CBS NEWS
(CBS NEWS) -- Despite a massive manhunt that touched three states and Mexico, a
heavily armed ex-Los Angeles police officer believed to be behind a
rampage that left a police officer and a pair of soon-to-be newlyweds
dead remained free Friday.
"We don't know what he's going
to do," said Cindy Bachman, spokeswoman for the San Bernardino County
Sheriff's Department, one of many law enforcement agencies whose primary
purpose Thursday became finding 33-year-old Christopher Dorner. "We
know what he's capable of doing. And we need to find him."
As
darkness fell, the search that had extended across California from the
U.S.-Mexico border through Nevada, from suburban streets to military
bases, had narrowed in on a cold, snowy mountain 80 miles east of Los
Angeles where Dorner's burned truck was found.
Tracks that surrounded the truck led to hours of door-to-door searching around Bear Mountain Ski Resort.
CBS
News correspondent Ben Tracy reports from Big Bear that teams of police
searched all night with no sign of Dorner, also a former Naval
reservist and onetime college running back, and authorities admit that
the truck could be an elaborate diversion or even a trap.
"He could be anywhere at this point," said San Bernardino County
Sheriff John McMahon, who had 125 deputies and police officers and two
helicopters searching the community of Big Bear Lake, where a snowstorm
and plunging temperatures were expected overnight.
On
Thursday, law enforcement officials were inspecting a package CNN's
Anderson Cooper received from Dorner. CNN spokeswoman Shimrit Sheetrit
said that a parcel containing a note, a DVD and a bullet hole-riddled
memento was addressed to Cooper's office.
The memento was a coin bearing the name of former Los Angeles Police
Chief Bill Bratton, who appeared with Dorner in a picture taken years
ago. On "CBS This Morning" Friday, Bratton described Dorner as "an
incredibly dangerous individual" and reacted to the damaged coin.
"When
you see that that coin that was given in friendship and respect has
three bullet holes, it's certainly very chilling," Bratton said.
Bratton
said Dorner's burned truck was probably a diversion to draw authorities
to Big Bear while the suspect actually headed south, possibly to San
Diego.
Up to 16 San Diego County sheriff's deputies spent the night
surrounding and searching a rural home after a hoaxer reported Dorner
was there. There were people at home but Dorner wasn't one of them, said
Lt. Jason Rothlein. Investigators have a pretty good idea who made the
call and will be seek criminal charges, he said.
CBS News
senior correspondent John Miller, a former top LAPD official, reports
that Dorner cut off all his cell phones and other connections Jan. 31,
indicating that he had spent time planning his alleged rampage.
The
saga began Sunday night, when Monica Quan and her fiance, Keith
Lawrence, were found shot in their car at a parking structure at their
condominium in Irvine. Quan, 28, was an assistant women's basketball
coach at Cal State Fullerton. The couple had no known enemies and there
was no evidence of robbery.
The following morning in
National City, Calif. near San Diego, some of Dorner's belongings,
including police equipment and paperwork with names related to the LAPD,
were found in a trash bin.
The LAPD was notified of the
find, and two days later informed Irvine police of an angry manifesto
written by a former officer and posted on Facebook.
"We didn't have it very long," Irvine police Lt. Julia Engen said. "Obviously it took us a while to digest."
The
rant promised to "bring unconventional and asymmetrical warfare" to
police and named among many others Randal Quan, a former LAPD captain
turned attorney who represented Dorner in his unsuccessful attempts to
keep the police job he lost in 2008 for making false statements.
Randal Quan was also Monica Quan's father.
"Bing
bing bing, the dots were connecting," Engen said. "These names are
somehow associated to Mr. Quan, who just lost his daughter the prior
day. The dots connected. OK, now we've got a name of somebody to look
at. That's when the discovery was connected."
On
Wednesday night, Irvine and Los Angeles police announced they were
searching for Dorner, declaring him armed and "extremely dangerous."
Hours later, they learned they were all too correct.
Two
LAPD officers en route to provide security to one of Dorner's possible
targets were flagged down by a resident who reported seeing the suspect
early Thursday at a gas station in Corona. The officers then followed a
pickup truck until it stopped. The driver, believed to be Dorner, got
out and fired a rifle, police said. A bullet grazed an officer's head.
Later,
two officers on routine patrol in neighboring Riverside were ambushed
at a stoplight by a motorist who drove up next to them and opened fire
with a rifle. One died and the other was seriously wounded but was
expected to survive, Riverside police Chief Sergio Diaz said.
Diaz
said news organizations should withhold the officers' names because the
suspect had made clear that he considers police and their families
"fair game."
Thousands of heavily armed officers
patrolled highways throughout Southern California, while some stood
guard outside the homes of people police say Dorner vowed to attack.
Electronic billboards, which usually alert motorists about the commute,
urged them to call 911 if they saw him.
Los Angeles
Police Chief Charlie Beck urged Dorner to surrender at a news conference
held amid heightened security in an underground room at police
headquarters.
"Of course he knows what he's doing; we
trained him. He was also a member of the Armed Forces," he said. "It is
extremely worrisome and scary."
While in the Naval
Reserves, Dorner earned a rifle marksman ribbon and pistol expert medal.
He was assigned to a naval undersea warfare unit and various aviation
training units, according to military records, taking a leave from the
LAPD to be deployed to Bahrain in 2006 and 2007.
He wrote
that he would "utilize every bit of small arms training, demolition,
ordinance and survival training I've been given," the manifesto read.
The nearly 10,000-member LAPD, a force Dorner was part of from 2005
to 2008, dispatched officers to protect more than 40 potential targets,
including police officers and their families. The department also pulled
officers from motorcycle duty, fearing they would make for easy
targets.
The hunt also led to two errant shootings in the pre-dawn darkness Thursday.
LAPD
officers guarding a target named in the manifesto shot and wounded two
women in suburban Torrance who were in a pickup truck, authorities said.
Beck said one woman was in stable condition with two gunshot wounds and
the other was being released after treatment.
"Tragically we believe this was a case of mistaken identity by the officers," Beck said.
Minutes
later, Torrance officers responding to a report of gunshots encountered
a dark pickup matching the description of Dorner's, police said. A
collision occurred and the officers fired on the pickup. The
unidentified driver was not hit and it turned out not to be the suspect
vehicle, they said.
In San Diego, where police say Dorner
tied up an elderly man and unsuccessfully tried to steal his boat
Wednesday night, Naval Base Point Loma was locked down Thursday after a
Navy worker reported seeing someone who resembled Dorner.
Navy
Cmdr. Brad Fagan said officials believe Dorner had checked into a base
hotel on Tuesday and left the next day without checking out. Numerous
agencies guarded the base on Thursday. Fagan said Dorner was honorably
discharged and that his last day in the Navy was last Friday.
Nevada
authorities also joined the search, because Dorner owns a house nine
miles from the Las Vegas Strip, according to authorities and property
records.
In Big Bear, Dorner's pickup was taken to be
processed at a crime lab Thursday evening and examined by investigators
from multiple agencies.
Jackie Holohan, who runs a
vacation rental company in Big Bear Lake, said visitors weren't
dissuaded from coming to the mountain resort despite the intensive
manhunt.
"The only ones who have called want to make sure if they can get up the mountain," Holohan said.
The
manhunt was affecting some local businesses. A couple of fast food
restaurants shut their doors and only took drive-in customers, and the
main shopping avenue had light foot traffic.
Sheriff's
officials said deputies and officers had combed some 200 homes in the
area and intended to search some 200 more, with extreme wariness knowing
they were likely to be treated as targets as well as hunters.
Dorner's writings suggested he did not expect to live through the ordeal.
"Unfortunately,
I will not be alive to see my name cleared," he wrote at one point in
his manifesto, later saying, "Self-preservation is no longer important
to me. I do not fear death as I died long ago."