Good Riddance

Christopher Dorner is probably dead, his charred body found in the cabin he apparently set on fire after shooting himself [ref].

Good riddance.

He killed innocent people. He was a terrorist. He was a psychopath.

I don’t care whether he could have been medically declared insane or not. Anybody who murders innocent people as Dorner did is psychologically messed up.

Sadly, there are people almost as crazy as Dorner was who are trying to justify his actions, even calling him a hero [ref].

While I don’t know all the facts, I happen to believe that Dorner probably had a legitimate gripe against the LAPD — that he may have been unjustly fired from his job.

But he had zero justification for shedding innocent blood.

If Dorner was discriminated against because of his race (which I’m much more skeptical about), he still had zero justification for what he did.

Two wrongs don’t make a right. And in Dorner’s case, the wrongs he committed against innocent people eclipsed whatever wrongs he may have suffered.

Which brings me back to “good riddance”.

I’m relieved that Dorner killed himself. He saved everyone the circus of a high profile trial. He saved the taxpayers the cost of prosecuting and incarcerating him, through seemingly endless appeals until his eventual execution. Above all, justice was served.

Death penalty opponents would argue that criminals like Dorner shouldn’t be sentenced to death. They would even misappropriate one of the phrases I used to condemn Dorner’s actions, that “two wrongs don’t make a right”.

In the face of incontrovertible evidence, after the due process of law, regardless of real or supposed mental incompetence, it would be wrong — a miscarriage of justice — to not execute a person who willfully, intentionally sheds innocent blood.

A lesser punishment would not fit the crime.