Vatican impeded Mahony attempts to remove priests, files show

In 1993, Cardinal Roger Mahony wrote to the Vatican with an urgent problem. One of his priests in the Archdiocese of Los Angeles had been accused of plying teenage boys with alcohol and molesting them, sometimes during prayer.

In less than eight years, Father Kevin Barmasse had, as one church official put it in newly released files, "left a wake of devastation that is hard to comprehend." Mahony yanked Barmasse out of his parish and wanted to make sure he couldn't return. But Barmasse appealed to the one body that could overrule Mahony: the Vatican.

"The case has been there for many, many months," Mahony wrote to one Vatican office tasked with handling priest misconduct. "The lengthy delay has created serious problems for my own credibility as a Diocesan Bishop."

In the wake of the court-ordered release of 12,000 pages of confidential archdiocese records, Mahony has been criticized for hiding abuse allegations from police and failing to protect parishioners from accused molesters. But the documents suggest that Mahony at times had to press an unresponsive Vatican to get molesting priests out of the church.

FULL COVERAGE: Priest abuse scandal

Although local leaders had the authority to take troubled clerics out of parishes, only the pope could remove them from the priesthood entirely. And when Mahony turned to the Vatican, the papers show, he ran into a bureaucracy steeped in ritual, mired in delays and reluctant to come to terms with the burgeoning problem.

"This was not just Mahony's experience. Anyone in the world who had dealings with the Vatican in the '80s and '90s was frustrated — who's in charge, what's the procedure, how long it took," said John Allen, a correspondent for the National Catholic Reporter who has written extensively on the Vatican.

Mahony dealt with multiple offices on abuse cases, including the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the Vatican office that defends church teaching and punishes those who commit delicta graviora — grave offenses. Joseph Ratzinger led the office for more than two decades before becoming Pope Benedict XVI in 2005. The pontiff recently announced that he will step down by month's end.

Mahony appeared to feel particularly impeded in dealing with Barmasse. The priest, who was accused of abusing at least eight teenage boys, had challenged Mahony's decision to remove him from ministry. As the appeal dragged on, Mahony told a Vatican official with the Congregation for the Clergy that he planned to visit Rome in December 1993. He suggested they meet in person — he would be staying, he wrote, at "Via della Conciliazione, 36 — very near to your offices." But even after his visit, the case remained unresolved.

Four months later, in March 1994, Mahony wrote: "Given the pastoral situation in the United States today, which is all too well known, Bishops need to be able to act quickly and decisively in cases of alleged clerical misconduct to assure the People of God that their rights are being fully protected."

In April, he wrote to the Vatican official: "It is now almost five months since my meeting with you and yet nothing further has come from you or your Congregation."

Another decade would pass before Barmasse was defrocked. Troy Gray, 44, who said Barmasse molested him in the late '80s while working in Tucson, cringed at the lengthy delay.

"They had their own procedures and protocols," he said in an interview. "It angers me that the children were put on the back burner."

Neither Mahony nor Vatican officials responded to requests for comment. In a 2010 interview with an Italian newspaper that the Vatican posted on its website, a top official at the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith said accusations that it moved glacially were "unjustified," particularly in recent years.

Observers said the Vatican response was markedly slower in decades past.

"This is not to give the American bishops a pass, but they really had no leadership from Rome," said Jason Berry, author of "Render Unto Rome: The Secret Life of Money in the Catholic Church."

Bishops started asking the Holy See in the 1980s for the power to remove abusers from the priesthood. But a formal request by American bishops was turned down by the Vatican in 1993, observers said.

At the Ratzinger-led Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, a staff of 45 was left "struggling to cope" with the caseload generated by the world's 400,000 priests, wrote Timothy Radcliffe, a Dominican priest who worked with the Vatican as head of the order from 1992 to 2001.

"It is generally imagined that the Vatican is a vast and efficient [organization]. In fact it is tiny," he wrote in a 2010 column for the British Catholic weekly The Tablet. "Documents slipped through the cracks. Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger lamented to me that the staff was simply too small for the job."

The labyrinthine protocol of the Vatican also made it ill-equipped to respond to a fast-evolving crisis. Each time bishops opened a case about a problematic priest, they cut a check to the Holy See for $500, a fee known as "taxa." Letters were sent to the Vatican embassy in Washington, D.C., then forwarded via diplomatic pouch. (Once, when Mahony seemed especially anxious for a response, he noted that he'd also sent the letter by fax.)

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San Bernardino County sheriff details final shootout with Dorner

Fugitive Christopher Dorner spent his final hours barricaded inside a mountain cabin armed with a high-powered sniper rifle, smoke bombs and a cache of ammo, shooting to kill and ignoring commands to surrender until a single gunshot ended his life, authorities said Friday.

The evidence indicates that Dorner, a fired Los Angeles police officer suspected of killing four people and wounding three others, held a gun to his head and fired while the Big Bear area cabin he was holed up in caught fire, ignited by police tear gas.

San Bernardino County Sheriff John McMahon, during a news conference Friday, offered the most detailed account yet of the manhunt and final shootout, which left one of his deputies dead and another seriously wounded. McMahon steadfastly defended the tactics used by his agency, dismissing assertions that deputies may have botched the hunt for Dorner or deliberately set the cabin on fire.

FULL COVERAGE: The manhunt for a former LAPD officer

"We stand confident in our actions on that fateful day," he said. "The bottom line is the deputy sheriffs of this department, and the law enforcement officers from the surrounding area, did an outstanding job. They ran into the line of fire. They were being shot at, and didn't turn around in retreat."

During Tuesday's shootout, a television news crew recorded law enforcement officials shouting to burn the cabin down. McMahon acknowledged the comments were made, but said they did not come from the department's tactical team or commanders on the scene.

"They had just been involved in probably one most of the most fierce firefights," he said of the people heard on the recording. "And sometimes, because we're humans, we say things that may or may not be appropriate. We will look into this and we will deal it appropriately."

The blaze started shortly after police fired "pyrotechnic" tear gas into the cabin; the canisters are known as "burners" because the intense heat they emit often causes a fire.

Sheriff's Capt. Gregg Herbert, who led the assault on the cabin, said the canisters were used only as a last resort after Dorner continued firing at deputies, ignored commands to surrender and did not respond when "cold," less intense tear gas was shot into the wood-framed dwelling.

Herbert said that a tractor was deployed to tear down walls of the cabin to expose Dorner's whereabouts inside, but that Dorner set off smoke bombs to hide himself. Storming the cabin was considered too dangerous because of the belief that Dorner "was lying in wait for us," he said.

"This was our only option," Herbert said of the pyrotechnic tear gas, adding that the potential for igniting a fire was taken into account.

After about a quarter of the cabin was engulfed in flames, Herbert said, "we heard a distinct single gunshot" come from inside. The shot sounded different from those Dorner had fired at deputies, indicating a different type of weapon was used, he said.

Dental records were used to confirm that the remains found in the cabin were indeed those of Dorner, 33.

FULL COVERAGE: The manhunt for a former LAPD officer

The Riverside County coroner's office conducted an autopsy on Dorner, and determined that his death was caused by a single gunshot to the head. The coroner has not positively determined that Dorner shot himself, but the evidence "seems to indicate that the wound … was self inflicted," said Capt. Kevin Lacy of the San Bernardino County coroner's division.

From the cabin and vehicles Dorner used in the San Bernardino Mountains, investigators recovered a cache of weapons and ammunition. Among them: numerous assault weapons — including a bolt-action .308 caliber sniper's rifle — silencers, handguns, high-capacity magazines, smoke bombs, tear gas and a military-style Kevlar helmet.

McMahon said it was unclear how Dorner was able to carry all those weapons while on foot and on the run in Big Bear. But he said there's no evidence Dorner had an accomplice or received aid from anyone.

During Friday's news conference, McMahon also was pressed to address the anger and frustration of Big Bear residents who questioned how Dorner was able to hide out undetected for five days. In fact, Dorner was hiding in a vacation rental condominium less than 200 yards from law enforcement's command center during the manhunt.

The sheriff said the condo had been checked early in the search. The door was locked and no one answered when deputies knocked. Since there was no sign of forced entry on the door or windows, the deputies moved on.

McMahon said the decision was made not to kick open doors of unoccupied homes because they had no search warrants, and doing so would have included "hundreds" of homes — since many of the cabins and homes are unoccupied vacation homes.

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Former Bell official says he voted for pay raise out of fear

One of the former Bell city leaders accused of plundering the town's treasury by taking oversized salaries testified Thursday that the fat paychecks and other extraordinary benefits that came with the job were all but forced on him.

George Cole, a former steelworker, returned to the witness stand for a second day and testified that he voted for a 12% annual pay raise for a City Council board in 2008 only because he feared retribution from then-City Manager Robert Rizzo.

"He had shown himself to be very vindictive if you crossed him at that time," Cole said. "I was worried that if I didn't vote for this, if I voted against it, he would do whatever he could to destroy the work that was important to me and the community. I knew that was his character."

Cole said it was the most difficult decision he ever made while on the council but was in the best interest of Bell — a city, he said, where he had devoted decades to advocating for new schools and programs for at-risk youths and senior citizens.

Cole, along with Luis Artiga, Victor Bello, Oscar Hernandez, Teresa Jacobo and George Mirabal, is accused of drawing an inflated salary from boards and authorities that rarely met and did little work.

The pay increases for the authorities were placed on the consent calendar — a place for routine and non-controversial items that are voted on without discussion. Cole defended the practice and said the agendas, minutes and staff reports were always available to the public at City Hall and at the library.

"I never tried to hide what we were doing," Cole said.

He also testified that the minutes did not reflect work done for those authorities.

Cole justified his vote for previous City Council pay raises to allow for a more diverse pool of council candidates who could use the money. And when he voted for a council salary increase in 2005, Cole noted that Bell was in a "very strong financial position."

The 63-year-old also told jurors that when he discovered $15,500 had been deposited into a 401(k)-style account for him, he complained. Cole said Rizzo refused to remove the money.

Initially, Cole said, Rizzo was a first-rate city administrator, making improvements such as repairing and keeping streets clean and erecting a protective fence around the city's largest park.

"From the time he started, he was able to accomplish things other managers previous to him said couldn't be done or were unable to do," Cole said.

Cole said the two would sometimes meet for breakfast to discuss city matters. "It was business," he said. "It wasn't two chums getting together."

But when Cole decided to give up his salary during his last year in office, he said it fractured his relationship with Rizzo. When he learned about Rizzo's near-$800,000 salary from a story published in The Times in 2010, he said he felt sick.

"I just felt like the dumbest person in the world that this guy had just pulled one of the biggest cons I've ever seen on, not just me, but on the city of Bell," Cole testified.

Rizzo faces 69 felony corruption charges. He and his former assistant, Angela Spaccia, are expected to go on trial later this year.

Cole's top annual salary was $67,000, his attorney said. At the time, he was earning nearly $95,000 a year as chief executive of the Steelworkers Old Timers Foundation.

In 2004, the city paid the state pension system $36,648 to buy Cole an additional five years of service time. Cole was one of 11 Bell administrators for whom the city bought service time.

CalPERS — the state's largest public pension program — has disallowed the service time the city bought, saying the buy-ins were not council-approved and that a municipality cannot pay for them.

Cole also was among the 40 or so Bell employees who were scheduled to receive additional payments through Bell's own supplemental retirement plan, established in 2003. In combination with the CalPERS pension, the payout was among the best retirement plans for non-safety employees in the state. The council never approved the plan.

jeff.gottlieb@latimes.com

corina.knoll@latimes.com

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Lakers owner Jerry Buss in intensive care with undisclosed cancer

Lakers owner Jerry Buss has an undisclosed form of cancer and is in the intensive care unit at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, according to several people familiar with the situation.

"He's doing fine," Buss' son Jim told The Times in a brief interview Thursday. "We just aren't going to make any comments on it. We've been dealing with this."

Buss, 79, has not attended any games this season after being a fixture in his luxury suite halfway up the arena behind the Lakers' bench. He maintained an extremely low public profile last year, emerging briefly to release a complimentary statement about Derek Fisher when the longtime Lakers guard was traded in a rare cost-cutting move in March.

Kobe Bryant, Pau Gasol, Shaquille O'Neal, Magic Johnson and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar have visited Buss at various stages since finding out about his condition, which was diagnosed at an unknown point last year.

Said O'Neal on Twitter on Thursday: "Dr. Jerry Buss, thinking about u & wish I could be there, get well soon. I cant wait 2 see u on 4/2/13 #LoveYou #Lakers."

O'Neal is having his Lakers jersey retired April 2 at Staples Center.

Buss has been in the hospital numerous times the last two years. He underwent an undisclosed surgery last August and was admitted a month earlier for what the team called dehydration. He was also hospitalized in December 2011 for blood clots in his leg caused by excessive travel, according to the team.

Over the years, Buss has gradually handed more power to his daughter Jeanie, in charge of the business side of the team, and Jim, who oversees basketball operations.

Before his most recent medical issues, Buss continued to take part in decision making for the Lakers.

Buss weighed in on the hiring of Coach Mike D'Antoni inNovember and, a few months before that, was eager to meet Dwight Howard and Steve Nash, high-profile Lakers additions who visited him separately after being acquired.

A former Lakers player was saddened by news of Buss' declining health.

"I just know how much he loved the game," said Clippers forward Lamar Odom, who won two championships in seven years with the Lakers. "I know how much he put into it, whether it was traveling with us or just his effort that he put into us winning. He was the best. He was always close to his team and his players. It's tough to hear about that."

Buss received a doctorate in physical chemistry from USC, but it was a $1,000 investment in a Los Angeles apartment building that ultimately sparked a career in real-estate investment.

In 1979, Buss bought the Lakers from Jack Kent Cooke, along with the Forum, the NHL's Kings (which he later sold), and a ranch in the Sierra Nevada for a total of $67.5 million.

The Lakers franchise, buoyed by a lucrative TV deal with Time Warner Cable, was recently valued at $1 billion by Forbes magazine. Only one other NBA franchise, the New York Knicks, was deemed more valuable.

The Lakers have won 10 NBA championships since Buss purchased the team and 16 overall, one behind the Boston Celtics.

They are continually among the top-spending teams in player salary, and this season is no different. They have a $100-million payroll, the NBA's highest, and face luxury-tax penalties of another $30 million in an overwhelmingly disappointing season so far.

"When it comes down to it, Dr. Buss is a competitor," Lakers General Manager Mitch Kupchak said when Howard was acquired in a four-team trade in August. "And when it comes down to a decision about making a couple of dollars or a million dollars or $10 million or putting another banner up, he can't help himself. He chooses to go for the banner."

mike.bresnahan@latimes.com

melissa.rohlin@latimes.com

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Times staff writer Broderick Turner contributed to this report.

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'Blade Runner' Oscar Pistorius weeps as he faces murder charge

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa -- Olympic sprinter Oscar Pistorius, the double-amputee revered in South Africa for overcoming his disability to compete in the London Games last year, wept in court Friday as he faced a murder charge in connection with the fatal shooting of his girlfriend.

During the proceedings in Pretoria, Gerrie Nel, one of the National Prosecuting Authority's most senior advocates, said he would argue the killing of model and law graduate Reeva Steenkamp was premeditated murder, the most serious category of offense under South African law.

Nel is known for prosecuting high-profile cases, including winning the conviction of former police chief and Interpol boss Jackie Selebi on corruption charges.

Pistorius, nicknamed the "Blade Runner" because of the carbon-fiber prosthetic legs he uses to compete, did not enter a formal plea and was remanded into custody at Brooklyn police station in Pretoria until Tuesday, when his bail application is to be heard.

Under South African law, a suspect charged with such a high-level offense would have to prove exceptional circumstances to be granted bail.

In a packed courtroom, members of Pistorius' family struggled to pass through a media scrum and to find seats. The hearing coincided with "Black Friday," a day when people were being urged to wear black to protest rapes and violence against women.

[Updated, 8:35 a.m. Feb. 15: The family and Pistorius' management company later issued a statement denying that the athlete had murdered his girlfriend, saying: "The alleged murder is disputed in the strongest possible terms."

Some details of Pistorius' argument and the state's case are expected Tuesday.]

The famed athlete's court appearance came as South African media reported that he shot Steenkamp, his girlfriend of several months, four times through a bathroom door.

Under South African law, a person who fatally shoots an intruder has to prove he or she had a reasonable fear that the intruder posed a real threat to his or her life.

South Africa has one of the highest rates of gun homicides in the world, with killings of women by intimate partners the leading cause of female homicide in the country. About 57% of female homicide victims were killed by their partners in 2009, according to a report last year by the Medical Research Council.

One-third of female homicides were committed by partners with a history of prior violence against their partners, according to the report.

Friends of Steenkamp and Pistorius mourned the incident on social media.

"Drained, confused, I just can't wrap my head around things," one of Pistorius' close friends, Alex Pilakoutas, posted on Twitter.

Darren Fresco, who described himself as one of Steenkamp's best friends said he was hoping to wake from a nightmare and hear her infectious laughter again.

"We were just goofing off the other day talking to each other in only the way that we could to each other. My heart is on the verge of exploding with the pain of such a sudden loss of one of my best friends," Fresco, who said he was one of the last people to exchange tweets with Steenkamp, posted on Facebook.

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robyn.dixon@latimes.com

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Oscar Pistorius arrested in slaying of model Reeva Steenkamp

Paralympian Oscar Pistorius charged with murder

By Houston Mitchell

February 14, 2013, 6:35 a.m.

South African police Thursday arrested double amputee Olympic runner Oscar Pistorius and said he would be charged with murder after his girlfriend, Reeva Steenkamp, was shot and killed at his home earlier in the morning.

Police spokesperson Brigadier Denise Beukes said that Pistorius was at his home after the death of the victim and that "there is no other suspect involved."

"There are witnesses and they have been interviewed this morning. We are talking about neighbors and people that heard things earlier in the evening and when the shooting took place," Beukes said.

Pistorius' court hearing was originally scheduled for Thursday afternoon but has been postponed until Friday to give forensic investigators time to carry out their work.

The athlete's father, Henke Pistorius, told South Africa's SABC radio news that he didn't know the facts. "If anyone makes a statement, it will have to be Oscar. He's sad at the moment."

Media in South Africa are reporting that Steenkamp was surprising Pistorius for Valentine's Day when he mistook her for a burglar and shot her. Steenkamp was shot in the arm and head and a 9-mm pistol was recovered at the scene.

"We have also taken cognizance of the media reports during the morning of an alleged break-in or that the young lady was mistaken to be a burglar," Beukes said. "Obviously our forensic investigation is still ongoing and we're not sure where this report came from.... Our detectives have been on the scene, our forensic investigators have been on the scene and the investigation is ongoing."

South African police said that there had been "previous incidents" of a domestic nature reported at Pistorius' home.

Pistorius, 26, was born without the fibula bone in both legs. He was known as the "Blade Runner" for his use of carbon fiber prosthetic blades. He was the first double amputee to run in the Olympics and reached the 400 meter semifinals in London 2012.

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Oscar Pistorius remains in jail facing murder charge

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa -- South African athlete Oscar Pistorius, who made history last year as the first double amputee runner to compete in the Olympics using prosthetic blades, will spend the night in jail Thursday after he was charged with murder in the death of his girlfriend at his house, prosecutors said.

The National Prosecuting Authority said Pistorius would remain in custody until his hearing Friday, when police intend to oppose bail.

Reeva Steenkamp, a 30-year-old model, died after being shot several times in the head and arm in Pistorius' house in an upscale suburb in Pretoria.

PHOTOS: Pistorius in the London Olympics

Pistorius was ushered from the home by police Thursday morning with a gray hoodie covering his head and obscuring most of his face.

South Africans were in shock about the accusation against Pistorius, who became a hero during his long battle for the right to compete in the Olympics. After a controversy on whether the blades he uses to walk and run gave him an advantage in races, Pistorius was granted the right to compete in the London 2012 Olympic Games.

South Africa has one of the world's highest rates of murder and violent crime, and many South Africans keep guns at home to guard against intruders.

The Afrikaans-language newspaper Beeld suggested that Pistorius mistook his girlfriend for a burglar and killed her accidentally.

However, a police spokeswoman, Brig. Denise Beukes, said police were "surprised" at reports the killing was accidental, adding that that version hadn't come from police, according to the South African Press Assn.

"I confirm there had been previous incidents of a domestic nature at his place," said Beukes, adding that police couldn't comment on the decision to oppose bail.

Beukes said police had interviewed neighbors who heard sounds at Pistorius' home earlier in the evening, and also at the time the incident reportedly took place.

Pistorius' father, Henke Pistorius, said his son was sad. But the older Pistorius said he didn't know the facts.

"I don't know nothing. It will be extremely obnoxious and rude to speculate," he said in a radio interview. "If anyone makes a statement, it will have to be Oscar."

An advertisement for Nike, one of Pistorius' major sponsors, was removed from his official website Thursday. It had shown the athlete in a green lycra athletic suit and the slogan, "I am the bullet in the chamber."

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Charred human remains found in burned cabin

Charred human remains have been found in the burned cabin where police believe fugitive ex-cop Christopher Dorner was holed up after trading gunfire with law enforcement, authorities said.

If the body is identified to be Dorner's, the standoff would end a weeklong manhunt for the ex-LAPD officer and Navy Reserve lieutenant who is believed to be responsible for a string of revenge-fueled shootings following his firing by the Los Angeles Police Department several years ago. Four people have died, allegedly at Dorner's hands.

The latest burst of gunfire Tuesday came after the suspect, attempting to flee law enforcement officials, shot to death a San Bernardino County sheriff's deputy and seriously injured another, officials said. He then barricaded himself in a wooden cabin outside Big Bear, not far from ski resorts in the snow-capped San Bernardino Mountains east of Los Angeles, according to police.

PHOTOS: Manhunt for ex-LAPD officer

Just before 5 p.m., authorities smashed the cabin's windows, pumped in tear gas and called for the suspect to surrender. They got no response. Then, using a demolition vehicle, they tore down the cabin's walls one by one. When they reached the last wall, they heard a gunshot, officials said, and then the cabin burst into flames.

Los Angeles Police Chief Charlie Beck said he would not consider the manhunt over until a body was identified as Dorner.

"It is a bittersweet night," Beck said as he drove to the hospital where the injured deputy was located. The deputy is expected to survive, but it is anticipated that he'll need several surgeries. "This could have ended much better, it could have ended worse. I feel for the family of the deputy who lost his life."

TIMELINE: Manhunt for ex-LAPD officer

According to a manifesto that authorities say Dorner posted on Facebook, he felt that the LAPD unjustly fired him several years ago, after a disciplinary panel determined that he lied in accusing his training officer of kicking a mentally ill man during an arrest. Beck has promised to review the case.

The manifesto vowed "unconventional and asymmetrical warfare" against law enforcement officers and their families. "Self-preservation is no longer important to me. I do not fear death as I died long ago."

Last week, authorities said they had tracked Dorner, 33, to a wooded area near Big Bear Lake. They said they found his torched gray Nissan Titan with several weapons inside, and that the only trace of the suspect was a short trail of footprints in newly fallen snow.

INTERACTIVE MAP: Searching for suspected shooter

On Tuesday morning, two maids entered a cabin in the 1200 block of Club View Drive and ran into a man who they said resembled the fugitive, a law enforcement official said. The cabin was not far from where Dorner's singed truck had been found and where police had been holding news conferences about the manhunt.

The man tied up the maids, and he took off in a purple Nissan parked near the cabin, the official said. About 12:20 p.m., one of the maids broke free and called police.

Nearly half an hour later, officers with the California Department of Fish and Wildlife spotted the stolen vehicle and called for backup, authorities said. The suspect turned down a side road in an attempt to elude the officers but crashed the vehicle, police said.

FULL COVERAGE: Sweeping manhunt for ex-cop

A short time later, authorities said, the suspect carjacked a light-colored pickup truck. Allan Laframboise said the truck belonged to his friend. Rick Heltebrake, who works at a nearby Boy Scout camp.

Heltebrake was driving on Glass Road with his Dalmatian, Suni, when a hulking African American man stepped into the road, Laframboise said. Heltebrake stopped. The man told him to get out of the truck.

"Can I take my dog?" Heltebrake asked, according to his friend.

"You can leave and you can take your dog," the man reportedly said. He then sped off in the Dodge extended-cab pickup -- and quickly encountered two Department of Fish and Wildlife trucks, officials said.

As the suspect zoomed past the officers, he rolled down his window and fired about 15 to 20 rounds, authorities said. One of the officers jumped out and shot a high-powered rifle at the fleeing pickup, they said, and the suspect abandoned the vehicle and took off on foot.

Police said he ended up at the Seven Oaks Mountain Cabins, a cluster of wood-frame buildings about halfway between Big Bear Lake and Yucaipa. The suspect exchanged gunfire with San Bernardino County sheriff's deputies as he fled into a cabin that locals described as a single-story, multi-room structure.

The suspect fired from the cabin, striking one deputy, law enforcement sources said. Then he ducked out the back of the cabin, deployed a smoke bomb and opened fire again, hitting a second deputy. Neither deputy was identified by authorities. The suspect retreated back into the cabin.

The gun battle was captured on TV by KCAL-TV Channel 9 reporter Carter Evans, who said he was about 200 feet from the cabin. As Evans described on air how deputies were approaching the structure, he was interrupted by 10 seconds of gunfire.

Deputies drew their weapons and sprinted toward Evans. Someone yelled for him to move -- then about 20 more seconds of shooting erupted.

"Hey! Get … out of here, pal," someone shouted. Evans was unharmed.

The gunfire gave way to a tense standoff. Mountain residents locked their doors and hunkered down.

Holly Haas, 52, who lives about a mile from where the shootout unfolded, said she heard helicopters buzzing on and off until about 3:30 p.m. One dipped so close to her home, she said, "I could throw a rock and hit it."

Others watched the standoff unfold on television. At her home, Candy Martin sat down to watch TV when, to her surprise, she spotted her rental cabin -- where the suspect was believed to be holed up -- on the screen.

She said she contacted police and told them that the furnished, 85-year-old cabin had no cable, telephone or Internet service. No one had booked it for Monday.

"There should have been nobody," she recalled saying. "Nobody in any way."

Within hours, authorities moved in on the cabin. The fire broke out, setting off ammunition that had apparently been inside. On TV, viewers saw only the orange flames and curls of black smoke.

LAPD Chief Beck said his officers have been providing around-the-clock protection for more than 50 people thought to be Dorner's targets since the manifesto was discovered.

Police say Dorner's first victims were the daughter of the retired LAPD official who represented him at his disciplinary hearing and her fiance. Monica Quan and Keith Lawrence were found shot to death Feb. 3 in their car in their condo complex's parking structure.

Days later, Dorner allegedly attempted to steal a boat in San Diego in a failed bid to escape to Mexico. By Feb. 7, authorities said, he had fled to the Inland Empire. In Corona, police said, he fired at an LAPD officer searching for him at a gas station. About half an hour later, he allegedly opened fire on two Riverside officers, killing Michael Crain, 34, and injuring his partner.

Early on in the manhunt, officers mistakenly fired on three people in the Torrance area -- two Latina women and a white man -- while searching for Dorner, who is 6 feet tall and 270 pounds.

FULL COVERAGE: Sweeping manhunt for ex-cop

After his truck was found in Big Bear, authorities swarmed the area, where many cabins sit empty during the winter.

At the height of the search, more than 200 officers scoured the mountain, while others sifted through more than 1,000 tips that poured in after officials offered a $1-million reward.

Just as some officials began to speculate that the former cop had failed to survive in the wilderness, Dorner apparently surfaced.

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-- Andrew Blankstein, Joel Rubin and Ashley Powers; with Phil Willon, Louis Sahagun, Adolfo Flores, and Ruben Vives in San Bernardino County and Julie Cart, Matt Stevens, Kate Mather, Wesley Lowery, Samantha Schaefer, Frank Shyong and Rong-Gong Lin II

Photo: San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department public information officer Cindy Bachman updates reporters after a standoff and a shootout with a man suspected to be former Los Angeles Police Department officer Christopher Dorner. Credit: Kevork Djansezian / Getty Images

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Dorner manhunt: Investigators work to ID charred human remains

After what LAPD Chief Charlie Beck called "a bittersweet night," investigators Wednesday were in the process of identifying the human remains found in the charred cabin where fugitive ex-cop Christopher Dorner was believed to have been holed up after trading gunfire with officers, authorities said.

If the body is identified as Dorner's, the standoff would end a weeklong manhunt for the ex-LAPD officer and Navy Reserve lieutenant suspected in a string of shootings following his firing by the Los Angeles Police Department several years ago. Four people have died in the case, allegedly at Dorner's hands.

Beck said he would not consider the manhunt over until the body was identified as Dorner. Police remained on tactical alert and were conducting themselves as if nothing had changed in the case, officials said.

PHOTOS: Manhunt for ex-LAPD officer

The latest burst of gunfire came Tuesday after the suspect, attempting to flee law enforcement officials, fatally shot a San Bernardino County sheriff's deputy and seriously injured another, officials said. He then barricaded himself in a wooden cabin outside Big Bear, not far from ski resorts in the snow-capped San Bernardino Mountains east of Los Angeles, according to police.

"This could have ended much better, it could have ended worse," said Beck as he drove to the hospital where the injured deputy was located. "I feel for the family of the deputy who lost his life."

The injured deputy is expected to survive but it is anticipated he will need several surgeries. The names of the two deputies have not been released.

TIMELINE: Manhunt for ex-LAPD officer

Just before 5 p.m., authorities smashed the cabin's windows, pumped in tear gas and called for the suspect to surrender, officials said. They got no response. Then, using a demolition vehicle, they tore down the cabin's walls one by one. When they reached the last wall, they heard a gunshot. Then the cabin burst into flames, officials said.

Last week, authorities said they had tracked Dorner to a wooded area near Big Bear Lake. They found his torched gray Nissan Titan with several weapons inside, the said, and the only trace of Dorner was a short trail of footprints in newly fallen snow.

According to a manifesto that officials say Dorner posted on Facebook, he felt the LAPD unjustly fired him several years ago, when a disciplinary panel determined that he lied in accusing his training officer of kicking a mentally ill man during an arrest. Beck has promised to review the case.

DOCUMENT: Read the manifesto

The manifesto vows "unconventional and asymmetrical warfare" against law enforcement officers and their families. "Self-preservation is no longer important to me. I do not fear death as I died long ago," it said.

On Tuesday morning, two maids entered a cabin in the 1200 block of Club View Drive and ran into a man who they said resembled the fugitive, a law enforcement official said. The cabin was not far from where Dorner's singed truck had been found and where police had been holding news conferences about the manhunt.

The man tied up the maids, and he took off in a purple Nissan parked near the cabin, the official said. About 12:20 p.m., one of the maids broke free and called police.

FULL COVERAGE: Sweeping manhunt for ex-cop

Nearly half an hour later, officers with the California Department of Fish and Wildlife spotted the stolen vehicle and called for backup, authorities said. The suspect turned down a side road in an attempt to elude the officers but crashed the vehicle, police said.

A short time later, authorities said, the suspect carjacked a light-colored pickup truck. Allan Laframboise said the truck belonged to his friend Rick Heltebrake, who works at a nearby Boy Scout camp.

Heltebrake was driving on Glass Road with his Dalmatian, Suni, when a hulking African American man stepped into the road, Laframboise said. Heltebrake stopped. The man told him to get out of the truck.

INTERACTIVE MAP: Searching for suspected shooter

"Can I take my dog?" Heltebrake asked, according to his friend.

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Federal appeals court weighs overturning Barry Bonds' conviction

SAN FRANCISCO —A federal appeals court wrestled Wednesday with whether to overturn slugger Barry Bonds' felony conviction for obstruction of justice.

The three-judge panel of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals weighed whether Bonds broke the law by being evasive in a 52-word answer he gave a federal grand jury in 2003. The grand jury was investigating illegal distribution of performance-enhancing drugs.

Bonds was asked in the grand jury session whether his personal trainer had ever given him a substance that required a syringe to inject. In his response, Bonds rambled on about his childhood and his friendship with the trainer before finally telling the grand jury that he had not received an injectable substance.

The grand jury eventually indicted Bonds, and he was tried in 2011 on three counts of perjury and one count of obstruction. The trial jury convicted him of obstruction of justice, based on that meandering answer, but it deadlocked on the perjury charges.

How the three-judge panel was leaning after Wednesday's hearing was nearly as difficult to parse as Bonds' answer. Judge Michael Daly Hawkins appeared troubled by the fact that Bonds eventually answered the grand jury query: "Can a grand jury witness obstruct justice by giving a series of evasive answers and then giving a direct answer that is not evasive?" Hawkins asked.

Assistant U.S. Atty. Merry Jean Chan, however, said Bond's rambling response was intended to deceive. She argued that the obstruction conviction was not limited to those 52 words but reflected evasion throughout Bonds' testimony.

Hawkins then questioned why prosecutors, if they thought Bonds was being evasive, did not go before a judge to ask that Bonds be ordered to answer the grand jury's questions.

Dennis Riordan, an attorney for Bonds, told the court that the grand jury was not troubled by the 52-word passage that led to the trial jury's conviction years later.

"There is one thing we know for sure," Riordan said. "This grand jury did not consider those 52 words were criminal activity.... That is a dagger in the heart of this conviction."

Chan countered that Bonds' testimony was "littered with multiple examples" of misleading testimony.

Bonds' conviction came at the end of a 12-day trial. He was sentenced to two years probation, 250 hours of community service, a $4,000 fine and a month of monitored home confinement, all of which have been put on hold pending his appeal.

The 9th Circuit panel, which included Judges Mary Schroeder and Mary Murguia, did not indicate when it might rule.

maura.dolan@latimes.com

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