If he had stuck strictly to cops, we'd be all good, but one of the first people he murdered wasn't one.

Going after the families of bad people when they really didn't play any role in the bad person's actions is abhorrent and indefensible. Kids shouldn't have to pay for the sins of the father and all that.

It doesn't completely invalidate the good he did do/say, but it's definitely a black mark on his record and why I can't really get fully behind him, even for meme reasons.

I've brought him up before, but I think Micah Xavier Johnson is overall a better example. Apparently he was a sexual harasser when he was in the military, which is obviously terrible, but at least you can say when he went on his spree that he didn't go for any non-cops.

  • joshieecs [he/him,any]
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    4 years ago

    If you are talking about an actual little kid, absolutely that is beyond fucked under any circumstances I can think of. But looking at the facts of what happened in this case again, the daughter was in her late-20's, and had just gotten engaged to a school cop, who her cop father was trying to get a job as a real cop, surely on her behalf. I think it's a different context if she was some kind of blue lives matter bootlicker who wanted to start a cop family and have cop babies like a litter of Kyle Rittenhouses. That wouldn't make Dorner necessarily justified, but it's fair to wonder if she was to some extent a police collaborator and not just a hapless bystander.

    Without knowing more details, like did she ever have any kind of contact with Dorner prior to the shooting (if so, what was said), did she spam police shit on Facebook, what was her level of involvement or support or collaboration with the police, if any? I have no clue. Maybe Dorner didn't either. But if, hypothetically, if she ever had any kind of altercation with him or taunted him over his case or whatever, or some shit like that, or if she was involved more deeply than just by happenstance she is going to marry a cop, etc. etc. Idk. I just don't feely very sympathetic toward collaborators or even apologists.

    Maybe that wasn't the case at all, and she was just a lovely high school coach with no particular affiliation or affinity with police other than being related to one, who was murdered in cold blood to get back at her asshole dad. If that's the case, then I agree 100% about it being a black mark on Dorner's record. But if it was more in the other direction of her being a bootlicker and collaborator and maybe even an agitator, then I find myself a lot more indifferent. Not condoning, just kind of indifferent.

    I am also trying to imagine if she had been hard in the opposite direction: some kind of police reform anti-corruption activist, estranged from her father since she grew up seeing all the dirty shit he did, and of course, not affianced to a cop who she was sitting next to at the time of the murder. Would Dorner still have done it? If she would have been part of a resistance, maybe a sense of solidarity, does it make any difference? Would he still have killed to get back at the father?

    And as for her father, I think he bears some responsibility, too. It doesn't shift any blame off Dorner, but if you make your career out of ruthlessly fucking people's lives over... you are putting your family at risk. You just are. You fuck over the wrong person and they could totally snap and do god knows what. Though it's hard to imagine anything much worse than the sociopath sick shit cops do, who don't mind to shoot anyone's son, father, brother, mother, sister, or anyone else who isn't a gun-toting mega chud.

    • budoguytenkaichi [he/him,they/them]
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      4 years ago

      Since there really isn't any actual solid evidence that she was either a Blue Lives Matter freak who literally worshiped cops or had some sort of negative personal interaction with Dorner, I'm running under the assumption of innocent until proven guilty.

      • joshieecs [he/him,any]
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        4 years ago

        I think getting engaged to a school cop and trying to have her father pull strings to get him a job a full-time job on the police force is evidence of some kind of pathology.

        • budoguytenkaichi [he/him,they/them]
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          4 years ago

          All that is is hypotheticals tho, and making assumptions about her motivations when odds are we'll never truly know since she's, ya know, dead.

          I'm going off of the facts that we do know, and they don't lead me to believe that she was asking to be murdered.

          • joshieecs [he/him,any]
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            4 years ago

            No, that part was reported in the newspapers. Not an inference.

            https://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2013/02/usc-slain-officer-christopher-dorner.html

            Lawrence joined the university's campus safety department in August after Quan's father called Thomas, an old LAPD acquaintance, to recommend him.

            "I've known Randy Quan for about 25 years. We were both on LAPD. Called me about a year ago and says 'J.T., I've got this great possible candidate who you ought to take a look at if you get a chance. His name is Keith Lawrence and he's dating my daughter. I think he's an outstanding young man,'" Thomas said.

            • budoguytenkaichi [he/him,they/them]
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              4 years ago

              I'm not talking about that, I'm talking about you theorizing about her hypothetical "pathology".

              For all we know, she could've just been any other lib who believed the typical "cops are good guys who serve the community" propaganda. Ya know, the propaganda that the vast majority of people in this country believe. That I, and probably you, believed at one point. I believe those people deserve to be called out/criticized/etc., but I don't think they all deserve death.

              • joshieecs [he/him,any]
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                4 years ago

                I mean, anything is possible. I guess maybe if this was only of the 8% of police that are libs and not MAGA dudes. And she just happened to meet a nice cop young man. But I mean, realistically what do you think are odds of a cop's daughter marrying a cop... gonna start a 2nd generation cop family... and not being on some thin blue line bullshit?

                And I agree she didn't deserve death. But I don't feel terrible about it, either. Maybe I should? I really don't know where the moral line is, if you have someone who maybe collaborating, or maybe they're neutral? Which side do they take if there is violence? In this case, we are not waging a revolution and Dorner was not a revolutionary, but I think the moral question is worth teasing out, because I don't think a path to and through revolution, if we ever get there, is going to be full of moral bright lines. But I am certainly no kind of expert who has read every theory book, I am asking as much as I'm thinking out loud.