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tv   Anderson Cooper 360  CNN  February 14, 2013 1:00am-2:00am EST

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to ask other people? what do you mean how many times have i been properly in love? is there an improper way? maybe i should ask you that. that's it for us tonight. i'm robin meade. normally you can find me in the mornings, that's where i get the energy from. thank you for allowing me to be here with you tonight in for piers morgan. anderson cooper starts right now. we begin tonight with a special edition of "360." nine days of terror, the hunt for christopher dorner. authorities cornered him and more importantly why they failed to find him sooner. we're going to hear from the man who came face to face with a combat ready but business-like dorner as he described what might have been an encounter on a road before all hell broke
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loose. federal, state and local authorities have been briefing reporters on the latest. sheriff john mcmahon identifying the identity killed, jeremiah mackay, a father of two children, a 7-year-old daughter and 4-month-old son. additional testing will be done to identify the burned body, which is believed to be that of christopher dorner. in addition, he denied any concerted effort to set that fire. take a look. >> i can tell you that it was not on purpose. we did not intentionally burn down that cabin to get mr. dorner out. the teargas canisters that we used, first off, we used a presence when we showed up. secondly, we used a cold tear gas. then we used the next teargas
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was that that was pyrotechnic. it does generate a lot of heat. we had introduced those canisters into the residence and a fire erupted. >> he was also asked but would not answer if dorner had been planning additional attacks in the area. that's where things stand right now. let's look at how we got to this moment, how the final chapter began. gary tuchman has that. >> reporter: 12:22 p.m. on tuesday. that's when a 911 call came in with the first real sighting of fugitive christopher dorner in days. two people who were hired to clean houses in the big bear area run into a man who looks like dorner. he ties them up and then takes off in their purple nissan. one of the cleaners is able to escape. that's when she calls police. it turns out they were tied up in a house right across the street from the san bernardino sheriff's command center. 12:45 p.m., fish and wildlife officials spot a purple car driving on california 38. they begin to pursue him. >> the suspect realized he had been identified.
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>> reporter: dorner tries to evade them, at one point crashing and taking to the woods on foot. with the officers still in pursuit, he stops a truck driven by a resident. dorner pulls a gun on him but allows him to leave unharmed with his dog. dorner is now behind the door of a silver pickup truck and gets back on the highway and passes by a fish and wildlife official coming from the opposite direction and once again he is recognized. the officer radios colleagues on the road behind him and warn them dorner is heading straight for them. when dorner spots the vehicle, he rolls down his window and opens fire. >> the warden in front noticed a white truck coming down, driving erratically at a high rate of speed. the suspect rolled his window down. when the second patrol truck came up, he engaged in the shooting with our wardens as they were driving. he did hit the truck multiple times.
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>> reporter: dorner heads up glass road, abandons the truck and takes refuge in a cabin. san bernardino county sheriff's deputies arrive. an intense firefight breaks out. a reporter for local station kcbs is also on the scene. >> we're standing here, we don't want to get caught in the crossfire ourselves. >> you, come here. >> me? >> you, come here! [ gunfire ] [ gunfire continues ] >> hey! get the [ bleep ] out of here now. >> reporter: this video shot by kcbs. >> guy's down!
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[ gunfire ] >> reporter: two deputies are shot. >> returning fire. >> they're returning fire. >> we have an officer down, officer down. >> they have an officer down. >> medic ship is in the air. >> reporter: one officer later dies at the hospital. dorner has now claimed four lives in his rampage. in an effort to get dorner out, police fire teargas into the cabin and then begin to rip the walls down one by one. then -- >> we're going to go forward with the plan, with the burn. >> copy. >> reporter: flames and smoke begin to rise from the cabin. >> we have fire in the front. he might come out the back. >> reporter: still unclear how the fire started and spread. soon afterwards -- >> sounds like one shot fired from inside the residence. >> reporter: what we don't know, whether dorner shot himself or died in the flames. the fire burns for hours.
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authorities thinking dorner is still inside. late tuesday, they say a charred body has been found. the police have not positivity confirmed this is the body of christopher dorner. >> there is a lot of apprehension today in any kind of celebration because this is not a celebration. this has been a very trying time over the last couple of weeks for all of those involved and all those families, friends and everybody that's been touched by this dorner incident. >> reporter: the first officer shot by dorner was laid to rest today. the manhunt is over. there will be an investigation into how and why this man was able to elude police for nine days is just beginning. gary tuchman, cnn. >> now to the man who lost his truck to christopher dorner but is alive to tell the story. i spoke with him a short time ago. take me through what happened. you were coming up a side road on the highway and you saw law enforcement in the area. what happened? >> i saw something moving in the
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trees and i could see it was somebody with a gun. there's been a lot of people around here with guns searching buildings and things like that, so i'm used to seeing that but it was an odd area for that to be. then i realized it was christopher dorner and i saw a vehicle crashed in the snow behind him, and he came up to the window of my truck, my driver window with his gun pointed at me and he said, "i don't want to hurt you, just get out and start walking and take your dog." >> how did he look to you? >> he looked calm, kind of more like well trained, you know, business-like almost. you know, he didn't have any crazy eyes or anything like that. he was dressed in all military style camouflage. ballistic vest on with some pockets in the front. could have had rifle magazines or smoke bombs. i couldn't tell. >> you said a ballistic vest. like a kevlar vest?
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>> yeah, a thick vest. the kind i've seen on the pictures i've seen. military style. so it was all very calm. he was calm. i was calm. it was clear that he didn't consider me one of his targets. he just needed my vehicle and he said get out and start walking and take your dog and that's what i did. i asked if i could get her leash, he said no, just start walking. >> so i started walking up the road, and i got about maybe 20 seconds up the road, maybe 10 seconds, something like that, not very far and i heard a burst of gunfire down by where my truck was. so apparently he turned my truck around and was heading down the direction from which i had just come, and he came head on into a sheriff's unit and there was a firefight there. when i heard the gunfire, i bailed out into the snow, which was on the side of the road, and
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ran into the snow a little ways until i got to a big tree, got some cover, and i took out my cell phone and i called my friend, the sheriff deputy who i had just seen recently, he's a local deputy that lives in the area and patrols the area. for san bernardino county. i called him directly. he said rick, what do you got? i said paul, he just took my truck. excuse me. paul, he just took my truck. so paul confirmed my truck description, and he said okay. and i hung up and i kept running out towards the highway, just to keep getting away and i called a friend and i said drop what you're doing and come pick me up. which they did in a little while, and we drove down to where the highway patrol had already set up a roadblock and i said stop here, i wanted to sit and relax where i felt safe near the road block and the police officers there. >> let me ask you, how far the location where he took your truck, how far is that from the
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cabin where he, according to authorities, ended up? >> it's about 3, 3 1/2 miles down that windy road. >> and how far from where the truck ended up is that from the cabin, do you know? >> i'm not really sure. i couldn't really tell where that truck was in the photo i saw in the news. i couldn't get a bearing on it. i don't think it's very far. >> so what we're assuming is he went on foot from the time he got out of your vehicle to that cabin, that's the assumption. >> right. >> i'm just trying to figure out the distance. rick, this may be a dumb question, but you have a guy pointing a gun at you, you knew who it was. did you feel in danger or feel that this is a transaction, he's acting rationally? >> well, i felt endangered as far as knowing what his history was and that i had a gun pointed
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at my head. however, he said he didn't want to hurt me and i believed him. he wanted me to get out of my truck and walk up the road with my dog, and that's what i did. he needed a vehicle and he took my truck. >> how do you feel now, having had this experience with him and knowing what's happened subsequently, how do you feel? >> i feel, you know, i'm fortunate. i feel like he might have had some compassion for me and my dog, make sure you take your dog. i liked that. i'm totally a dog guy and that was a big thing for me, you know, and one thing is, i've been kind of inundated with e-mails on facebook and people calling me a hero. i just want to be clear that the real heroes are the law enforcement officers that are out there doing this job every day. we just had a funeral in riverside today from the officer that was killed the other day. now we're going to have another one in san bernardino soon, because mr. dorner determined
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that i wasn't a target, but he was able to find one of his targets down the road. and now we have one less sheriff's deputy in the county. >> it's an important thing to remember. rick, i appreciate you talking to us. thank you. >> okay, thank you. let us know what you think right now. follow me on twitter. next, more revelations about how the hunt for dorner unfolded and how it ended. also, what made dorner tick and why some aren't surprised that he exploded. a top local reporter joins us, along with veteran john miller as our special "360" coverage continues. silverado was also recognized for the lowest cost of ownership. hey, what are you gonna do with it? end table. oh. [ male announcer ] it's chevy truck month. now get 0% financing for 60 months, plus trade up to get $1,750 total allowance on a silverado all-star edition. or trade up and choose customer cash plus option package discount for a total value of $7,250.
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breaking news tonight after nine days of terror, a special "360" report continues. authorities identifying the deputy killed yesterday. detective jeremiah mackay, just 35, a father of a 7-year-old daughter and a 4-month-old son. another lawman remains in the hospital tonight. he's expected to fully recover but will need additional surgery. as for the fire that consumed the cabin, the sheriff said it was not deliberately set to drive out dorner. he said more testing will be done to confirm the charred corpse is dorner.
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but as far as law enforcement is concerned, the manhunt is over. joining me now is one of the reporters who hasn't had much sleep, joel ruben of "the los angeles times." joel, you guys have done remarkable reporting on this story. particularly just in the last 24 hours. what are the most significant developments that you've learned today? >> well, i think just hearing the san bernardino sheriff say that while they can't 100% say for sure it is dorner's body that they found, that the manhunt is over, as you mentioned, which is the -- which equates to it was him, as we talked about last night if they had any doubt that perhaps it wasn't him, that they would not have stood down this mass of manhunt. also, the questions that have erupted over twitter of the fire that erupted at the cabin, and hearing the sheriff say unequivocally they did not intentionally set that fire, whether that extinguishes, sorry the pun, extinguishes the conspiracies out there we'll
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see. >> we have learned and i think can believe with some confidence that the incendiary device that was used was not used to set the fire but was used in order to deploy this agent that is meant to drive dorner out of the cabin. >> can you explain, joel, what people heard and what you think it means? >> sure. i've reviewed the audio that's circulating around myself and while not verbatim, it comes at a time when the officers involved in dismantling the cabin wall by wall, they were using a demolition vehicle where they could sort of take the walls down one by one so that they knew what they were dealing with inside. in the process of doing that there's a lot of radio chatter between the officers. at one point there's talk of deploying the burners, which led a lot of people to conclude that it was an intentional ignition of fire. shortly after the talk of the
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burners, there is a report by one of the officers of a fire breaking out and quickly engulfing the cabin. today at the press conference the sheriff was asked about that term, burners, and what they were. he said that is a colloquial term for a type of teargas that was involved, be for a type of a heating agent involved. the heating agent i've been told by members of the lapd s.w.a.t. who are familiar with it, the heating agent is not used to set a fire but to deploy the tear gas in a more potent way, but it can cause fires and that seems to be what happened. >> the other thing that's raised a lot of questions is last night there seemed to be discrepancies between what the lapd and the sheriff's department in san
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bernardino were saying. have the agencies cleared up their stories? does it make sense to you now? do you know what was going on last night? >> no. i'm not sure we'll ever get a clear answer. i think we can speculate it was just a very chaotic situation and i think there was a lot of -- obviously a lot of frayed nerves and whenever you get several agencies involved covering a huge territory and especially covering a story that everybody in the world is paying attention to, you're going to get a lot of attention between the agency. i think, and this is just me speculating, the lapd did not want to get out ahead of the san bernardino sheriff's department. it was their operation. and perhaps san bernardino was putting pressure on lapd to back off and then these reports came out and some of them attributed to the lapd saying that a body
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had been found. i think there was probably just a lot of frayed nerves going on and everybody just wanted to back off. so the lapd took the someone confusing stance that a body had been found. and at the time, that may have been true. we had sources telling us that a body had been found. it may have been that they were reporting their conclusion that the body was inside because of their confidence that they had seen dorner inside. we're still trying to figure it all out. >> joel ruben, i appreciate you taking the time to talk to us. joining us now is john miller. what have you learned in the last 24 hours that you find the most interesting? >> a number of things. number one, you say, how do you gauge the confidence level that that was dorner inside?
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one of the things was they said we're not going to remove the protective details of the people on the hit list. that's 58 members of the family and that was more than 400 officers. these are the gangs division, the narcotics divisions from all of the areas of the lapd had been mobilized to do a plain clothes surveillance portion, as well as a high-profile uniform portion. frankly, this is something we haven't gotten into while it was going on, but i think we can say it now, the threat was so high and some of the locations were so difficult to protect that entire families were moved into police stations. the police stations themselves have what they call station defense posture, the kind of posture they would put out by disorder or riot. where the station is defended by an armed group on the perimeter.
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this was fairly unlike anything experienced before. when you saw some of those families go home, you saw kind of a great exhaling today in los angeles. >> and is it clear to you how long -- we may not know this, you may not know this -- how long dorner was in that other cabin where he allegedly took two people hostage. was that the only cabin he had been staying in? why wasn't he found if there were door-to-door searches? >> it could have been he was in there the whole time. it could have been he was in there an hour before. the idea that it looked out on to the ranger station which for a time served as the command post and he would have had a view of operations harkens to something he said in his manifesto, which was that incident command posts will be a
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target rich environment. here he is holed up in an apartment that almost has a view directly on the command post on the other side of the road with an automatic sniper rifle with .50 caliber sniper bullets. you have to ask yourself two questions. one, when his truck broke down and he took off with the weapons that he could carry, was that the first place he could get into? or, two, did he choose it because it would give him an observation post and potentially a target? >> are you aware how far the broken down truck was from that location? >> i was told it's not that far away.
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i haven't been there. this might have been the first place he encountered. or he might have hid and found his way back to it. about the search, because you asked about that, they would check houses and if there was any forced entry, they would go in and check that house to determine did that have anything to do with him, was he still there? if there were houses unlocked, they would check those. but where there was sign of no forced entry, generally that was a sign to them that this was in tact. in general -- there were some exceptions, they didn't make a forced entry to places that were already locked. so you could consider a scenario where he would have found an unlocked place or found a hidden key, made an entry and locked it behind him. and that's the kind of building, given the amount they had to deal with, 660 cabins and other things that they might not have ever gotten to. >> we found the correct audio referencing lighting up the house. i want to play that and have you talk about it. >> we're going to go forward with the plan with the burn. >> copy. >> the burner is deployed and we have a fire. >> copy 7.
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burner is deployed and we have a fire. >> guys be ready on the number four side. we have fire in the front. he might come out the back. >> so some people who listened to this said that is evidence they believe that the police were wanting to light the house on fire, maybe to smoke him out or to kill him inside. >> so from a tactical standpoint -- and i think when you listen to that audio, you have to have those concerns and those questions, whether that's terminology or whether that's intent. those questions will all be asked. that's part of this process here. but from a tactical standpoint, you've got cold gas and you've got hot gas. they deployed both in these cases. >> tear gas? >> right. the difference between the cold gas and hot gas is that the hot gas burns at a higher temperature. it's more intense and it will drive a suspect out sooner and faster. that's the upside of it tactically. the risk factor is it doesn't
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always catch fire. it does burn the gas out of the -- it's called a tactical pocket grenade. it does burn the gas out and the gas is stronger. it has a higher risk of fire depending on how it's deployed and what it hits going in, whether it gets tied up in the curtains or rolls across the floor. depending on those circumstances, it has a higher sense of fire than cold gas. >> you know the suspicion of law enforcement in this, that they were angry that a fellow officer had been killed, a san bernardino officer was killed on that very day shortly before that. so the conspiracy theory, the suspicion is that in anger they would want to kill him. do you think there is evidence of that, or would they have wanted to get him out alive? >> i think if you look at it from -- no one can know the answer to that, unless we get into their minds.
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if you look at it from purely a tactical sense, they deployed the regular tools that they would in a rare circumstance like this where you had heavily armed man who was known to have already killed a number of people and who by the fact that he was caring on you by a .50 caliber armor piercing rounds intending to kill more people. so this is where you're going to use the tactical available tools that you have to get him out of there, no matter how harsh they may be. now, if those devices started to fire, we have to consider there was nothing keeping him in that residence. he could have come out the back door with his hands up. he could have waved a white flag. he determined to stay in there. he apparently determined as it seems from the audio we've heard to probably shoot himself and take his own life. but in these things, there is a modicum of control that the perpetrator has, and he exercised that. >> john miller, always good to have you. thanks. >> good to be here.
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a lot more to talk about, including christopher dorner's allegations against the lapd. just ahead, the burned out cabin remains an active crime scene. the family that owns the property, today they tried to check out the damage for themselves. we'll be right back. you can spot an amateur from a mile away... while going shoeless and metal-free in seconds. and you...rent from national. because only national lets you choose any car in the aisle...and go. you can even take a full-size or above, and still pay the mid-size price. now this...will work. [ male announcer ] just like you, business pro. just like you. go national. go like a pro. when she's happy, she writes about bunnies. when she's sad, she writes about goblins. [ balloon pops, goblin growling ] she wrote a lot about goblins after getting burned in the market. but she found someone to talk to and gained the confidence to start investing again.
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welcome back. this definitely gets your attention. there's praise, no shortage of conspiracy theories of what went down. a closer look ahead on "360 ". ."
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hollywood couldn't have scripted a more dramatic end game for the manhunt for christopher dorner. snowy mountain backdrop, the fugitive holed up in a cabin, surrounded, outnumbered, the cabin bursting into flames. millions watched it unfold on tv, including the cabin's owner. kyle martin, the son of the owner, i was on the phone with kyle as he watched. here's what he told me. kyle, for the pictures that you're seeing, does it seem as if the entire cabin is pretty much on fire?
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>> yeah, from what i can see, it actually looks like maybe the barn is, too. there's a barn that's about ten feet away from it. i can't quite tell, though. this is just material stuff. i feel bad for the people who have lost loved ones and what not. >> an important point, but you can imagine how anxious he is to see what, if anything, is left of their cabin. randi kaye spent the day with him. trying to get off that mountain. >> reporter: less than 12 hours after he watched his family's cabin burn to the ground, kyle martin is determined to see what's left. before making the two-hour drive up here to the big bear mountain area, kyle checked online to see if highway 38 was open. it was at highway 38 and glass road where the shootout took place, between the suspect and the fish and game officers. >> i do know it's closed. i do know it's open to residents. as far as how close they'll let me get, i don't know. i think it's still a homicide
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scene, so we'll try our luck. >> reporter: when the standoff started, kyle's sister texted him to tell him s.w.a.t. teams were on their road at their cabin. she had recognized the tennis courts. what did you think when you saw your cabin, your cabin burning on live tv? >> it's kind of funny, because when we first heard it, i was in the car and listening to the radio, and then it was kind of surreal. and then when we finally got home, i turned on the tv just to see it burning, yeah, it kind of hit home. memories. after about i would say five minutes, it kind of sunk in and just looking at it, i'm going through my head, the nation is watching our cabin burn. >> reporter: kyle's family has had the cabin since 2004. they rented it out often. it was their family business. for nearly a week, kyle had been watching the manhunt play out on tv. he admits the thought crossed his mind, what if christopher dorner ended up at his cabin? >> i even jokingly around, not
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ever thinking he would go there, say if anything, that would be a good place for someone to hold up if they wanted to. >> reporter: because you knew it empty and secluded? >> it was empty and secluded and rarely do you get visitors. >> reporter: this was not the first time police had been to kyle's cabin. in fact, they had just been there two days before the fire. the scary thing is, at that time, kyle's aunts were staying at the cabin. so if this had gone down then, kyle's family might have been harmed. as we made our way down highway 38 toward glass road, kyle's luck runs out. road closed. >> it's closed. they're not going to let us through. we can turn around up here. >> reporter: you want to give it a shot? >> yeah. i'm just going to ask. i was wondering if residents can get through? >> certain residents, yes, with proper i.d. where are you going to? >> it's the main house, the
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cabin. >> what street? >> 7 oaks road. >> you've got to go down glass road? nope, not there. >> not even if i'm the owner of the house? >> they're not letting anybody in. and that may be a while. >> reporter: the deputy directed kyle to the san bernardino county sheriff's department, who tells him the same thing. his cabin is still an active crime scene and he has to wait. he still didn't go for it? >> no. >> reporter: are you frustrated? >> no. because i understand what they're doing. you know, i don't want to get in their way. >> reporter: kyle is trying to have a good attitude, but his family has been through a lot. his father died last year, and his grandfather died last week. so this is hard to handle. he feels for those who have lost loved ones during this man hunt. >> cabins can be rebuilt, but
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the lives that this guy took and injured for that matter, my condolences out to them. you know, they're in a far worse spot than i am and my family. >> reporter: randi kaye, cnn, big bear mountain. >> that is certainly true. believe it or not, christopher dorner has what you might even call fans online. there's a fair amount of support and empathy being expressed. what's behind showing support for a killer? we'll look into that next. so now i can be in the scene. advair is clinically proven to help significantly improve lung function. unlike most copd medications, advair contains both an anti-inflammatory and a long-acting bronchodilator working together to help improve your lung function all day. advair won't replace fast-acting inhalers for sudden symptoms and should not be used more than twice a day. people with copd taking advair may have a higher chance of pneumonia. advair may increase your risk of osteoporosis and some eye problems. tell your doctor if you have a heart condition or high blood pressure before taking advair. if you're still having difficulty breathing, ask your doctor if including advair could help
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i just want to quickly recap our breaking news. identifying the deputy killed in the shootout, detective jeremiah mackay. as we told you, another wounded deputy remains in the hospital tonight. authorities say he is expected to make a full recovery. there's been a show of support for christopher dorner on social media.
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there are conspiracy theories, empathy by some for his manifesto. it seems in the world of twitter, anyone can get an audience. dan simon reports. >> sheriff mcman has asked that all the helicopters pull back or leave the area of the barricaded suspect. >> reporter: as police ask the helicopters to back off and as the cabin went up in flames, social media lit up, with users crying conspiracies. so u.s. authorities have burned someone to death in a cabin and let it burn through the basement so no body is left. another says, come on, how is dorner's body burned beyond recognition? but they found his license he just so happened to be carrying? another theory, i think dorner
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probably killed someone and left their body in that fire while he escaped. others blasted the police. >> we're going to go forward with the plan with the burn. >> reporter: blaming them for the cabin fire. lapd was prosecutor, judge, jury and executioner yesterday. they burned him alive. apparently burning people alive is now considered appropriate behavior for from the very beginning, dorner the police. found plenty of sympathizers. >> i just want to start off by saying i perfectly support 100% what christopher dorner is doing. >> i read this manifesto and i basically believe him. >> reporter: on facebook, more than 18,000 likes for a page titled "we stand with christopher dorner." on instagram, the rapper have soul spoke for many when he said "this was a necessary evil. god bless you, sir." >> please like anti-heroes and we have a history of rooting for
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people like bonnie and clyde and butch cassidy. >> reporter: usc professor karen north. >> one of the things social media has allowed us to do is join conversations and not be as accountable for our opinions. >> reporter: in other words, people may express things online they wouldn't necessarily say to their friends in public. others just like to be provocative. still, this user poses a question many today are asking. >> why is america showing so much support for him? >> reporter: dan simon, cnn, san francisco. >> it was dorner's rage at the lapd that led to the path of i'm issue isha sesay with breaking> i'm issue isha sesay breaking news. listen to this. >> we would like to make a statement regarding the incident that occurred here yesterday
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afternoon. first of all, i'd like to introduce ourselves. this is my husband, jim reynolds and i am karen reynolds. and -- sorry. we are the owners of mountain vista resort. the first thing that we would like to clarify is that we were the victims that were in with him yesterday and our housekeepers were not involved at all. he never saw them. they never saw him. the unit that he was in was a unit that we have been using for over three years as a long-term rental and it has been unoccupied since january 29th. and since that period of time,
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we have been trying to refurbish it and clean it up and working on it off and on between the busy winter season. so the last day that we were actually in there working was february 6th. >> wednesday. >> yeah, that was wednesday. >> we were planning to go back thursday. >> step up to the mike, please. >> we were planning to go back thursday and continue working but that's when they found the truck. >> the chaos. we were watching all of you and everyone, like all the command center being set up and everything. so we actually didn't do any work that day. >> could he have been here through that thursday and the whole period of time watching the command briefings. >> he could have been but we don't know for sure that he was.
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and then the first time that we have gone in there since, because we had -- you know, a heavy weekend and all of the snow and -- was yesterday. and it was just jim and i that had gone in there and that's when we found he was in there and that's when all of this had started. >> did he steal your car? >> yes, he took our car. >> he did? >> yes, de. >> what happened when he saw you? >> well -- >> it's -- >> when we had come in, he was in the upstairs part and that's where the living room is and one bedroom upstairs. and we had come into the living room and he opened the door and came out at us. >> he yelled and ran out. >> he yelled, be stay calm and ran out. >> so you were not tied up? >> yes, we were. >> not at that point, no.
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>> i just saw him seconds ago. >> i want to clarify, it was the both of you, because the reports are that it was two women. >> that was wrong. it was the two of us. >> so did he come back in while you were there? >> he was in there with us. we didn't get away from him. and he spoke with us, tried to calm us down. >> he jumped out and hollered, stay calm and karen turned and ran and he came after her. >> on the staircase. >> on the staircase. he brought her back. >> it sounds like he tried to calm you down. >> yes, he did. he was talking to us. >> see the big gun up there. >> yes, he had his gun drawn the whole time. >> he had the gun drawn showing the whole time. >> did you know it was him? >> yes. yes. >> how long were you in there with him? >> about 15 minutes. about it felt like a lot longer. >> did he tie you up? >> oh, yes.
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>> he talked to us, trying to calm us down and saying very frequently he would not kill us and that's exactly how he had said that. he told us about the man in the boat in san diego. >> he said he didn't kill him. he wasn't going to kill us. >> yeah. he said it was a means to the end with that man and that's what he want from us. he needs transportation out of big bear. and he said, just do -- he continued to say to us quite frequently he would not kill us and he just asked us to do what he asked. and so he had bound or hands first while we were still in the living room. >> he big tie wrappers, and he tied our hands behind our back and made us walk into the back bedroom back there.
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first he had us lay on the bed and cross our feet. and then he changed his mind and had me lie on the floor and lay flat and bound those with the plastic tie and pulled the hands real tight so you couldn't move. cut my circulation off and started going numb immediately. he did her, had her lay down and do the same thing. >> did you think he was going to kill you citizen. >> when he laid me lying on the ground, i really did. i thought he would just change his mind, calm us down and get us in here to do it. once he got us bound, he went out to the bathroom real close and came back with wash cloths, stuck one in each of our mouths. >> back into the living room. >> back into the living room again and he came in like with a cord and tied it. >> a couple of extension cords. >> tied it around -- >> he put a pillow case over our heads first. >> notknotted it. >> and put pillow cases over our
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heads. >> why are you telling us all of this now? what's the motivation? >> get the record settled straight. there's been a lot of misinformation out there. >> yeah. a lot of misconception. we -- we have people -- you know, we have guests who think our place is burned down because the cabin that he has died in -- well, we think it's him. but has, you know, has burned down. all the things about it being our housekeeper's, they really -- they were here and working but they were not involved at all with him. >> after he -- how do you think he got in? >> after he tied the pillow cases to your heads, did he leave? what happened then and when did you know it was safe to do something? >> he went -- well, first he kneeled down behind me and said
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you're going to be quiet, get loose, give me time? i said, sure. and then he left. and probably 10, 15, 20 seconds it wasn't very long and he was looking at the car keys i gave him. we have a keyless car. so he -- and trying to talk through the gag, trying to tell him how to start the car, he was asking how to start the car and get it going, and then he left. we listened for probably a minute or two to make sure he was gone, it sounded quiet. then we tried to get loose. >> did he seem desperate or -- >> he was very calm. >> methodical with everything. like telling us what to do. with a calm voice. >> how do you think he got in and did it appear that he had been there several days? >> i have no idea how he got in. there weren't any signs of it being broken into it. but another thing he had talked
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to us about was that -- he said, we are very heart work hard workers, we're good people. he could see jim working on the snow every day. >> he said he saw me shoveling the snow and that was friday. so -- >> and i don't know. we never saw any indication that he was in there at all. >> could it have been unlocked while you were -- >> it's possible. >> you mentioned a means to an end. at any time did he talk to you about why he was doing what he was doing? >> he said, i just want to clear my name. >> he said that quite a few times. said, i don't have a problem with you. i just want to clear my name. >> it seems like he chose you. >> i don't think so. we happened to be walking in there. >> we happened to walk in on him. >> if it would have been the next day, it would have been the
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housekeepers who walked in on him. >> i don't have any reason why he would have been watching us prior to being in there. i mean, it's up high and, you know, we work actually from -- you've all seen where the unit is. we work into every one of our units from that. it's kind of like an alleyway. >> what kind of car did he take? >> 2011 nissan rogue. >> and he wrecked it. >> that's what we've heard. we don't know. >> we haven't really been told what has happened to it. >> have you talked to sheriff's? >> yes, all day yesterday and some today. >> so you were able to -- >> we didn't really. what we did was we kind of scooted down and i went up and grabbed the pillow case and then pulled it off with my hands behind me. >> i worked up and got it off his head. >> and then she got her gag off and then we both worked on
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trying to stand up. >> he scooted over towards the bedroom door that he had closed but he couldn't get up. >> i couldn't get up. >> and couldn't reach -- we were really bound. >> i couldn't get it open. >> but she -- i was able to roll on to my knees and scoot over to the bed and actually get on to my feet. and -- and like kind of shuffled to where he was and got the door open. >> did you have a cell phone with you that you were able to call? >> we had taken cell phones. we had cell phones with us when we went in. we always have our cell phones when we're working out on the property. well -- and -- but i actually thought my cell phone was still in my pocket when he had taken us into the bedroom but while i was laying there i realized it wasn't in my pocket. i mean, you know, like i could feel that it wasn't there. and so i thought, like while we were on the sofa he had gotten it out of my coat pocket.
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so i -- we have an in-house phone and i couldn't get that to work and i was just working from behind my back and jim scooted out into the hallway and told me he had actually hidden his cell phone -- >> he chased her down the stairs, i stuffed my cell phone under the seat cushion can under the couch hopeful that we could get to it later. >> but while i was trying to figure out how to do that, i actually looked on the coffee table and he had left my cell phone right on the coffee table. right there. and i sat down and was able to scoot around and work with it and call 911. >> at the moment that you realized that this was christopher dorner, what went through your mind? >> i thought we were dead. >> yeah.
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>> really t. was pretty scary. >> i really thought it could be the end. i never knew my reaction would be to run but it was. i actually saw him quicker than him somehow and was -- >> we whacked -- i was walking behind her so she was blocking my view. she turned and ran. i didn't see his face. she passed me. >> we saw so many pictures of him and he said, i know you've been seeing the news. i know you know who i am you know, he was explaining occurrences like the boat incident. >> that's it for us. thank for watching. i won't be here tomorrow but my friend chris cuomo is kind enough to take over for me. erin burnett "outfront" starts now. ♪
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