Loophole May Hold Up Dorner Reward
A legal loophole could prevent good Samaritans, instrumental in ending the manhunt for a fugitive ex-cop accused of killing four people, from claiming more than $1 million in reward money because Christopher Dorner died and was not captured.
Last weekend, Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa pledged $1 million, sourced from private individuals, companies and unions, "for information that will lead to Mr. Dorner's capture."
The L.A. City Council followed up with its own promise of a $100,000 reward, for information "leading to the identification, apprehension and conviction of Christopher Dorner."But Dorner, accused of killing four people and threatening the lives of several dozen more, was never captured, apprehended or convicted. Instead, he died following a standoff with police near Big Bear, Calif., when the cabin in which he was barricaded burned down with him inside.
The mayor's office has not yet determined if the reward could still be paid out given Dorner died.
Full article at link: http://news.yahoo.com/legal-loophole-could-hold-1m-dorner-reward-230004148--abc-news-topstories.html
It is disturbing that authorities are even questioning whether or not to pay out the reward. For one thing, it is a betrayal of public trust that may impact future investigations and undermine efforts to locate dangerous fugitves. Anyone with potential leads will think twice about risking their own lives, reputation, and privacy in order to share information with authorities. This move, quite simply, invalidates the purpose of offering a reward at all in cases like this.
More alarmingly though, this shows that police had a very large financial incentive to kill Dorner, rather than bring him to justice. Not to mention of course, that they already had a strong motivation to kill him as revenge for the deaths of other officers, and to silence him from speaking any further regarding corruption in the LAPD. Adding a million dollar financial incentive to kill the suspect now goes well beyond a simple question of ethics. Especially when one considers now that police burned down the cabin Dorner was holed up in.
The San Bernadino County Sheriff denies that the cabin was burned down intentionally, but given the motivations we have already seen here, that denial is quite dubious. Consider too, that we are talking about a Sheriff who allows his deputies to violate their sacred oath to uphold the Constitution, simply in order to harass a woman out for a walk, as seen here in this video. Why should we believe that those deputies would adhere to the law when the stakes are so much higher?
The denial becomes downright feeble when one listens to what was actually said by police that day at the scene. Are we to believe that they were simply incompetent, and "accidentally" burned that cabin down after they clearly voiced their intention to burn the cabin down?
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