Ray William Johnson: True Story Podcast - The Cop That Killed Other Cops - The Christopher Dorner story

Episode Date: August 9, 2025

Christopher Dorner, a former LAPD officer and U.S. Navy reservist, launched a violent ten‑day revenge campaign in February 2013 after being terminated—he claimed for exposing misconduct within the department

This is your fix. I am your host, Stasi Schroeder. Welcome to Tell Me Lies, the official podcast. What's the most unhinged thing of season three? Stephen, because he's so evil. I do think he is misunderstood. You see everyone base consequences. It's intoxicating.

The writers just know how to trick you. There's always a twist in this show. Tell Me Lies, the official podcast, January 6th, and stream the new season of Tell Me Lies, January 13, on Hulu, and Hulu on Disney Plus. Do you remember when that ex-cop went insane and like murdered a bunch of other cops? Now the cop's name is Chris, and Chris is around 28 years old when the story starts, living in Los Angeles, and he is a police officer who seems to love his job. In fact, it seems like all bro wants to do is be a cop.

But one day in 2007, the worst thing ever happens to him. After all this hard work and training he put into being an officer, he ends up. getting fired. He had apparently lied about a report against a fellow officer or something. And so Chris, he does not take this well. Like he's super pissed off about the whole thing, and he is not going to let them get away with that. So he goes and he gets an attorney, and he tries to get the Los Angeles Superior Court to overturn his firing. But unfortunately for him, the court upholds the police department's decision. He then appeals that decision, and the appeals court rules against him too.

And we're in like 2011 at this point, so he's been fighting this for years, but he just can't get anyone to agree with him that he was fired unfairly. So over time, his anger and his rage at the police department continues to build. Until one day in 2013, he finally just snaps.

He decides to not only get revenge on the Los Angeles Police Department, but he wants to on, Unalive basically any police officer he comes across. Like he's mad at every cop in existence. And so he comes up with a plan and he gets to work on this plan. First, he writes a whole ass manifesto. And it's kind of long, it's 11,000 words.

And in it, he talks about the kinds of people he wants to unalive. He also calls out specific people he's going to try and unalive by name, along with calling out their families. In fact, he specifically names. 40 people by name. And like, imagine being named in some crazy person's manifesto. Like, that is some scary shit. But anyway, about a week later, he officially leaves the Navy. He was a lieutenant in the Navy reserves. He was also a marksman, which makes him very competent at shooting, which makes him very dangerous. So then, two days after that, Chris finally goes after his first target,

the adult daughter of one of the police captains from his old job. So, So he takes a rifle and he goes to the captain's daughter's apartment complex. And there, he sees her there in the parking garage sitting in her car with her fiance. And he doesn't need to get close to them because remember, he's a marksman. And so he just aims his rifle from afar, I guess, and blam, blam, he unalives them both. Then his crazy ass takes that 11,000 word manifesto and he posts it on his Facebook page for everyone to see. So then everyone sees that he's upset at the police department for treating him unfairly or whatever, and they see the list of names he plans on getting revenge on, and also in it he admits that he had just unalive the captain's daughter and her fiancee.

So of course now everyone knows not only that he just shot two people, but that he has a list of 40 more people he's gonna go after. And so I'm sure everyone is freaking out at this point. And the police are like, yeah, we can't let that happen. We gotta find this guy. And they go and they publicly name Chris as the prime suspect in the murders of the captain's daughter. And by this point, Chris, he's already fled. He's fled from Los Angeles all the way down to San Diego. And there, he hides out in a hotel and he contemplates his next move. And here is where things really start to go off the rails.

Because this is where Chris goes on a killing spree. A few days after checking into the hotel, he leaves. He knows police are onto him and he doesn't want them to find him yet. So he goes to, I guess the nearby marina? And there he finds a yacht and he tries to hijack it at gunpoint. But when he goes to untie the boat, he throws the rope into the water and that rope gets caught in the boat's motor and it f***s up the motor. So he has to ditch that plan. A few hours later, he's driving in his pickup truck because he's going to go shoot a guy, the next target on his manifesto list.

And suddenly a police car starts following him. Chris then notices, stops his truck, gets out, and blam, blam, he starts firing his rifle at them. And then he gets back into his truck and he speeds away. 20 minutes after that, two more police officers are stopped at a red light. And suddenly Chris ambushes them with his rifle. And blam, blam, he wounds one of them and he unalives the other. So at this point, we're at like a red alert.

I mean, he shot a bunch of people and he unalived a few. and he's targeting cops specifically. And so, as you can imagine, police all over California are now looking for him. I mean, this has become an all-hands-on-deck, full-on manhunt. And so later that morning, police around the Big Bear Mountain area, they find an abandoned, burned-out truck in the woods that's the same model as Chris's. So they know it's his. I mean, he must be in the area.

And so immediately, they shut the whole area down. The local ski resort gets shut down. All the nearby schools go on lunches. lockdown, and the sheriff's deputies and SWAT teams are literally going door-to-door searching for any sign of Chris. A manhunt is underway in Southern California and the Los Angeles Police Department is under siege. 10,000 law enforcement officers are conducting door-to-door searches for one of their own. About two days later, Chris strikes again.

He finds a cabin kind of out in the woods, and boom, he forces his way inside. And there's a couple there, and he holds them at gunpoint, and he ties them. up and he steals their SUV and he flees. Shortly after that, skirk, kaboom, he crashes that SUV and he has to ditch it and run away on foot. A few hours later, Chris then carjacks a random man and he steals his truck and he takes off. And as he's driving, two state wildlife officers spot him driving down the highway and they start following him. Then a bunch of cops and other law enforcement officers from different agencies, they all start chasing him. And so Chris

veers the truck off the road and jumps out and he runs away into the woods. And the cops, they all follow right after him. And so now he's got all these officers and law enforcement chasing after him. And blam, blam, blam, he fires at them and he hits two sheriff's deputies. I mean, this is getting out of control. However, here's where Chris starts to screw up. He runs up to, I guess, a random cabin. Here's actually a picture of it. And here he barricades himself inside. And he's safe from the gunfire, but he's also trapped. And police, they're not going to let him escape. And so the officers, they all surround the cabin.

And Chris, he still thinks he can get out of this. And so blam, blam, he's still shooting at them. And they're shooting back. And so they're all stuck in one big standoff because Chris, he's not coming out. And so police, they're all yelling at him to surrender like, surrender, Chris. But Chris is like, nah. And so police, they use an armored vehicle to knock down the walls of the cabin. And so then Chris he goes and he hides in the basement.

So now he's really trapped. Then police shoot tear gas canisters into what's left of the cabin, thinking that they can smoke him out. But then the canisters accidentally catch the whole cabin on fire. So now this cabin is going up in flames. And I guess Chris finally sees that there's no way out of this alive, and he unalives himself.