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<div class="subheadlinestyle"><big>Feb 13/2013<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.counterpunch.org/2013/02/13/the-execution-of-christopher-dorner/">http://www.counterpunch.org/2013/02/13/the-execution-of-christopher-dorner/</a><br>
<br>
<br>
The State of the Union Amidst the Ashes of Extrajudicial Death</big></div>
<big> </big>
<h1 class="article-title"><big>The Execution of Christopher Dorner</big></h1>
<big> </big>
<div class="mainauthorstyle"><big>by GEORGE CICCARIELLO-MAHER and MIKE
KING</big></div>
<big> </big>
<div class="main-text"><big> </big>
<p><big>If the murder of Oscar Grant on an Oakland transit platform
marked the dawn of the Obama era, the cold-blooded murder of former
Naval reservist and Los Angeles Police officer Christopher Dorner might
just mark the end of whatever optimistic hope people can muster in his
administration. Whether an innocent young man just trying to get home,
shot in the back after being racially profiled and slurred, or a man
driven to his breaking point after being fired from a similar police
force that operates according to its own warped morality and
overarching objectives, the state of the union is a powder keg whose
wick has gotten shorter due to decades of looking the other way.</big></p>
<big></big>
<p><big>Just minutes before Barack Obama began his state of the union
address, San Bernardino County Sheriffs, knowing full well what they
were doing, burned Christopher Dorner to death. From police brutality
and racism to political unaccountability, from lack of economic
opportunities to the extrajudicial murder of anyone deemed an enemy of
the state, Dorner’s life and death offers us a much clearer picture of
the state of this union than last night’s speech or media commentary.</big></p>
<big></big>
<p><big>In the years between the murder of Oscar Grant and Dorner’s
last stand, March of 2009 to be specific, we were among those observing
the case of <a
href="http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2009/04/13/18588525.php"
onclick="javascript:_gaq.push(['_trackEvent','outbound-article','http://www.indybay.org']);">Lovelle
Mixon</a> in Oakland, a parolee who decided he was not going to return
to prison, opening fire on police at a traffic stop, killing two.
Police went in to execute Mixon, not expecting that he would be holding
an SKS. Two more cops died as a result. The logic of Dorner’s
desperation, and the chain of events that led to his ultimate death,
parallels Mixon’s; proud men without hope, cornered, deciding to go out
fighting.</big></p>
<big></big>
<p><big>Neither man was a self-understood revolutionary and it would be
inaccurate (or perhaps too accurate a reflection of the dearth of
revolutionary activity in contemporary society) to try and declare
otherwise. However, the material conditions that produced Dorner, as
with Mixon, are not uncommon. The meaning and the effects of their
actions speak volumes about the depth of racialization, criminalization
and hopelessness in Obama’s supposed “post-racial” America.</big></p>
<big></big>
<p><big><b>LAPD Endgame: Street Justice on a Snow-Capped Mountain</b></big></p>
<big></big>
<p><big>The scene could not be more surreal: the remains of a cabin
south of Big Bear still smoldering, the President delivered his State
of the Union Address. To be fair, they had yet to confirm that the
person they were incinerating in a cabin near Big Bear actually <i>was
</i>Dorner. Earlier in the day, San Bernardino County Sheriffs received
a call reporting a stolen vehicle driven by someone matching a
description of Dorner. If the experience of the past five days is any
indication, this narrowed it down to Black men, Asian women, and skinny
white men. The $1 million dollar reward offered for information
leading to Dorner’s capture or death, also offered a measurable rubric
for the value of the lives of police officers, as traditionally rewards
in homicide cases are closer to $20,000. <b> </b><b> </b></big></p>
<big></big>
<p><big>In the gathering of hurried interviews some interesting truths
from the public made it into the TV news. An MSNBC reporter asked a
witness: “Where you worried when you learned that Christopher Dorner
was so close to your house?” But the witness responded “Actually, I was
just afraid of the cops.” Given the unrestrained violence unleashed in
recent days by the LAPD, this sentiment is perhaps unsurprising, but
demonstrating a degree of hubris matched only by an utter absence of
ironic intent, <a
href="file://localhost/ABC7/statuses/300719713221226496">LAPD chief
Charlie Beck said</a>, evidently with a straight face, “To be targeted
because of what you are… that is absolutely terrifying.” To which <a
href="file://localhost/EBONYMag/status/301463076627165184">many
nationwide responded</a> with an audible guffaw: <i>welcome to the club</i>.</big></p>
<big></big>
<p><big>An interview with the man who was allegedly carjacked by Dorner
said that, while police had told the man not to tell the whole story,
he reported that Dorner had simply said “I don’t want to hurt, take
your dog and go.” When sheriff’s deputies found the vehicle yesterday,
the driver allegedly retreated into a cabin, at one point re-emerging
amid the smoke of a diversionary device to exchange more than 100
rounds of fire with deputies. Two police were injured, with one later
dying. Police quickly established a large perimeter, closing highways
around Seven Oaks, south of Big Bear up to twenty miles away.</big></p>
<big></big>
<p><big>Establishing the perimeter also seemed to mean keeping the
media at an arm’s length. While press helicopters had been providing
live shots of the cabin in which Dorner was allegedly holed-up, the
SBSD quickly requested that media withdraw to roadblocks miles away and
that news choppers cease to transmit live video for fear of providing
strategic information to Dorner himself. <a
href="http://www.scpr.org/news/2013/02/12/35924/dorner-manhunt-san-bernardino-sheriff-s-asks-media/"
onclick="javascript:_gaq.push(['_trackEvent','outbound-article','http://www.scpr.org']);">The
San Bernardino Sheriff’s Department requested</a> that media outlets
and individuals cease and desist from even tweeting about the manhunt
and shootout.</big></p>
<big></big>
<p><big>Even more astonishing than the request was the immediate
compliance: press outlets abruptly ceased to tweet about the developing
story, and duly retreating to the roadblocks, abandoned their task of
reporting the news and waited for it to be fed to them. To paraphrase
but one of many incredulous observers, we speak of press blackouts in
China, but all the police had to do here was ask nicely and the press
complied without batting an eyelash.</big></p>
<big></big>
<p><big>With a voluntary media blackout in effect, the Twittersphere,
punctuated with a plethora of indignant and sharply worded refusals to
comply with the police, became one of the only sources of developing
news. What we know about what happened thereafter owes almost entirely
to those who scoured the web for scanner feeds from the San Bernardino
Sheriff’s Department and intently followed the story these feeds told.</big></p>
<big></big>
<p><big><b>“The Burn Plan”</b></big></p>
<big></big>
<p><big>Shortly after 4pm Pacific Standard Time, the cabin was engulfed
in flames, with CNN helicopters broadcasting plumes of black smoke from
a distance of five miles. A single gunshot is reported from within the
house. A narrative quickly emerged among the mainstream media, which we
should recall was conspicuously absent from the scene, that police
agencies had only deployed tear gas, and that perhaps Dorner himself
had set the fire. Soon, what seems to be a cache of ammunition is
exploding sporadically.</big></p>
<big></big>
<p><big>But for those of us listening to the San Bernardino Sheriff’s
Department radio frequency, there was little question what had
occurred. Nearly a half hour prior, officers had referred to “going
ahead with the plan with the burner,” with another adding that the plan
was to “back the Bear down and deploy the burner through the turret.”
(Live audio during the preceding shootout <a
href="file://localhost/watch">seems to confirm this intention</a>).
Soon, the message was straightforward and expected: “Seven burners have
deployed and we have a fire.” No surprised tones, no suggestion that
the fire be extinguished.</big></p>
<big></big>
<p><big>In fact, there was the exact opposite: a female voice on the
scanner repeatedly asks if the fire crews should be allowed to
approach, and is told that it’s not time yet, that we need to wait
until all four corners are engulfed, then that we need to wait until
the roof collapses. At one particularly repulsive point, those on the
scene realize that the house has a basement, and an authoritative male
voice indicates that the fire crew would not be called until the fire
had “burned through the basement.” They were going to let him die.</big></p>
<big></big>
<p><big>References to the 1993 massacre at Waco, Texas, the murderous
1985 bombing of the MOVE Organization in Philadelphia were immediate,
and will serve as opposing frames for Dorner’s death in the days and
weeks to come.</big></p>
<big></big>
<p><big>A murder? An assassination? A lynching? An execution.</big></p>
<big></big>
<p><big><b>State of the Union: Flammable</b></big></p>
<big></big>
<p><big>This is a day of a million possible metaphors, but central
among these should be the image of the burning house. In an effort to
distinguish what he called the “house negro” from the “field negro,”
Malcolm X had once observed that the two responded differently when the
master’s house caught fire: “But that field negro, remember, they were
in the majority, and they hated their master. When the house caught on
fire, he didn’t try to put it out, that field negro prayed for a wind.”
While the metaphor may seem a strange one, given the fiery death of a
man some have compared to a runaway slave. But as many Americans choose
to gaze, mesmerized, at the glowing embers of the Dorner saga rather
than watching the State of the Union, it’s worth wondering: whose house
is really on fire? And who is praying for wind?</big></p>
<big></big>
<p><big>The eclipsing of the State of the Union, with some <a
href="http://www.thewrap.com/tv/column-post/state-union-vs-christopher-dorner-tv-news-channels-split-coverage-77456"
onclick="javascript:_gaq.push(['_trackEvent','outbound-article','http://www.thewrap.com']);">networks</a>
airing a split screen of the President’s speech alongside images from
Southern California, or omitting pre- and post- speech coverage to
report on Dorner’s likely death (a speech given in the context of
ongoing war and occupation, unending recession and social crisis and a
heated debate about, well, gun control) speaks volumes about our
society, the conditions which produced Dorner and has helped produced a
surge in mass killings generally. Persistent racist policies couched in
the language of security, and failed imperial ventures with war tactics
re-imported into American policing, are routinely covered over by the
trite conflicts of celebrities, whether they be Kardashians or
Congressmen.</big></p>
<big></big>
<p><big>Dorner was not just a product of a racist police department, he
also no doubt adored his ‘fifteen minutes,’ stealing time from the
President he nevertheless supported during the biggest planned speech
of the year. Although Dorner’s actions were not driven by a radical
consciousness, they are ‘as American as cherry pie’ in an apolitical
vacuum that (at least on the surface) resembles Oliver Stone’s <i>Natural
Born Killers</i> far more than the political contexts of the 1960s.</big></p>
<big></big>
<p><big>As Obama was taking to the lectern, police agencies were
insisting that they had not set the fire that killed Christopher
Dorner, and the compliant media were parroting this clearly implausible
message. As members of Congress stood and sat on cue to rapturously
applaud the Commander-in-Chief, more than 14,000 people have liked just
one of the Facebook pages in support of Dorner, some because they know
what racist policing is like, some because ours is a time of resisting
injustice by any means, and some simply for the joy of backing an
outlaw to the grisly end.</big></p>
<big></big>
<p><big>Dorner was not a radical, but his short war was not simply the
story of broken man or of individualistic vengeance. The issues of
brutality and racism perpetually covered up by a corrupt police
department created the insurgent Dorner and resonated with many people
who endure the reality of urban policing on a daily basis. The sympathy
and the support Dorner received is a clear indicator of the very real
and deep structural inequalities that helped forge the path of Dorner’s
life and his fiery death. The great radical historian Mike Davis <a
href="http://www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2013/02/11/mike-davis/exterminating-angels/"
onclick="javascript:_gaq.push(['_trackEvent','outbound-article','http://www.lrb.co.uk']);">concluded
a recent article</a> on Dorner with a peculiar question: “Does anyone
cheer Dorner?” What is peculiar is that, for better or worse, there’s
no denying that the answer is “yes.”</big></p>
<big></big>
<p><big>There’s no telling what sort of a fire they could start
tomorrow.</big></p>
<big></big>
<p><big><em><strong>George Ciccariello-Maher</strong> is assistant
professor of political science at Drexel University. He is the author
of <a
href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0822354527/counterpunchmaga"
onclick="javascript:_gaq.push(['_trackEvent','outbound-article','http://www.amazon.com']);">We
Created Chávez: A People’s History of the Venezuelan Revolution</a> and
can be reached at gjcm(at)drexel.edu.</em></big></p>
<big></big>
<p><big><em><strong>Mike King</strong> is a Ph.D candidate in sociology
at UC Santa Cruz, and can be reached at mikeking0101(at)gmail.com. Both
study policing and counterinsurgency.</em></big></p>
</div>
</font></big>
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