Christopher Dorner, RIP

I watched the events of Christopher Dorner's death unfold on video.  I saw the smoke from explosions before I saw the flames of the fire that followed the explosion.  If, in fact, he was guilty of the three murders he was accused of, then he is a criminal.  But under the US justice system, even criminals are entitled to an examination of the evidence, of intention, and of sentencing if in fact there was cause for his guilt, and given all of the reports there certainly was.  But in the scene that unfolded in the open, deep in the Big Bear forest of the San Bernadino Mountains, the San Bernadino County Sheriffs acted as judge, jury, and executioner, leaving viewers with the not so faint stench of the show trials of dictators in third-world regimes.  Is this what we've come to?  Is this where we're headed?  As his execution unfolded on video, the reporters who inevitably know so little about the events that are unfolding since they are back in their studios are either making up their narrative as they go, have it prescripted in accordance with law enforcement policy, or are getting it fed to them by law enforcement personnel stationed at that moment inside the news studios.  As the reports come in, they portray the police as peaceful, law-abiding officers of public good standing by, waiting for the opportunity to serve Mr. Dorner with a warrant or observing the standoff and performing the critical work of analyzing the best way to earn peaceful compliance from a renegade officer turned fugitive from the law.  The reporters build a suspenseful pause in anticipation for how it will end, knowing that it will end badly for Dorner.  They have to build the suspense to hide their role as accomplice in a gangland style, very public murder.  The press has to appear as though they as neutral, always narrating events with a biased eye on behalf of law enforcement so that cops, good cops are pitted against rogue ones.  They had to put down Dorner like a rabid dog.  Not for fear of getting bitten by what ailed Dorner, for that ship has already sailed, but to bury the grievance so that the code of blue silence can continue unabated in the service of injustice.  Then the police are presented as necessary assassins, performing, once Dorner was labeled in a declared manhunt as public enemy number one,  some kind of public service and duty to the community, another one of those Orwellian terms to hide the interested gang-banger.  The police pursue lethal resolutions to a guy who has been accused, tried, and convicted by the press before he ever sees the inside of a courtroom with a judge, representation, or jury of peers.  Then a fire erupts in the cabin.  We only learn of the incendiary devices used to incinerate the cabin days after the police are sifting through the debris.  I saw smoke.  I saw a fire.  Then reports come from "authorities," anonymous individuals to whom we are supposed to extend obsequious respect and honor by the mere fact that they are a member of that elite sect, the police department.  The next report that comes in is that a single shot was heard, a phrase used often to announce to the world of a significant historical event but in this case to hint not at the possibility of suicide but at the likely but unconfirmed and therefore probably deniable probability.  No blame or charge is laid at the feet of law enforcement.  No suspicion at their door, despite the massive presence, blockading of roads, and news organizations from around the world converging in complicity and in curiosity with a massive police assault.  You saw the roads leading to the cabin--a long string of police vehicles, humvees, armored personnel carriers, and others.

FOX19.com-Cincinnati News, Weather