More celebrity connections associated with Christopher Dorner continue to arise. The still-at-large ex-LAPD officer who is alleged to have killed an engaged couple along with a police officer sent a package to Anderson Cooper, the CNN host confirmed on-air Thursday.
Speaking on-air during his program (embedded), Anderson Cooper said:
In addition to the manifesto, I learned today that Dorner sent me a package to my office here at CNN in New York. The package arrived on Febraury 1st. As you might imagine, I receive a lot of strange packages and letters and we have a system in place for dealing with them. I did not personally see this package or know about it until today.
The package contained a DVD and a bullet-riddled keepsake coin. That's the coin right there. It's called the Challenge Coin. It's from former -- his former boss, LAPD Police Chief William Bratton, who joins me shortly to talk about it. That coin had three bullet holes in the center, as you can see. And one partial hole on its edge, on the upper right-hand part of the -- of the coin.
Later in the show, Cooper said:
As I mentioned at the top, in addition to posting that manifesto online, the subject, Christopher Dorner, also reached out to me directly, mailing a parcel to my offense that arrived on the first of this month. My assistant opened it. Inside he found this hand labeled DVD accompanied by a yellow Post-It note reading in part, quote, "I never lied." Apparently in reference to his 2008 dismissal from the LAPD.
Now the DVD shows testimony by a man who says he was kicked by an LAPD officer. Dorner confirming his story, the story he says got him kicked off the force initially.
Also in the package as I mentioned a coin wrapped in duct tape. Now the tape bearing a handwritten inscription, "Thanks but no thanks, Will Bratton." That's obviously his former boss. On the top of the duct tape you can see there's also an abbreviation. Now at first today, we thought it might be the initials IMOA, which commonly is an abbreviation for "Imagine a More Open America."
However, if you look more closely at it, as we have now, it appears to be the number one with a space and then letter M.O.A. "1 M.O.A." could stand for "One Minute of Ark," which is a marksmanship term.
Now here's the coin again, you can see the bullet holes, three to the center, another shot nicked off the top of that. That's the coin that was part of this parcel.
And as I mention, I was made aware of this parcel just today as was the editorial staff of my program and also CNN management, and obviously upon learning of its existence, CNN alerted both Chief Bratton and law enforcement.
Cooper then brought in Bill Bratton, who is the former New York Police Commissioner, as well as L.A.'s retired chief of police. That is the same Will Bratton referred to in the package.
When he asked Bratton about the package's contents, and in particular the coin, Bratton said,
Chances are he would have received it from me. The photograph that's been displayed very widely today of me shaking his hand in front of a pair of flags probably would have been the custom I have of when somebody was activated into the military, heading overseas.
I'd bring them up to the office, present them with one of these coins as a token of respect and good luck, and also have their family come up to me. I have a liaison officer who would then basically work with the family during the period of time when the officer was gone.
So, looking at this coin, that is a -- what is called a "Challenge Coin." It's my personal coin that I give out to people, and it's a coin that's usually about an inch and a half to two inches in width. So it looks like he probably shot that through with a -- like a .22.
Still later, Bratton said he found the contents of the package "disturbing."
Reportedly, police are inspecting the package as they continue to investigate and search for Dorner. On Sunday night, Dorner killed a couple, Monica Quan and her fiance, Keith Lawrence. The couple was found shot in their car at a parking structure at their condominium in Irvine, Calif.
Dorner is also accused of killing one police officer and wounding another in an ambush in Riverside, Calif.
In a manifesto he posted on his Facebook page, he said the killings were to avenge the "wrongful end" via a corrupt Los Angeles Police Department.
Dorner remains on the run at the time of this writing.
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