Update @ 2:30 p.m.: Authorities mounted an intensive manhunt in San Diego and statewide today for a one-time Los Angeles police officer suspected of murdering three people, including a police officer, in the Irvine and Riverside areas.
Police and military personnel locked down and searched Naval Base Point Loma and an adjacent motel this morning after someone reported seeing a man matching the description of 33-year-old Christopher Jordan Dorner in the area.
No suspect was found, and authorities decided that the sighting likely was not valid, SDPD Capt. Terry McManus told reporters during a midday briefing.
“We are still vigorously working with all authorities to get him into custody,” McManus said.
Police began actively looking for the suspect — considered armed and extremely dangerous — in San Diego about 2:30 a.m., after a badge and wallet containing his identification was found along Harbor Drive, near Lindbergh Field.
It was not immediately clear if the police shield was legitimate, but the ID was clearly Dorner’s, SDPD Officer Frank Cali said.
Additionally, a gun-toting man matching Dorner’s description boarded a 47-foot yacht docked off Qualtrough Street in the Shelter Island area about 10:30 p.m. Wednesday, tied up an 81-year-old occupant and made a failed attempt to pull the vessel out of its slip. The intruder then stole some things from the man and left.
Dorner, a former naval reservist, is believed to have carried out shootings this morning in Corona and Riverside. In the latter assault, one police officer was killed and another wounded in what authorities described as an ambush attack.
The suspect also is wanted for the apparent revenge slayings last weekend of a college basketball coach and her fiance in Irvine.
Investigators say Dorner posted a rambling manifesto online Monday, saying he didn’t mind losing his life because he already had “died” when he was fired from the Los Angeles Police Department for purportedly making false statements about his training officer.
He blamed his termination on a department official whose daughter, Monica Quan, was killed Sunday along with her husband-to-be, Keith Lawrence.
During a hearing that resulted in his 2008 termination, Dorner was represented by then-Capt. Randy Quan. In his online posting, Dorner accused Quan of derailing his life’s ambition to be an LAPD officer.
“I never had the opportunity to have a family of my own … (so) I am terminating yours,” Dorner wrote.
The LAPD’s elite Metropolitan squad was sent to protect people mentioned in the manifesto. Their names were not released.
The suspect is a 6-foot, roughly 270-pound black man. He has been driving a dark gray 2005 Nissan Titan pickup truck, California license plate
7X03191, authorities said. At a briefing this morning, police said Dorner apparently had switched license plates, possibly to one bearing the number 8D83987 or 8D83997.
The San Diego police captain urged anyone spotting a man matching Dorner’s description to stay well away from him and make an immediate emergency call.
“We ask the community not to get involved beyond dialing 911,” McManus said.
Update @ 12 p.m.: Officials in San Diego say that search of Naval Base Point Loma and a nearby hotel was prompted by a report of a man matching the description of Christopher Jordan Dorner, the fired LAPD officer suspected in three killings in Orange and Riverside counties, but no suspect has been found.
Update @ 11:03 a.m.: The possible sighting of suspect Christopher Dorner at a military facility in Point Loma continues to be investigated, though some recent media reports have suggested that Dorner is not at the facility.
Original: San Diego police Detective Gary Hassen confirms a military facility somewhere along North Harbor Drive has been placed on lockdown while U.S. Marshals search for murder suspect Christopher Jordan Dorner, who is accused of killing two people in Irvine over the weekend and a Riverside police officer this morning.
Read: Riverside police officer shot as armed gunman bring killing spree to RivCo.
Read: Elderly man bound and robbed on boat in Point Loma.
No further details are immediately available, he says.
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