Northern Ohio Marshal on manhunt for former LA cop: 'Desperate people commit desperate acts'

CLEVELAND - Pete Elliott knows what it's like to pursue a desperate fugitive. He's the U. S. Marshal for the Northern District of Ohio.

On Tuesday, he talked about the California manhunt for former Los Angeles police officer Christopher Dorner.

"It's always difficult going after somebody that has the same training that we have," he said. "But I think it's even more difficult going after somebody that is desperate. Desperate people commit desperate acts with tragic consequences."

Dorner became the focus of one of the largest manhunts in Southern California history after police connected him to the murders of a former police captain's daughter and her fiancé.  Following a shootout Tuesday in which one deputy died and another was injured, police burned down a mountain cabin where Dorner was believed to be hiding.

Elliott said he didn't know all the particulars of the Dorner manhunt, but he knew that he was a "very difficult individual to pin down."

In addition to his police training, Dorner had military training.

Elliott said law enforcement does its best to try to weed out individuals like Dorner, but he said sometimes they slip through the cracks.

"And you have a case here where that obviously happened," he said.