As our colleague Jennifer Media reports, law enforcement officials were involved in a shootout on Tuesday afternoon with Christopher J. Dorner, the former Los Angeles police officer who is the target of the largest manhunt in Los Angeles Police Department history, officials said.
Several television channels dispatched helicopters and news crews to the scene and broadcast live images from above the area of the San Bernardino Mountains where the man thought to be the former officer was reportedly surrounded by officers following the exchange of gun fire.
At one stage in the live coveage from the CBS News affiliate KCAL TV, an exchange of fire (and a fleeting obscenity) could be heard clearly on the air as one of the station’s journalists, Carter Evans, reported from the scene.
Shortly after that report, the CBS affiliate broke away from their reporter on the scene for an interview with a man who pretended to be an official with the United States Fish and Wildlife Service, but was, in fact, a prank caller who made a reference to the Howard Stern show before being cut! off.
At a news conference in Los Angeles just after 3 p.m. Pacific Time, a spokesman for the L.A.P.D. appealed to the media to not show any close shots of their officers on the scene, since the suspect could be watching the live television coverage.
