The ugly, violent saga of former LA cop Christopher Dorner has apparently come to an end, but there are lots of questions that need answers, answers we may never get. At the top of the list is this. How can people make Dorner out to be some kind of hero? It's true he had beef with his former employer. It may well be he was unjustly fired from the LAPD back in 2008.
But how does even a legitimate beef justify murder?
There are those who have decided that the racism and other serious problems of the department make what Dorner did understandable. It simply isn't. How does one explain the more than 18,000 supporters Dorner garnered on Facebook? The page was titled "We Stand with Christopher Dorner". Somehow that just doesn't feel right.
The LAPD and assorted other law officers do have much to answer for. How, for example, did two women delivering newspapers in the wee hours of the morning end up with their truck ventilated by police gunfire, and the two of them wounded? There's an investigation, so we're told, but the original explanation of cops being tense and in the heat of the hunt doesn't wash. There's also the question of whether or not police actually set fire to the cabin in Big Bear, where Dorner reportedly made his last stand.
Yet despite these and other issues, Chris Dorner was no hero. Gunning down four people does not a hero make. Those who have a concern for humanity, those who decry drone strikes that kill innocent civilians (a legitimate concern, along with the kill list) have no business finding common cause with a man who would settle a problem, no matter how serious, at the point of a gun.
There may be no lessons learned from this man's murderous rampage, and no changes made in the way Los Angeles police do their job. At a point, they ought to be separate issues. Assuming the body they found inside that cabin is actually Dorner's, cops in Southern California will probably breathe a sigh of relief.
That a killer developed an overnight following should give all of us pause.
