The local (Los Angeles) TV stations are all breathlessly covering the Dorner case. This is a very important news story, especially for people in the immediate San Bernardino County area where the manhunt continues.
At this time, they believe the suspect is still inside a cabin near Big Bear. The cabin appears to be on fire and the law enforcement resources are said to have the cabin surrounded.
They are not sure Dorner is still inside the burning structure.
As I write this. it is a half hour before the SOTU. If the drama in the mountains continues into the next hour, I hope that Fox LA has enough sense to stay with the breaking news rather than switching coverage to some bloviating, gun-grabbing socialist inside the beltway.
UPDATE: No way of knowing for sure until forensics clears the scene, but it appears Dorner is probably dead.
The San Bernardino Sheriff’s Office *deliberately* set fir to the cabin.
They also denied US Forest Service fire crews access to it until it was completely burnt to the ground.
Sure, they let it burn once started, but did they deliberately set the fire to burn him out? They did break windows with an armored vehicle, and later the walls, but the tear gas grenades have been known to start fires.
They let it burn once started because they couldn’t be sure that Dorner wouldn’t shoot the firefighters. They probably didn’t care if he died in the fire; they probably wouldn’t have taken him alive anyway. I would have killed him, too.
From my nephew via Facebook:
Lobbing 7 “burner” grenades into the cabin comes pretty close to battering it with a tank!
O.K. then. I wasn’t aware of them screaming “Burn it down”, that no more of them die. I didn’t realize that they were “burner” grenades.
I receive posts from some scanner radio groups, and some of the things said were stunning.
And the scanner guys have recordings of it.