A black ex-Navy reservist who was fired from the Los Angeles Police Department in 2008 has gone on a murderous rampage aimed at police officers and their families, killing at least three people – including a 14-year veteran of the Riverside Police Department – setting off a huge manhunt across Southern California

The black suspect has been identified as Christopher Jordan Dorner, 33, who worked for the police department from 2004 to 2008. Dorner had posted a rambling and threatening note on his Facebook page saying that he was suffering from severe depression and pledging to kill police officers to avenge his dismissal for filing a false police report accusing a colleague of police abuse. Dorner said that he had struggled to clear his name in court before resorting to violence. Dorner laid out his threats in a 6,000 word manifesto posted on Facebook which was bristling with anger and explicit threats, naming two dozen police officers that he intended to kill and laying out grievances against a police department that he said remained riddled with racism and corruption. The rampage began with a double homicide in Orange County, in which two people were found dead in their car. One of the victims, Monica Quan, 28, an assistant woman’s basketball coach at California State University at Fullerton, was the daughter of a former Los Angeles police captain that Dorner had named in his manifesto. The police believe that then, Dorner shot and wounded one of the police officers guarding one of his intended victims. And later, the police said, Dorner ambushed two police officers waiting at a traffic light in Riverside, killing one and severely wounding the other.