Christopher Jordan Dorner (June 4, 1979 – February 12, 2013) was a former officer of the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) who, beginning on February 3, 2013, committed a series of killings against the LAPD in Orange County, Los Angeles County, Riverside County and San Bernardino County in the U.S. state of California. The victims were law enforcement officers and the daughter of a retired police captain. Dorner killed four people and wounded three others. On February 12, Dorner was cornered by police in a cabin in the woods that was set on fire where he killed himself after a shootout with the San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department deputies in the San Bernardino Mountains.
A manifesto posted by Dorner on social media declared "unconventional and asymmetric warfare" upon the LAPD, their families and their associates unless the department admitted publicly he was fired in retaliation for reporting excessive force.
Background
Early life
Christopher Jordan Dorner was born on June 4, 1979, and grew up in southern California. He attended Cypress High School in Cypress, California, where he graduated in 1997. He later graduated from Southern Utah University in 2001, with a major in political science and a minor in psychology. While there, he was a running back on the university's football team from 1999 to 2000.
Dorner later stated that he was the only African-American student in his school from first grade to seventh grade, and that he had altercations due to racism. When he was a teenager, he decided to become a police officer and joined a youth program offered by the police department in La Palma, where he lived at the time of the shootings. Neighbors described Dorner as belonging to an admired, well-liked family and a man who usually kept to himself. He was previously married, with two children. Court records show his wife filed for divorce in 2007.
Navy reservist
Dorner was a United States Navy Reserve officer, commissioned in 2002. He commanded a security unit at the Naval Air Station Fallon in Nevada, served with a Mobile Inshore Undersea Warfare Unit from June 2004 to February 2006, and was deployed to Bahrain with Coastal Riverine Group Two from November 2006 to April 2007. He was honorably discharged from the Navy Reserve on February 1, 2013, with the rank of lieutenant.
In 2002, while a student in Undergraduate Pilot Training at Vance Air Force Base in Enid, Oklahoma, Dorner and a classmate found a bag containing nearly US$8,000 (equivalent to about $14,300 in 2025) that belonged to the nearby Enid Korean Church of Grace. The two handed the money to the police. When asked their motive, Dorner replied that, "The military stresses integrity. ... There was a couple of thousand dollars, and if people are willing to give that to a church, it must be pretty important to them." Dorner also stated his mother taught him honesty and integrity. During his time as a reservist, Dorner received a Navy Rifle Marksmanship Ribbon and a Navy Pistol Shot Ribbon with expert device.
Los Angeles Police Department
During his time as a naval reservist, Dorner joined the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD). He entered the police academy in 2005 and graduated in 2006. Shortly afterwards, his duties as a probationary officer were interrupted when he was deployed by the Navy Reserve to Bahrain. On his return from duty in July 2007, Dorner was paired with training officer Teresa Evans to complete his probationary training. According to the Los Angeles Times, Evans said that on Dorner's first day working with her, he told her that he planned to sue the LAPD after he completed his probationary period, in response to how the department had responded to complaints he had previously made against his classmates.
Allegations against training officer
On July 28, 2007, Dorner and Evans responded to the Doubletree Hotel in San Pedro regarding a disturbance being caused by Christopher Gettler, who had schizophrenia with severe dementia. Dorner filed a report alleging that Evans had used excessive force in her treatment of Gettler, accusing her of twice kicking Gettler in the chest and once in the face while he was handcuffed and lying on the ground. Gettler's father testified that his son told him he had been kicked by a police officer. Dorner filed the report the day after being told that Evans's evaluation said Dorner needed to improve his performance.
The LAPD investigated Dorner's complaint, examining the allegation against Evans and the truthfulness of Dorner's report, through an internal review board of three members—two LAPD captains and a criminal defense attorney. During the seven-month investigation of the complaint, Evans was assigned to desk duty and was not allowed to earn money outside of her LAPD job. Dorner's attorney at the board hearing was former LAPD captain Randal Quan.
The review board heard testimony from a number of witnesses. Two hotel employees testified that they did not see Evans kick Gettler. Additionally, a port police officer testified that he did not see Evans kick Gettler, though some aspects of his statement contradicted photographs from the scene. Gettler was brought to the police station and given medical treatment for injuries to his face, but did not mention being kicked at that time. According to his father, later that day, Gettler claimed that he had been kicked by an officer, and his father testified to that at Dorner's disciplinary hearing. In a videotaped interview with Dorner's attorney, shown at the hearing, Gettler stated that he was kicked in the face by a female police officer on the day and in the place in question; however, when Gettler testified at the hearing, his responses to questioning were described as "generally ... incoherent and nonresponsive." The investigation concluded that the kicking incident did not take place and, later, decided that Dorner had lied.
Termination and failed appeal
In 2008, Dorner was fired by the LAPD for making false statements in his report and in his testimony against Evans. Dorner's attorney, Quan, stated that he was treated unfairly and was being made a scapegoat. Dorner appealed his termination by filing a petition for a writ of mandamus with the Los Angeles County Superior Court. Judge David Yaffe wrote that he was "uncertain whether the training officer kicked the suspect or not" but nevertheless upheld the department's decision to fire Dorner, according to the Times. Yaffe ruled that he would presume that the LAPD's accusations that Dorner's report was false would stand, even though he did not know if the report was indeed false. This enraged Dorner, who yelled out in disbelief at the end of the hearing: "I told the truth! How can this [ruling] happen?"
Dorner appealed to the California Court of Appeal, which affirmed the lower court's ruling on October 3, 2011. Under California law, administrative findings (in this case by the LAPD) are entitled to a presumption of correctness and the petitioner (in this case Dorner) bears the burden of proving that they were incorrect. The appeals court concluded that the LAPD had substantial evidence for its finding that Dorner was not credible in his allegations against Evans.
Manifesto
In early February 2013, coincident with the start of a series of revenge shootings, Dorner was purported to have posted a detailed note on his Facebook page, discussing his history, motivations and plans. This 11,000-word post became known as his "manifesto".
Dorner listed forty law enforcement personnel whom he was prepared to kill and stated: "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 posting began. "Unfortunately, this is a necessary evil that I do not enjoy but must partake and complete for substantial change to occur within the LAPD and reclaim my name. The department has not changed since the Rampart and Rodney King days. It has gotten worse...." Dorner issued a single demand: a public admission by the LAPD that his termination was in retaliation for reporting excessive force. He also asked journalists to pursue "the truth", pointing out specific lines of investigation for them to follow under the Freedom of Information Act.
On February 9, 2013, in response to the manifesto and the start of the killing spree (February 3), LAPD Chief Charlie Beck informed Dorner through the media that there would be a review of the disciplinary case that led to his dismissal. Beck said officials would re-examine the allegations by Dorner that his law enforcement career was undone by racist colleagues.
Timeline of killings and manhunt
Dorner's actions began with a package stating his complaints, sent to Anderson Cooper and arriving at CNN on February 1, 2013. After the first killings, the threats in his manifesto caused law enforcement to mount a widespread manhunt that spread from California to Nevada and Mexico. Protection details were set up for over forty potential targets of Dorner, and thousands of police officers were assigned to patrol highways across southern California. The LAPD also took patrol officers off motorcycles for their protection.
February 1
Anderson Cooper received a package at his office containing a DVD that stated Dorner's case against the LAPD. The package also contained a bullet-riddled challenge coin issued by LAPD Chief William Bratton and a note inscribed with "1MOA" (one minute of angle), implying that the coin was shot at 100 yards (91 metres) at a grouping of 1 inch (2.5 centimetres), boasting of his accuracy with a rifle.
February 3
In Irvine, California, during the evening hours, 28-year-old Monica Quan and her fiancé, 27-year-old Keith Lawrence, were shot dead in Lawrence's parked white Kia Optima outside their condominium complex. Quan, a women's basketball assistant coach at Cal State Fullerton, was the daughter of Randal Quan, the former LAPD captain who represented Dorner at his 2008 dismissal hearing. Lawrence was a campus public safety officer for the University of Southern California.
February 4
Dorner's "manifesto" was posted online, stating his motive for the shootings. He wrote, "I will not be alive to see my name cleared. That's what this is about, my name."
February 5
According to military sources, Dorner checked into Naval Base Point Loma in San Diego, but skipped checkout procedures when leaving.
February 6
Dorner's manifesto specifically named Randal Quan and his family as targets, leading Irvine police to name Dorner as the prime suspect in the murders of Monica Quan and Keith Lawrence. The manifesto claimed Quan had failed to represent Dorner's interests in favor of those of the LAPD. Dorner reported specific acts of specific officers participating in the retaliation, but their names were redacted by media sources at the request of law enforcement who cited officer safety concerns.
February 7
Two LAPD officers were driving to a protection detail, where they were assigned as security for one of the officers potentially targeted by Dorner, when they were flagged down by R. L. McDaniel at about 1:00 am. McDaniel reported seeing a man matching Dorner's description at a gas station in Corona. The officers investigated the report, and they were following a pickup truck when the driver stopped, got out, and fired a rifle at them, grazing the head of one officer.
About twenty minutes after the Corona shooting, two officers of the police department in neighboring Riverside were ambushed and shot while stopped in their marked patrol unit at a red traffic light. One officer, Michael Crain, died shortly after the shooting; the other was rushed to a nearby hospital in critical condition for surgery and survived.
About an hour and 25 minutes after the Riverside shooting, at approximately 3:00 am, a man matching Dorner's description tried to steal a boat in San Diego, telling the boat's captain that he would take the boat to Mexico. A federal criminal complaint was filed against Dorner this same day for allegedly fleeing California to avoid prosecution.
Hours later, the burning remains of Dorner's vehicle, a dark gray 2005 Nissan Titan, were found on a remote fire trail by a local, Daniel McGowan, near Big Bear Lake, about 80 miles (130 km) from Los Angeles. Investigators spread out to search for Dorner in the surrounding area, and about 125 officers went from door to door. All schools in the Bear Valley Unified School District were placed into a state of lockdown.
Around this time Dorner occupied a cabin owned by a family named Reynolds.
February 9
CNN reported that the LAPD was re-opening its investigation into Dorner's dismissal so as to reassure the public that the police were doing everything in their power to capture Dorner.