[12]Christopher Dorner’s victims (clockwise): Monica Quan, Keith Lawrence, Jeremiah MacKay and Michael Crain. Photo: The New York Daily News
After four murders and a manhunt that ended with his suicide and a widely televised cabin fire, Christopher Dorner gained thousands of new fans. This is the man who assassinated a 27-year-old woman, her fiancé and two police officers because of a years-old beef with the Los Angeles Police Department. Blaming racism for his dismissal, the ex-cop wrote a rambling manifesto that paradoxically called for stiffer gun control laws.
Unhinged? “I sort of expected it,” said [13] a former girlfriend.
Not the kind of dude you’d expect to be a folk hero. Yet on television, in newspaper columns, and on social media sites his disturbed allegations are being deliberated, in some instances celebrated, as evidence of an individual driven to desperation in his fight against the “man.”
Try searching “Chris or Christopher Dorner” on Facebook. You will be repulsed to see literally dozens of pages [14] in his honor: “A MAN WITH MORALS AND A HERO. A REAL REBEL WITH A CAUSE!” reads the description on one with more than 20,000 followers. Likewise, this glorification includes Occupy Los Angeles, which has held support rallies [15] blaming the deaths on an institutionally evil and racist society. Here’s the irony—two of his victims were Asian and African-American themselves; a fact that is hardly acknowledged since it doesn’t fit into their racialist narrative.
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That said, the internet trolls and anarchists aren’t alone. Left-wing pundits have joined the excuse-making. MSNBC’s Chris Matthews, while not “condoning” the violence asked [17] a Los Angeles Times journalist, “Are there people in your newsroom, editors who are saying, ‘We have to be careful here. It’s not simple. This man may have a complaint?’”
On CNN, Columbia University Professor Marc Lamont Hill cavalierly compared the murderer to the character in Quentin Tarantino’s slave revenge film “D’jango Unchained.”
“Now, don’t get me wrong. What he did was awful, killing innocent people was bad, but when you read his manifesto, when you read the message that he left, he wasn’t entirely crazy,” said [18] Hill. “(Dorner) had a plan and a mission here…They are rooting for somebody who was wronged to get a kind of revenge against the system. It’s almost like watching ‘Django Unchained’ in real life. It’s kind of exciting.”
To quote Matthews and Dr. Hill: Not that simple?…It’s kind of exciting?
Imagine if Oklahoma bomber Timothy McVeigh’s malevolent rationale was given similar regard. You can’t and you shouldn’t—no cold-blooded killer of innocents deserves a modicum of sympathy. Nada, none, nil.
But let’s be honest. Beyond those from the lunatic fringe, the elephant in the room that is mitigating Dorner’s evil deeds is the charge of LAPD racism. Few things strum the heartstrings of liberal guilt more than a minority mistreated by the “white establishment;” add to that the tenuous relationship between the LAPD and African-American community and it becomes too irresistible for left-wing academics and media to ignore.
“In fact, his recent actions were his very misguided and desperate attempts to stand up for what is right and fight for justice,” said [19] California psychologist Elizabeth Waterman in the “Huffington Post.” “I think Mr. Dorner’s actions reflected a deep level of desperation to right a wrong and shed light on a justice system that has many, many flaws.”
My advice to the good psychologist: Stuff it. Trying to justify the unjustifiable and exploiting yet another tragedy for a political agenda is both unseemly and, dare I say, immoral.
Christopher Dorner is no hero. Waterman’s sympathies and those of like-minded social justice advocates would be better directed at the four lost souls and their families. It should be obvious, but in an age where too often righteousness is relative, sadly we shouldn’t be surprised.
