries at the time of the incident.

Members of the Torrance Police Department would like to send our thoughts and prayers to all law enforcement agencies, their families, and all innocent people who have been affected by Christopher Dorner’s actions.

This incident is being investigated under the command and direction of Captain Bernard Anderson of the Special Operations Bureau and the assistance of the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office.

Torrance Police smashed David Perdue’s truck-Will the TPD get him a new truck?

I have not heard back from Torrance PD to see if they have released the names of the officers who have been described as ‘reckless’ in their behavior around this incident. Early on their actions were defended and deemed ‘reasonable’ considering the circumstances..Many of us beg to differ. There is nothing reasonable about being rammed off the road by police and then shot at..

With all this in mind and folks calling Dorner , the New Django, here’s some food for thought…If one wants to invoke the name Django, the best course of action would be to follow-up and make sure each and everyone of those officers who shot at innocent people are punished and not walking the streets as peace officers.

I say forget the debates.. do the hard follow-up by staying on the case of the egregious wrongs we saw play out before our very eyes..That would include the police setting the cabin on fire and letting Dorner burn alive while they stood on the sidelines and cheered..

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sisVskohj1k

In the movie, Django had to work and develop his skills as a shooter before he went to deal with his enemies. Instead of comparing and contrasting Dorner with Django, how about we develop our activism and political skills as people who love and demand justice and accountability from those technically work for us?

Dorner left behind a widely read manifesto..For those who feel he was a hero of sorts, how about honoring him and following up on the charges he laid out? He left names, dates, times and place..Familiarize yourself with them and never let up until questions are answered and change has occurred.

Candyland Plantation was destroyed in Django thus ending its reign of terror.. LAPD ‘Plantation’ still stands and its business as usual

The focus should be on making sure LAPD and other police agencies are vastly improved. The fact that LAPD and other police departments are so widely disliked is the reason so many people cheered on a guy who was accused of killing 2 cops and 2 innocent people.. In the minds of many, Dorner’s egregious actions weren’t too far removed from the realities far too many have experienced. How will we bring about improvement there?

Discontent with the police ranges from folks in the hood under siege for the wars on drugs, gangs and every other vice the police like to heap on entire groups of people, to the students, activists involved with the Occupy Movement to folks who by no fault of their own saw the economy tanked, lost their jobs and then their homes through foreclosure and had to deal with police holding it down for the banks and locking them out..

In the movie Django was given a couple of breaks from Shultz played by actor Christopher Waltz that he took advantage of which led to him being the hero that burns down the Candyland plantation. He tells the other slaves they are free as he moves toward his total liberation..

In real life Dorner was killed.. Candyland aka LAPD was not burned down and police terrorism and corruption is still here..If you really wanna make a comparison, Dorner is actually more like Shultz. Its through his manifesto and subsequent actions of the police in their attempts to capture him gave us all a match exposing wrong doings of LAPD..The question is what will you do with that match?