CITY NEWS SERVICE
A $1 million reward was offered today for information leading to the conviction of accused triple-killer Christopher Jordan Dorner, as 50 Los Angeles police officers and their families are being watched and guarded against attack by an ex-cop on a murderous campaign of vengeance, authorities said.
Riverside police revealed today that 34-year-old Michael Crain was the Riverside police officer killed Thursday, allegedly by Dorner.
Crain, a retired Marine, is survived by his wife, Regina, and two children, Ian, 10, and Kaitlyn, 4.
Crain left “an unforgettable impression” on everyone he met, Riverside police Lt. Guy Toussaint said.
LAPD chief Charlie Beck said a search was still in effect in the snowy mountains in and around Big Bear, where Dorner apparently abandoned his pickup truck and set it afire Thursday.
Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa said the reward money is being put up by “business, unions, government, law enforcement and community groups.”
Beck called it “the largest award ever offered locally.”
“This is an act of domestic terrorism,” Beck said. “This is a man who has targeted those that we entrust to protect the public. This is not about capturing a suspect, this is about preventing a future attack, maybe a murder.”
LAPD resources were stretched today, as the department not only searched for Dorner but grappled with logistics of providing security for 50 LAPD officers’ homes and families.
At the news conference in Los Angeles, the Riverside chief said it was time to identify the slain officer publicly, with a funeral pending Wednesday.
“There are several news outlets that have had that information (the name) because they have figured it out on their own, we are very, very grateful to you that you have embargoed that,” Diaz said.
“This individual has already shown and stated that the families of police officers are fair game.”
Dorner — disgruntled about his dismissal from the LAPD — allegedly gunned down Feb. 3 in Irvine the daughter and future son-in-law of the ex-police captain who represented Dorner in his failed job appeal.
On Thursday, he apparently was involved in a shootout with Los Angeles police guarding an officer’s home in Corona, wounding an LAPD officer.
About 20 minutes later, Crain and his still-unidentified partner were ambushed at a traffic light.
The unprecedented reward must be approved by several government boards across several Southern California jurisdictions.
Los Angeles County Supervisors Mike Antonovich and Mark Ridley-Thomas agreed to make the request at the next Board of Supervisors meeting, on Tuesday, Antonovich’s spokesman told City News Service.
Donors to the reward fund included police officers associations in Los Angeles, Riverside, San Diego, Irvine, Long Beach and the Port of Los Angeles.
The Los Angeles Dodgers and the Staples Center’s AEG contributed, as did the United Firefighters of Los Angeles, and the Association of Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Deputies.
Also contributing were the FBI, First Watch, the city and county of Riverside and six anonymous donors.
“Target” Speaks Out
One of the biggest targets in the list of enemies posted by Dorner is the Los Angeles police captain who chaired the board of rights that fired Dorner, and that captain said he has not left his house since.
Capt. Phil Tingirides told The Orange County Register that he accepts being a target for death, but it was harder for him to accept that his wife and six children are also marked.
Los Angeles police are guarding the Tingirides family at their home in an undisclosed Orange County city, The Register reported.
“I haven’t been able for the last few days to go outside my house,” Tingirides told The Register. “Am I afraid? Well, I hesitate to use the word … but I saw what he did to his attorney.”
One of the three people killed, apparently by Dorner, was Monica Quan, the daughter of Randy Quan. He is a former LAPD officer turned union lawyer, who had represented Dorner at his board of rights hearing.
“Randy Quan’s ultimate mission was to keep Dorner from losing his job. Anything less than that Dorner would not accept. It didn’t matter if he had Perry Mason or the best attorney in the world,” Tingirides told The Register.
Tingirides told the newspaper he was at work in Los Angeles when the Dorner manifesto surfaced. He says he called his family together, and rushed home.
Northridge Sighting
Authorities were sent to a hardware store near the Northridge Fashion Mall after reports of a man resembling Dorner seen there, police said.
The report came in at 3:33 p.m. and the search began at a Lowe’s hardware store near Plummer Street and Corbin Avenue, according to Detective Gus Villanueva of the LAPD.
“The store was searched and there was no evidence that Dorner was there,” Villanueva said just after 8 p.m. “Personnel will be returning to their patrol duties shortly.”
People were brought out of the store and search teams went inside, Villanueva said.
According to broadcast reports, LAPD officials mobilized the search because two calls from different people were made about the man.
Shooting in Torrance
Details emerged today about a second incident of police injuring an innocent person driving a pickup truck in the initial hours of Dorner’s deadly rampage.
Torrance police reportedly rammed a man’s pickup truck, injuring the driver, and fired three shots into it on Thursday morning, The Los Angeles Times reported today.
The driver was a baggage handler at LAX heading to the beach to go surfing, The Times reported. David Perdue was not shot but suffered a concussion and a shoulder injury in the crash and has not been to work since. His pickup truck was totaled.
The incident was at about the same time that two newspaper delivery workers were shot at by police, injuring one in her back and the other in her hand. That incident also occurred at about the same time that Dorner was reportedly shooting at police in Corona and Riverside.
The second Torrance incident may have involved police units racing to the newspaper carrier incident, which happened near the home of an LAPD officer named in Dorner’s manifesto of hatred and vengeance.
Perdue’s lawyer, Robert Shaehen, told The Times his client was flagged down by officers a patrol vehicle. After telling the officers he was headed to the beach, the first officer let him drive off.
But a second police car then rammed Perdue’s truck, which was a different make and color than the truck being driven by Dorner. Perdue is a white, Dorner is black, and Perdue is several inches shorter, as well as 100 pounds lighter than the former LAPD cop.
The Torrance Police Department told The Times that Perdue’s pickup truck was moving directly into the path of one of their patrol cars and did not appear to be yielding to the second car.
When the vehicles collided, Perdue’s airbag activated, blocking the view of the police car’s driver — and one of the officers fired three rounds.
A Torrance department spokesman told The Times on Saturday that the shooting is still under investigation.
“The circumstances of the incident known to the responding officers would have led a reasonable officer under normal circumstances — and these were far from normal circumstances — to believe that fellow officers were being shot at and that the vehicle traveling toward them posed a serious risk,” said a Torrance Police Department in a statement released to The Times.
“In the split seconds available to them action was appropriate to intervene and stop the actions of the driver of that vehicle.”
Torrance police apologized to Perdue and offered him a rental car and payment for his medical expenses, The Times reported.