Dorner, Folk Hero of the Left

By Matthew Vadum

The grotesque outpouring of love for cop killer Chris Dorner, an ex-cop now presumed dead in a fiery shootout at Big Bear Lake, California, should make all sane Americans fear for the future of their country.

Dorner is suspected of killing at least one police officer and two others. He allegedly gunned down 28-year-old Monica Quan and her husband-to-be 27-year-old Keith Lawrence outside their home. Quan’s father Randy, a former Los Angeles Police Department officer turned lawyer, represented Dorner in disciplinary hearings that resulted in Dorner’s dismissal. Dorner reportedly called Mr. Quan days after the murder to taunt him.

Dorner’s cross-country rampage has been met in recent days with Facebook fan pages, sympathetic statements on Twitter, and grassroots-level enthusiasm for this brutal sociopath.

But making vicious killers into folk heroes is nothing new for the Left. American history in recent decades is bursting with cop killers romanticized by the Left.

Among those who have stuck it to The Man by killing “pigs” are: Troy Davis, executed in 2011 for murdering police officer Mark MacPhail as he came to the aid of an assault victim; Lovelle Mixon, killed in a gunfight with police in 2009; Mumia abu-Jamal, imprisoned for life for the 1981 murder of a police officer; Leonard Peltier, convicted in 1977 for gunning down FBI agents; Assata Shakur, escaped from prison in 1979, a member of the Black Panther Party (BPP) and Black Liberation Army (BLA), having been granted “asylum” in Cuba; and 1960s radicals like Marilyn Buck.

In a rambling self-incriminating manifesto that Dorner posted online, the ex-Los Angeles police officer says “No one grows up and wants to be a cop killer … but, as a young police officer I found that the violent suspects on the streets are not the only people you have to watch.”

Dorner argues that he is sacrificing himself for the greater good by going on his murder spree, which he refers to as “a necessary evil” aimed at effecting change in the Los Angeles Police Department. “The only thing that changes policy and garners attention is death.”

In one of several chilling passages, Dorner waxes philosophical: “Let the balance of loss of life take place. Sometimes a reset needs to occur.”

In his online screed, Dorner praises an assortment of left-wingers. He lauds President Obama for doing what he considers a good job under difficult circumstances. For their anti-Second Amendment efforts, Dorner hails TV host Piers Morgan, Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), and Vice President Joe Biden. He also gives shout-outs to a galaxy of celebrities and public figures. Complimenting the First Lady on her hairstyle, he interjects, “Off the record, I love your new bangs, Mrs. Obama.”

There are also those slippery souls who stop short of endorsing Dorner’s killing spree, but who ponder aloud whether society drove him to murder. Their musings bear a creepy similarity to the Left’s post-9/11 hand-wringing about the true “root causes” of the attacks on America.

MSNBC ranter Chris Matthews and death row groupie Marc Lamont Hill suggest that Dorner’s online essay is a kind of petition for redress of grievances that needs to be taken seriously.

Matthews suggested Americans shouldn’t be so quick to judge Dorner because he may have had a legitimate beef against the LAPD. He asked reporter Andrew Blankstein, “How do you write a story like this that’s objective for the big metropolitan paper, the Los Angeles Times?”

Matthews added, “Are there people in your newsroom, editors who are saying, ‘We have to be careful here. It’s not simple. This man may have a complaint.’”

Matthews, of course, has never been concerned about fairness for non-leftists. He prefers to lump nonviolent Tea Party supporters in with the Taliban and the Third Reich.

Hill, host of HuffPost Live and a professor at Columbia University, said the Dorner saga is a needed civics lesson for the public about racism and the excessive use of force. “This has been an important conversation that we’ve had about police brutality, about police corruption, about state violence.”

“As far as Dorner himself goes, he’s been like a real life superhero to many people,” Hill said. Adding an obligatory disclaimer, Hill said, “What he did was awful, killing innocent people was bad, but when you read his manifesto, when you read the message that he left, he wasn’t entirely crazy.”

Those cheering on Dorner were happy to see him exact vengeance against a corrupt system, Hill said. “It’s almost like watching Django Unchained in real life … It’s kind of exciting.”

Hill has a soft spot for those who murder police officers. He co-authored The Classroom and the Cell: Conversations on Black Life in America (Third World Press, 2012) with Mumia abu-Jamal. Mumia, as left-wingers affectionately call him, is celebrated as a political prisoner even though in court he has never denied shooting Philadelphia police officer Daniel Faulkner execution-style.

The book is essentially a transcript of a mutual admiration society, as the two radicals trade compliments and insights about how rotten America is. Hill tells Mumia that “you’re in prison but somehow still free, while I’m out here feeling profoundly un-free.”

Even this highly successful black man with his Ivy League Ph.D. who is sometimes called a “celebrity intellectual,” feels oppressed by American society.

“But to some degree, I feel un-free because I’m still encumbered by the very things that I’m critiquing in my work: consumerism, patriarchy even White supremacy … I’m trying to heal, man.”

Not surprisingly, in 2009 Fox News fired Hill as a paid on-air contributor after he acquired a reputation for defending cop killers and racists. But somehow he keeps finding his way back onto TV screens.

Meanwhile, the ever-resourceful self-described “communist” Van Jones is urging Americans not to concern themselves with Dorner’s decidedly left-of-center views.

“In the wake of a tragedy, it is understandable to ask why this happened,” says Jones. “It is appropriate to discuss ways to keep it from happening again. But we should draw the line at suddenly giving an exalted place in our national discourse to the political rantings of a murderer.”

How convenient, especially since Dorner’s views on cops seem to differ little from his own. Forced out as President Obama’s green jobs czar in 2009 for signing a 9/11 “truther” petition, Jones is a longtime supporter of convicted cop killer Mumia abu-Jamal. Jones founded Oakland’s Ella Baker Center for Human Rights in order to combat perceived police brutality.

But with Barack Obama in power, it is more difficult to be shocked by sympathetic reactions to Dorner.

The people doing the cheering are the Democratic Party’s electoral base.

Obama himself invites rappers who praise cop killers to perform at the White House.

One such entertainer, Common, is known for performing, “A Song For Assata,” which is a tribute to fugitive black militant Assata Shakur. Here’s one verse from the tune:

“In the spirit of God.
In the spirit of the ancestors.
In the spirit of the Black Panthers.
In the spirit of Assata Shakur.
We make this movement towards freedom
For all those who have been oppressed, and all those in the struggle.
Yeah. yo, check it-
I wonder what would happen if that woulda been me?
All this shit so we could be free, so dig it, y’all.”

Common believes Shakur is a martyr. That’s one of the reasons he was invited to the White House. Obama and those who sympathize with cop killers are on the same wavelength.

If someone writes a song about Dorner, don’t be surprised if the person shows up at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.