Christopher Dorner, the fugitive ex-Los Angeles cop who has declared "war" on the LAPD, made an inaccurate claim in his manifesto.
Dorner, 33, wrote that "an officer seen on the Rodney King videotape striking Mr. King multiple times with a baton on 3/3/91 … is now a Captain on the police department."
"Captain Rolando Solano is now the commanding officer of a LAPD police station (West LA division)," Dorner wrote. "Do you trust him to enforce department policy and investigate use of force investigations on arrestees by his officers?"
Solano was on the scene of King's beating but did not participate in it. He was one of 17 LAPD officers on the scene who neither participated in the attack nor were charged with any crimes. Solano was promoted to and is currently captain of the West LA police division.
Solano testified as a witness that none of the officers involved in King's arrest did anything wrong and that any baton blows to King's head appeared to be accidental. He conceded that his memory of the incident did not align with the video of the beating. See the video below (Warning: Content is graphic).
Solano received a 22-day suspension from the LAPD for his involvement in the incident. It is not illegal to witness a crime and not report it. Solano's failure to stop the beating did not appear to affect his rise through the ranks. LAPD did not respond to a HuffPost request for comment.
Dorner wrote in his manifesto that he is on a mission to murder former LAPD colleagues and superiors as revenge for his 2008 firing. He's accused of killing a retired captain's daughter and her fiance in Irvine, Calif., and shooting four cops in Riverside, killing one.
Bob Tur, a private investigator and reporter who has covered the LAPD for 30 years, told HuffPost that he does not think that Solano or any other officers who watched King's beating need to have their current standings reviewed.
Tur, who captured history-making footage of the Rodney King riots with his pioneering news helicopter, said that the witnessing officers did, however, have a "moral lapse, a lapse of character" on the day of the beating.
"It takes great courage to come forward and report a wrong that you saw an officer commit," Tur said. "Because you're putting everything on the line. You would hope, in an organization, that you would be backed up and protected for doing so.
"But that's not how it works," Tur said. "Dorner himself is evidence of that."
Dorner claimed that he was fired from the LAPD because he spoke up about an officer kicking a schizophrenic man in the face.
Click through below to see the main messages of Dorner's manifesto:
