Officials To Pay $200K To Owner Of Cabin Where Dorner Committed Suicide
SAN BERNARDINO (AP) — The owners of the mountain cabin where rogue ex-Los Angeles police officer Christopher Dorner holed himself up during a deadly gunbattle with deputies will be paid $200,000.
San Bernardino County and Palmdale resident Candace Martin and her son Eric Funnell agreed to the settlement in December. The board of supervisors approved the agreement at a closed-session meeting in February, the San Bernardino County Sun (http://bit.ly/1A4ah15 ) reported.
The cabin caught fire and was destroyed in February 2013 after deputies threw pyrotechnic tear-gas canisters inside, trying to get Dorner out. He committed suicide.
Dorner killed four people in a 10-day rampage that ended in a massive manhunt and standoff at the cabin, authorities said. He killed the daughter of a former LAPD official and her fiancé, ambushed and killed a Riverside police officer and wounded another.
Dorner later stole a truck at gunpoint and was tracked to the cabin, where he killed a San Bernardino County sheriff's deputy and seriously wounded another.
The former LAPD officer was fired by the department in 2009. He claimed that he was unfairly dismissed and in an online manifesto vowed revenge against law enforcement officers. A department review upheld the firing, saying Dorner fabricated allegations against fellow officers.
Martin originally filed a claim against the county seeking $420,000. In addition to property loss, she sought monetary compensation for emotional distress, attorney and expert fees.
A county spokesman told the Sun that an appraisal of Martin's cabin came back for "considerably less" than what Martin had requested. "It is a fair settlement that both parties entered into voluntarily," he said.
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