The former officer wanted for killing three people got into a gunfight with officers, two of whom were injured, police say.
View full size
Police block a road this afternoon at Yucaipa, Calif., as a gunfight between police and fugitive ex-Los Angeles cop Christopher Dorner takes place farther up the highway near Big Bear Lake.
A fugitive ex-Los Angeles police officer sought in three killings was believed barricaded in a cabin today after a furious gunbattle with police in the snow-covered mountains of Southern California, authorities said, the culmination of an intensive manhunt that left a region an edge for nearly a week.
The cabin was reportedly on fire and smoke was pouring out as of 7:30 p.m.
Two officers were injured and were being airlifted to a hospital, the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department said. One of the officers has died, a source told The Associated Press.
LAPD Cmdr. Andrew Smith asked news agencies not to broadcast live reports because the person in the cabin might be watching television.
He urged Dorner to surrender, saying “Enough is enough.”
Officers have been swarming the snow-covered Big Bear region since Thursday, when they found the burned-out pickup truck of Christopher Dorner. The former Navy reservist killed a former police captain’s daughter and her fiance and a Riverside officer, and injured two other officers, police said, promising to bring “warfare” to Los Angeles police and their family members.
At about 12:20 p.m. Tuesday, deputies in the Big Bear area got a report of a stolen vehicle in the area, the sheriff’s office said.
View full size
Christopher Dorner
When authorities found the vehicle, the suspect, believed to be Dorner, ran into the forest and barricaded himself inside a cabin. A short time later there was an exchange of gunfire between law enforcement and the suspect.
Road blocks were set up around Big Bear. The shootout occurred in Seven Oaks off Highway 38, about five miles as the crow flies from where Dorner’s pickup was found. A ridge with peaks topping 8,000 feet lies between the locations. By road, the two areas are about 30 miles apart.Dorner’s beef with the department dated back at least five years, when he was fired for filing a false report accusing his training officer of kicking a mentally ill suspect. Dorner, who is black, claimed in his manifesto that he was the subject of racism by the department and fired for doing the right thing.