By TAMI ABDOLLAH and GILLIAN FLACCUS
Associated Press
BIG BEAR LAKE, Calif. (AP) - A driver whose truck
was taken by a carjacker believed to be a fugitive ex-Los Angeles cop
said Wednesday the man appeared calm and didn't want to hurt him.
Rick Heltebrake said he instantly recognized
Christopher Dorner, who had an assault rifle pointed at him Tuesday on a
Southern California mountain road.
Heltebrake said the carjacker took the truck, and seconds later gunfire broke out.
The carjacker then ran into a nearby cabin and was involved in a shootout with law enforcement.
The carjacking came as police scoured mountain
peaks for days, using everything from bloodhounds to helicopters
equipped with high-tech search equipment in their manhunt for Dorner.
They had no idea he was so close, possibly holed up in a vacation cabin across the street from their command post.
It was there that Dorner may have taken refuge last
Thursday, four days after beginning a deadly rampage that claimed four
lives.
The search ended Tuesday when a man believed to be
Dorner bolted from hiding, stole two vehicles, barricaded himself in
another vacant cabin miles away and mounted a last stand in the furious
shootout in which he killed one sheriff's deputy and wounded another
before the building erupted in flames.
He never emerged from the ruins, and hours later a
charred body was found in the basement of the burned cabin along with a
wallet and personal items, including a California driver's license with
the name Christopher Dorner, an official briefed on the investigation
told The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because of the
ongoing investigation.
The coroner's office is studying the remains to positively determine the identity. It was not clear how the cabin caught fire.
Los Angeles Police Department Lt. Andrew Neiman
said Wednesday the agency had returned to normal patrol operations but
about a dozen of the more than 50 protective details guarding possible
Dorner targets would remain in place until the remains are positively
identified.
"This really is not a celebration," he said.
Neiman would not answer any questions regarding
what occurred in the mountains of San Bernardino County the previous
day, saying it was that jurisdiction's investigation.
LAPD officers used the Internet to monitor radio chatter during the shootout.
"It was horrifying to listen to that firefight and
to hear those words. 'Officer down' is the most gut-wrenching experience
that you can have as a police officer," Neiman said.
Dorner, 33, had said in a lengthy rant that police
believe he posted on Facebook last week that he expected to die in one
final, violent confrontation with police, and if it was him in the cabin
that's what happened.
The apparent end came in the same mountain range
where his trail went cold six days earlier, when his burning pickup
truck - with guns and camping gear inside - was abandoned with a broken
axle on a fire road in San Bernardino National Forest near the ski
resort town of Big Bear Lake.
His footprints led away from the truck and vanished
on frozen soil. Deputies searched door-to-door in the city of Big Bear
Lake and then, in a blinding snowstorm, SWAT teams focused on hundreds
of vacant cabins in the forest outside of town.
With no sign of him and few leads, police offered a
$1 million reward to bring him to justice and end a "reign of terror"
that had more than 50 families of targeted Los Angeles police officers
under round-the-clock protection after he threatened to bring "warfare"
to the LAPD, officers and their kin.
Just a few hours after police announced Tuesday
that they had fielded more than 1,000 tips with no sign of Dorner, word
came that a man matching his description had tied up two people in a Big
Bear Lake cabin, stole their car and fled.
Lt. Patrick Foy with the California Fish and
Wildlife Department, which aided the search, said two housekeepers
surprised Dorner in the cabin when they came to clean it Tuesday
morning. The women were tied up but one was able to free herself and
call 911, Foy said.
Fish and Wildlife wardens spotted the Nissan that
had been reported stolen going in the opposite direction and gave chase,
Foy said. The driver looked like Dorner.
They lost the car after it passed a school bus and
turned onto a side road, but two other Fish and Wildlife patrols turned
up the road a short time later, and were searching for the car when a
white pickup truck sped erratically toward them in the Seven Oaks area,
about 30 miles down Highway 38 from Big Bear Lake.
"He took a close look at the driver and realized it was the suspect," Foy said.
Dorner, who allegedly stole the pickup truck at
gunpoint after crashing the first car, rolled down a window and opened
fire on the wardens, striking their truck more than a dozen times, he
said.
One of the wardens shot at the suspect as he
rounded a curve in the road. It's unclear if he was hit, but the stolen
pickup careened off the road and crashed in a snow bank.
The driver then ran to the cabin where he
barricaded himself and got in the shootout with San Bernardino County
deputies and other officers, two of whom were shot, one fatally.
A SWAT team surrounded the cabin and used an
armored vehicle to break out the cabin windows, said a law enforcement
official who requested anonymity because the investigation was ongoing.
The officers then lobbed tear gas canisters into the cabin and blasted a
message over a loudspeaker: "Surrender or come out."
The armored vehicle then tore down each of the cabin's four walls.
A single shot was heard inside before the cabin was engulfed in flames, the law enforcement official said.
Until Tuesday, authorities weren't sure Dorner was
still in Big Bear Lake, where his pickup was found within walking
distance from the cabin where he apparently hid.
With many searchers leaving town amid speculation
Dorner was long gone, the command center across the street was taken
down Monday.
Police said Dorner began his murderous run on Feb. 6
after they connected the Feb. 3 slayings of a former police captain's
daughter and her fiance with his angry manifesto.
Dorner blamed former LAPD Capt. Randal Quan for
providing poor representation before a police disciplinary board that
fired him for filing a false report. Dorner, who is black, claimed in
his online rant that he was the subject of racism by the department and
was targeted for reporting misconduct by other police.
Dorner vowed to get even with those who had wronged him as part of his plan to reclaim his reputation.
"You're going to see what a whistleblower can do
when you take everything from him especially his NAME!!!" the rant said.
"You have awoken a sleeping giant."
Within hours of being named as a suspect in the
double murder, the 6-foot, 270-pounder described as armed and "extremely
dangerous," tried unsuccessfully to steal a boat in San Diego to flee
to Mexico. After leaving a trail of evidence, he headed north where he
opened fire on two patrol cars in Riverside County, shooting three
officers and killing one.
___
AP writer Greg Risling contributed to this report.
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