Hunt for ex-cop escalates after third death

A massive manhunt continued in the California mountains for a fired policeman accused of three murders who declared war on law enforcement officers and their families in a rambling internet manifesto.

Officers combed hillsides around a ski area overnight for Christopher Dorner, who has had military training, saying he was thought to be heavily armed and had effectively drawn up a hit list of other potential victims.

Police used search dogs and helicopters equipped with infrared equipment to track down the former naval reservist who they believed had at least one assault rifle.

Dorner first came to public attention on Wednesday when he was named as a suspect in the weekend killings of a university security officer and his fiancée, Monica Quan, 28, in Irvine, about 40 miles south of Los Angeles.

She was the daughter of a retired Los Angeles police captain who represented Dorner in disciplinary action that led to his firing in 2008. Dorner was sacked on the grounds that he made false statements accusing another officer of using excessive force, said police.

Two LA police officers assigned to a search detail traded fire with him earlier on Thursday in the city of Corona. One officer’s head was grazed by a bullet.

About 20 minutes later, two other officers were ambushed and one of them killed. They had been sitting in their patrol car at a traffic light near Corona in the town of Riverside.

Dorner sees himself as a crusader, and whistle-blower who confronted racism early in life and believes he suffered in his career and personal life for challenging bigotry to dishonesty.

He fulfilled his lifelong dream of becoming a Los Angeles police officer in 2005, but saw it unravel three years later when he was fired after a police review board decided he falsely accused his training officer of kicking a mentally ill man in the face and chest. The incident led Dorner to plot violent revenge against those he thought responsible for his downfall, according to a 14-page manifesto police believe he authored because there are details in it only he would know.

The manifesto reveals a man with varied and sometimes conflicting political views. His two favourite presidents are Bill Clinton and George HW Bush, in that order; and he says he wants either Hillary Clinton or New Jersey governor Chris Christie for president in 2016. He also laments the fact that he “won’t be around to view and enjoy ‘The Hangover III.’ What an awesome trilogy.”

“I know most of you who personally know me are in disbelief to hear from media reports that I am suspected of committing such horrendous murders and have taken drastic and shocking actions in the last couple of days,” the manifesto reads. “You are saying to yourself that this is completely out of character of the man you knew who always wore a smile wherever he was seen.”

David Pighin, a neighbour of Dorner in the Orange County community of La Palma, said the ex-officer kept to himself and left his house and his black Nissan Titan, outfitted with tinted windows and custom rims, impeccably clean.

The pickup, which had been torched, was found on Thursday in mountains east of Los Angeles.

Dorner has no children and court records show his wife filed for divorce in 2007, though there’s no evidence one was granted. Pighin believed Dorner lived with his mother and possibly his sister.

In response to threats, police were providing more than 40 protection details for people they determined at high risk.

“I never had the opportunity to have a family of my own. I’m terminating yours,” the manifesto says.

“I will utilise every bit of small arms training, demolition, ordinance and survival training I’ve been given,” it reads. “You have misjudged a sleeping giant.”