The LA Times has new details on the use of incendiary tear gas devices in the standoff with Christopher Dorner, leading to the fire that destroyed the cabin where he was holed up: Dorner Manhunt: Incendiary Tear Gas Reportedly Used on Cabin.

Faced with regular barrages of gunfire, officers confronting suspected killer Christopher Dorner lobbed incendiary tear gas into the cabin where Dorner allegedly was holed up, said law enforcement officials with knowledge of the situation.

The cabin caught on fire and authorities believe Dorner was burned inside. A body was discovered but authorities have not confirmed it was Dorner. …

SWAT officers surrounding the cabin were under a “constant barrage of gunfire,” one source said. “He put himself in that position. There weren’t a lot of options.”

Hoping to end the standoff, law enforcement authorities first lobbed “traditional” tear gas into the cabin. When that did not work, they opted to use CS gas canisters, which are known in law enforcement parlance as incendiary tear gas. These canisters have significantly more chance of starting a fire. This gas can cause humans to have burning eyes and start to feel as if they are being starved for oxygen. It is often used to drive barricaded individuals out.

KTLA 5 in Los Angeles is reporting that ex-cop Christopher Dorner has been involved in a shootout with police in Big Bear. One or two police officers have been reported wounded; the situation is rapidly developing…

BIG BEAR, Calif. — Christopher Dorner was engaged in a shootout with federal authorities in the Big Bear area Tuesday, a law enforcement source told The Times.

The shooting occurred after Dorner burglarized a home, tied up a couple and stole their car, the source said.

It was not immediately clear whether Dorner was in custody.

A second source said there was an active crime scene but did not have details.

Law enforcement officials were swarming the area.

Police have confirmed that Dorner is holed up in the cabin at lower right of the image above. Two policemen have been shot and medevac’ed out.

LA Times saying #Dorner broke into a cabin “days ago” & held couple hostage until this morning. Then tried to find daylight.

— @LAScanner (@LAScanner) February 12, 2013

LAT: Owner of cabin where Dorner is barricaded says cabin should be empty, without cable, phone or Internet service latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2013/02/…

— Jon Passantino (@passantino) February 12, 2013

Media reporting 1 deputy shot in SB during #Dorner shootout has died. Other is critical. Standoff = ongoing.

— @LAScanner (@LAScanner) February 12, 2013

An ex-cop with a stockpile of weaponry is being sought by police in Los Angeles after being implicated in a double murder in Irvine, and the police searching for him seem to have pretty itchy trigger fingers of their own. I’m staying inside today.

Los Angeles (CNN) — A former Los Angeles cop who allegedly warned he would target law enforcement in retribution for being fired is now suspected of shooting three officers early Thursday, killing one, authorities said.

The shootings — which come a day after Irvine, California, police named Christopher Jordan Dorner as the suspect in a double slaying there Sunday — sparked a huge manhunt in Southern California.

It also left officers extremely jittery. According to a senior law enforcement source, two people were wounded when officers in Torrance, California, opened fire on a blue pickup truck after it pulled up in front of a house where they were guarding a fellow officer Dorner had allegedly named as a target.

The truck — which turned out to be a newspaper delivery vehicle — resembled the truck Dorner is believed to be driving, the source said. Police also shot at another blue pickup in that city, but no one was injured in that incident, the source said.

The right wing blogosphere immediately leaped into action on this news, desperately trying to blame this rogue cop’s violent actions on “liberals.” I won’t link to these morons; you can easily find them raving in unison all over the wingnut blogs this morning.

A&E has a show debuting tonight that could be worth watching, produced by Ice-T and featuring violence prevention counselor Malik Spellman: The Peacemaker.

Some very disturbing information has come to light in the long-running scandal of child molestation in the Los Angeles diocese of the Roman Catholic Church. A former vicar has testified in a civil case that Cardinal Roger Mahony specifically instructed him not to report allegations of sexual misconduct by a now-defrocked priest: Dark charges from Mahony’s inner circle.

Msgr. Richard Loomis, former vicar of clergy for the archdiocese, said under oath that in the year 2000 he wrote a memo advocating that the archdiocese inform police about allegations of sexual abuse by a now-defrocked priest named Michael Baker. Cardinal Roger Mahony, Loomis testified, directed him not to report the allegations.

That testimony grabbed the attention of those who have followed the years-long molestation scandal, in which Mahony has fought like a tomcat to withhold documents sought by investigators and has had PR teams build him an image as a reformer.

In all that time, no one from Mahony’s inner circle had dared stand up and point a finger at the cardinal until Loomis did so last week. With the testimony by Loomis, there wasn’t just a challenge to the archdiocesan leader, but a suggestion that a paper trail exists.

Loomis testified that when he found out Baker was still performing baptisms despite allegations of abuse in the 1990s and orders to discontinue ministry, he sent a memo to Mahony recommending that they call the police. He testified that Mahony “wrote on the memo and initially his response was to proceed but then through the general counsel’s office I was told … that we were going to wait,” said Loomis.

The monsignor also testified that Mahony ordered him not to inform parishes where Baker had worked of allegations against the priest.

Nobody was more surprised by Loomis’ candor last week than a young man known in court records as Luis C., a former altar boy who was one of Baker’s victims beginning in the mid-’90s.

“I was in shock,” said Luis, who is now 29 and working in an auto body shop after marital and other problems, for which he has received years of therapy. “Thanks to God, Msgr. Loomis had the heart to come out and admit” that he had tried in vain to get the archdiocese to take action.

No word on whether private insurance will cover the finger reattachment or the dental check-up. Man’s Finger Bitten Off in Scuffle at Health Care Rally.

A witness from the scene says a man was walking through the anti-reform group to get to the pro-reform side when he got into an altercation with the 65-year-old, who opposes health care reform.

The 65-year-old was apparently aggressive and hit the other man, who then retaliated by biting off his attacker’s pinky, according to Karoli from DrumsnWhistles.

The man took his finger and walked to Los Robles hospital for treatment. Doctors reattached the finger, which was said to have been severed in half. He has since been released, according to a hospital spokesperson.

Neither man has been identified.

In case that wasn’t clear — a pro-health care demonstrator was apparently assaulted by an anti-health care demonstrator, and retaliated by chowing down on his pinky.

Bad air in Los Angeles.

LGF operative “Ringo the Gringo” was at the Anti-Israel Demonstration in West LA on Jan. 10, 2009, and has dozens of photos and video clips of this eruption of insanity.

This video shows protesters chanting “Allahu Akbar,” then attacking a car whose driver was flying an Israeli flag. Really bad craziness.

Ringo the Gringo has an excellent photo/video essay on the May Day Demonstration in Los Angeles, CA on May 1, 2008—which turned out to be much smaller than last year’s event.

When Israeli-American Daphna Ziman was given the Tom Bradley Award for community service recently by the African-American fraternity Kappa Alpha Psi, keynote speaker Reverend Eric Lee reportedly launched into an antisemitic diatribe directed at her; Pajamas Media has the story in a video interview with Ms. Ziman: Reverend Eric Lee’s Anti-Semitism: A Personal Story [video]

After Ziman received her award, Reverend Lee, who is the President/CEO of the Los Angeles branch of Dr. King’s Southern Christian Leadership Conference, began his keynote speech. In the midst of this, after praising Malcolm X, he started staring directly at Ziman, according to an email she sent.

Ziman’s email states “[Lee] started talking about the African American children who are suffering because of the Jews that have featured them as rapists and murderers. He spoke of a Jewish Rabbi, and then corrected himself to say ‘What other kind of Rabbis are there, but Jews.’ He told how this Rabbi came to him to say that he would like to bring the AA [African-American] community and the Jewish community together. ‘NO, NO, NO!!!!’ he shouted into the crowd, ‘we are not going to come together. The Jews have made money on us in the music business and we are the entertainers, and they are economically enslaving us.’”

(An attempt to revive the “Black-Jewish Connection” is currently underway in Los Angeles, according to the L. A. Watts Times.)

Lee continued with his anti-Semitic diatribe, according to Ziman, at which time she could no longer tolerate it and left the room, where she broke into tears.

Most of the dignitaries had also left the room by the time of Lee’s speech but Assemblyman Mike Davis was still there. He told Ziman that he “did not hear” Lee’s words because he was engaged in another conversation. Mr. Davis did not return a call from Pajamas Media, seeking comment. Calls to organizers of the event were also not returned.