Police seeking Dorner opened fire in a second case of mistaken identity
Torrance police say the man was driving a pickup resembling the fugitive's. The incident happened just after the LAPD fired on women delivering newspapers nearby.
David Perdue was on his way to sneak in some surfing before work Thursday morning when police flagged him down. They asked who he was and where he was headed, then sent him on his way.
Seconds later, Perdue's attorney said, a Torrance police cruiser slammed into his pickup and officers opened fire; none of the bullets struck Perdue.
His pickup, police later explained, matched the description of the one belonging to Christopher Jordan Dorner — the ex-cop who has evaded authorities after allegedly killing three and wounding two more. But the pickups were different makes and colors. And Perdue looks nothing like Dorner: He's several inches shorter and about a hundred pounds lighter. And Perdue is white; Dorner is black.
"I don't want to use the word buffoonery but it really is unbridled police lawlessness," said Robert Sheahen, Perdue's attorney. "These people need training and they need restraint."
A department spokesman said Saturday that the shooting is still under investigation. In a statement to The Times, the department said: "The circumstances of the incident known to the responding officers would have led a reasonable officer under normal circumstances — and these were far from normal circumstances —
to believe that fellow officers were being shot at and that the vehicle traveling toward them posed a serious risk."
"In the split seconds available to them," the statement continued, "action was appropriate to intervene and stop the actions of the driver of that vehicle."
http://articles.latimes.com/2013/feb/09/local/la-me-torrance-shooting-20130210
Interesting. A vehicle that doesn't match the description that isn't shooting at them led them to believe fellow officers were being shot at and the vehicle posed a serious risk, after fellow officers had just questioned the driver and let them go.
Sounds like they're just using the manhunt as an excuse for driving recklessly and causing a collision.