Police move to identify charred body as killer cop
A US law enforcement official says a charred body has been found in the burned cabin where a fugitive ex-cop is believed to have been in a stand-off with police.
The official speaking on condition of anonymity says the body was found at about 6.30pm local time on Tuesday.
Authorities said earlier they believed the man in the cabin was Christopher Dorner. He had been on the run since they say he launched a campaign to exact revenge against the Los Angeles Police Department for his firing.
Officials will be looking for identifying marks such as tattoos before confirming the identity.
Police say Dorner killed four people, including a deputy today.
A single gunshot was heard as police moved in on the remote mountain cabin where Dorner was barricaded, the LA Times said.
A Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) spokesman was meanwhile cited as saying the force believed that Dorner had died inside the burning cabin near Big Bear, in the mountains east of Los Angeles.
Officers broke the cabin windows, pumped in tear gas and called for Dorner to surrender over a loudspeaker, the LA Times said on Tuesday.
When they got no reply, they deployed a vehicle to rip down the cabin walls.
It did so “one by one, like peeling an onion”, a law enforcement official told the newspaper. When it got to the last wall, a single gunshot was heard, before flames began to spread through the structure.
KTLA 5 television cited LAPD spokesman Andrew Smith as saying: “We believe he is dead. We believe he was in that cabin. We believe he was burned up in that cabin.”
Smith had earlier said that the LAPD was getting its information from the San Bernadino County Sheriff’s office, the lead agency in the operation near Big Bear, two hours to the east of Los Angeles.
ALERT: SALESOUT NARCH EUO CAPTION: A frame grab from KNBC4 TV aerial footage shows smoke and fire from a cabin where fugitive former Los Angeles police officer Christopher Dorner is believed to be barricaded in Big Bear, California February 12, 2013. Dorner exchanged gunfire on Tuesday with San Bernardino County sheriff's deputies in the mountains northeast of Los Angeles after he broke into a home, tied up a couple and stole their pickup truck, authorities said. Picture: Reuters/KNBC4/Handout
San Bernadino Sheriff’s spokeswoman Cindy Bachman confirmed that one deputy had been killed and another injured in an exchange with Dorner, who has been on the run since last week when he allegedly killed three people.
The suspect was “described as looking similar to Christopher Dorner, and we have reason to believe it is him”, she said, while adding: “That is unconfirmed at this time.”
Police launched a massive manhunt last week for Dorner, who had already been accused of killing three people, and threatened to kill other police in a chilling online manifesto.
