UPDATE February 13th: In what is bound to be determined an illegal order, leaders of the petrified police posse trying to maintain a stranglehold around expert marksman and ex-cop Chris Dorner gave the shocking command yesterday to burn down his mountain hideout. With him in it.
So ended the week-long rampage the decorated soldier and former policeman had waged against his corrupt colleagues at the Los Angeles Police Department.
There are conflicting reports this morning as to whether a body has been found in the charred rubble or not. Some officials say they have indeed found some remains, believed to be those of the fugitive cop. Others claim the site is still much too hot to search.
One thing is for certain, though, Christopher Dorner has definitely proven his case against the LAPD -- all week they've been shooting at innocent passersby, conducting illegal searches and surveillance, resorting to excessive use of force, and outright lying to the media.
Now, with this Waco-style solution to the standoff, it will be all but impossible for the police to defend their actions in the court of public opinion.
Today, websites like YouTube are already broadcasting the voice of the official who demanded his men incinerate the cabin where a heavily armed Dorner was holed up in. That thus-far-unnamed individual was overheard on police scanners and by the press stationed close to the scene.
Witnesses said the cabin was fully ablaze within only minutes of someone ordering "get the gas, burn it down" and that a single shot then came from inside, but no one ever emerged from the conflagration.
Original coverage of this event is below:
SHOOTOUT ON BIG BEAR MOUNTAIN
A few more lawmen have learned the meaning of "sharpshooter" firsthand today, as they found themselves being airlifted to a nearby emergency room for gunshot wounds they received as they tried to surround fugitive ex-cop, Chris Dorner.
Dorner is barricaded in a cabin on Big Bear Mountain, 100 miles from the city of Los Angeles, and nowhere near the secret Mexican hideaway earlier reported by LAPD spokesmen and mainstream media.
Police had been continuing to scour the mountain range for days ever since they found Dorner's burnt out truck at its base, but at the same time they were also doing car by car searches throughout the southern California region, and had even set up checkpoints at the border with Mexico.
That's also close to where they had found their suspect's wallet and ID planted this week, deepening their suspicions that Chris Dorner has at least one accomplice helping him to evade capture. Somebody thus far only referred to in newly filed police documents as "JY".
Since he launched his bloody rampage against the corrupt LA Police Department, there have been a number of false sightings of Dorner during the week, but he was finally located this afternoon after stealing a white truck from a couple vacationing on Big Bear.
He is said to have burglarized their mountain retreat and tied them up before leaving the place ransacked, but one of them evidently managed to get free soon after and swiftly reported the encounter.
Local deputies spied the stolen vehicle in question and gave chase, but Dorner abandoned it and, amidst a hail of bullets and smoke bombs, safely fled to yet another cabin to hide. He is believed to still be holed up there and heavily armed.
With local law enforcement agencies, SWAT teams, and federal agents rapidly descending, gunfire and obscenities can be heard echoing across the serene hilltops now, and it's doubtful the former officer and soldier will actually be taken alive...even if authorities wanted it that way.
Which also seems rather unlikely.
EMTs arrived at the funk-rocker's Paisley Park estate on Thursday morning to treat an "unnamed" male subject who was apparently unconscious and "unresponsive."
