**UPDATE** Despite multiple reports saying the women were Asian, the Los Angeles Times is now reporting the victims are Latina.
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An elderly woman and her daughter were delivering newspapers in Torrance, Calif., early Thursday morning were wounded by police, who were on high alert for a fuguitive ex-LAPD officer, according to news reports.
The Los Angeles Times reported that one woman was shot in the hand and the other was shot in the back. They were taken to area hospitals; radio reports said the women were in stable condition. It was not clear what kind of newspapers the women were delivering.
“Tragically we believe that this was a case of mistaken identity,” said LAPD Chief Charlie Beck, at a news conference on Thursday.
It was also not clear how police could mistake a pair of Latina women for Christopher Dorner, a 6-foot tall, 270-pound African American man, but radio reports said the women were driving their delivery truck with the headlights off.
A massive manhunt is underway in Southern California as authorities are seeking Dorner, 33, who is believed to have shot Monica Quan, a 28-year-old Chinese American college basketball coach, and her fiance, Keith Lawrence. Quan was the daughter of Randy Quan, a retired LAPD police captain whom Dorner blamed for his firing.
Dorner also singled out Asian American police officers in his disturbing manifesto which he published on the Internet.
“Those Asian officers who stand by and observe everything I previously mentioned other officers participate in on a daily basis but you say nothing, stand for nothing and protect nothing. Why? Because of your usual saying, ‘I … don’t like conflict.’ You are a high value target as well,” Dorner wrote.
Quan’s father, Randy Quan, reportedly the first Chinese American in the LAPD to rise to the rank of captain, represented Donner in front of the LAPD’s Board of Rights committee which ruled against Donner at the time of his dismissal in 2009, according to CBS News.
Randy Quan retired from the LAPD in 2002 and later served as chief of police at Cal Poly Pomona and then went on to practice law.
