A Former FBI Assistant Director said he did not know how to respond to recordings of police officers yelling “burn it down” over the radio during the raid on the cabin where fugitive Christopher Dorner was thought to have been burned alive, suggesting that the voices may not have been those of SWAT officers on the scene.
Interviewed on CNN yesterday, Tom Fuentes admitted he was at a loss to explain why the audio, extracted from police scanners, contained such panicked yelling.
“In a SWAT operation, they’re highly disciplined, highly professional. There’s not going to be that kind of shouting and, of course, the terminology, “burn it down”, and things like that. So, I just don’t — it doesn’t fit what I’m normally used to in an operation this difficult.” Fuentes said.
“You wouldn’t hear comments like that, so I just don’t know… the sheriff’s department’s going to have a lot of questions to answer about who was making those statements on the radio and why.” Fuentes added, insinuating that he believes the words may not have come from responding officers.
As we have reported, audio recorded from online police scanners, before they were disabled, contains innumerable examples of police discussing a plan to intentionally “burn down” the cabin before incendiary CS gas was thrown in.
CNN anchor Ashleigh Banfield repeated some of the startling words heard on the audio; “most of the words I can’t say, so I’m going to have to make my way through this.” Banfield stated before listing the quotes, “Burn that smoke grenade out. Burn that “f’ing” house down. Going to burn it down. Get it going right now. “F’ing” burn this mother f’er.”
“Does that change the dynamic here, Tom?” Banfield ludicrously asked.
“It just sounds terrible, you know. I’ll admit that.” Fuentes replied, again suggesting that it is a mystery as to who was saying the words.
“It’s unprofessional. It’s unprofessional to use language like that. I don’t understand if it’s tactical teams talking to each other or their commander talking to them.” Fuentes noted, again suggesting that he believed no SWAT officer would yell those words, despite an officer having been shot dead.
“Those conversations should be on encrypted radio frequencies. They shouldn’t be out, open for widespread recording.” Fuentes added.
Fuentes went on to suggest that ” there could be other factors leading to this — leading to him to shout that.”