Brian Bentley, 49, doesn’t agree with what Christopher Dorner — the ex-cop at center of a massive manhunt for the killings of three people—has done, but he certainly understands it.
As a former LAPD officer, Bentley, who is now an author, says that a Dorner-like situation was just a matter of time.
“It took longer than I thought it would for something like this to happen.”
In fact, Bentley says that when he was a police officer, there were frequent positings of “look out” bulletins on the walls at police stations featuring officers who’d been terminated and who were believed to have vendettas.
“When the Department terminated you, they intentionally tried to ruin your life,” Bentley explains. “That’s how they discredited you. Dorner isn’t the first ex-police officer to have a manifesto or some sort of hit list.”
Brian Bentley left the LAPD in 1999 after serving ten years with the Department. He was a police officer in 1992 during the uprising and was assigned to guard O.J. Simpson’s house in Brentwood during the infamous trial. He served under police chiefs Daryl Gates, Bayan Lewis, Willie Williams, and Bernard Parks. However, he was fired for writing the book One Time: The Story of a South Central Los Angeles Police Officer that detailed the massive misconduct and racism he witnessed during his time at the LAPD’s Southwest and West L.A. divisions.
He says that when he left the Department he had a manifesto of his own. Not one that involved killing anyone, but a list of people who had wronged him during his time at the Department.
Bentley originally joined the department in 1989 after working as an assistant manager and loan officer for Security Pacific National Bank on 29th and Crenshaw in the West Adams area of Los Angeles. He says that the bank was robbed so many times that the LAPD was always in and out the bank and over the years he developed a relationship with the officers who would respond.
“Back then the LAPD was making a big push bring on more professional people,” Brian says. “They wanted college graduates, Blacks, and gays.”
A graduate of Westchester High School and California State University, Los Angeles, Brian remembers going downtown to apply for a public relations specialist job with the City of Los Angeles.
“I walked in and I saw big poster of a black guy in a uniform with a badge. I saw what they were making and what public relations specialists were making and so I applied.”
Prior to joining the Department, Brian says that didn’t have any negative feelings about the LAPD.
“I signed up because I wanted to make a difference in my community—I wanted to change lives,” he says.
Young, eager to serve, and ready get involved, Brian says that he will never forget what he was told on his first day at the Los Angeles Police Academy.
“I was told that ‘we don’t want people like you here. We have people like you in Nickerson Gardens’.”
Brian continues, “It was horrible for me from day one. I had people pushing me to quit and resign. It was always a fight.”
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Source; EURWeb
