Five and a half years after his sister was murdered inside the Culver City National Guard Armory, Gerald Bennett sees parallels between his family’s still-seething case and this week’s huge hunt-down of Christopher Jordan Dorner, dead or alive.
“I notice similarities between what happened to my sister, JoAnne, and the Chris Dorner situation,” Mr. Bennett said yesterday afternoon.
“Erik Hein, a sergeant I have respect for in the National Guard, was the whistleblower as far as what the military did before my sister’s murder.
“This went all the way to the governor’s office in Sacramento and the office of Kamala Harris, the state Attorney General.
“This man Erik Hein has similarities to Chris Dorner. Not only did he blow the whistle and let everybody know what happened before my sister’s murder, he was blackballed, he was treated as a black sheep by the National Guard, and his wife was murdered. Now all the National Guard men responsible for my sister’s death have been promoted while this one man, who told what happened and how it could have been prevented, this man who went to the Culver City police four times, is now being mistreated by the military.”
Turning in a wider direction, “I understand Christopher Dorner,” Mr. Bennett said. “I know a lot of people don’t. But you have got to realize that when you see corruption within and you want to do something about it to make a change to get people to notice, then people say ‘you shouldn’t sympathize with him.’ I don’t agree. I look at it, like, look at all the people (the LAPD) murdered, all the wrong and corruption the LAPD has done from Rodney King, from Latasha Harlin getting killed by Korean grocers. The lady never saw one day in jail but shot this girl in the back of the head.
“Yet the LAPD will turn around and say it was an accident. But there is LAPD corruption.
“This is why O.J. Simpson could get away with murder,” Mr. Bennett said. “When you take a black man and you have done him so wrong for so long, eventually it’s going to come back on you. And when it comes back on you, you’re not going to be ready for it.
“These officers losing their lives, like the young lady and her fiancé losing their lives, they are just victims of circumstances because of what their folks have done in the past.
“It comes back on you.”
(To be continued)
