This past Sunday, Monica Quan, 28, and her fiancee, Keith Lawrence, 27, were brutally gunned down while they were sitting in their car in front of their condo. Here is Quan’s biography from California State Fullerton’s website:
Monica Quan enters her second season at Cal State Fullerton as an assistant coach under Marcia Foster in 2012-13.
Last season, Quan helped guide the Titans to an 11-19 overall record, a two game improvement from a year ago. Under her leadership, Fullerton also reached the Big West Tournament for an 11th consecutive season. Before coming to CSUF Quan served as a lead assistant for Cal Lutheran University in Thousand Oaks. She helped lead the Regals to a combined 33-18 overall record over her two seasons and a 19-9 mark in the Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference, including a 19-7 overall record and a third-place conference finish in 2009-10. The win total and finish was the highest for Cal Lutheran since 2005-06.
Quan’s playing career began at Big West Conference rival Long Beach State, where she spent two seasons with the 49ers from 2003-05 before transferring to Concordia University in Irvine, CA. There, she wrapped up her career with a strong senior season, averaging 6.1 points and 1.6 rebounds per game while finishing second on the team with 77 assists.
She was a four-year letter winner at Walnut High School, earning All-CIF, All-Baseline League, and all-region honors during her prep career. A member of the Walnut High School Hall of Fame, Quan set school records for most three-pointers during a season (59) and a game (7) while averaging 15 points, six assists, three steals, and two rebounds as a senior.
The daughter of Sylvia and Randal, Quan graduated from Concordia in 2007 with a degree in exercise and sport science and completed her master’s in 2009.
Since Sunday night, Quan’s alleged killer, U.S. Navy reservist and former LAPD officer Christopher Dorner, has implicated himself in a rambling manifesto sent to news media.
Dorner wrote that he targeted Quan because her father, Randal Quan, represented Dorner in front of a review board to appeal his dismissal from the police force; Dorner alleges that Quan did not competently or fairly represent him.
Randal Quan was the LAPD’s first Asian American police captain and served more than 25 years in the police force after receiving a bachelor’s degree in criminal justice from Cal State Los Angeles and a juris doctorate from Southwest University of Law. After his subsequent retirement from the LAPD, he served as police chief at Cal Poly Pomona before focusing on law, which led him to represent Dorner in front of the LAPD review board.
In Dorner’s 11-page manifesto, Dorner lists Quan as one of several police officers (and their families) that he plans to specifically target. However, Dorner (rather ironically, given his tirade against the racism he allegedly faced as an LAPD officer) also uses racial classifications to characterize all police officers into groups of “high value targets”. He writes:
I am here to change and make policy. The culture of LAPD versus the community and honest/good officers needs to and will change. I am here to correct and calibrate your morale compasses to true north.
Those Caucasian officers who join South Bureau divisions (77th,SW,SE, an Harbor) with the sole intent to victimize minorities who are uneducated, and unaware of criminal law, civil law, and civil rights. You prefer the South bureau because a use of force/deadly force is likely and the individual you use UOF on will likely not report it. You are a high value target.
Those Black officers in supervisory ranks and pay grades who stay in south bureau (even though you live in the valley or OC) for the sole intent of getting retribution toward subordinate caucasians officers for the pain and hostile work environment their elders inflicted on you as probationers (P-1?s) and novice P-2’s. You are a high value target. You perpetuated the cycle of racism in the department as well. You breed a new generation of bigoted caucasian officer when you belittle them and treat them unfairly.
Those Hispanic officers who victimize their own ethnicity because they are new immigrants to this country and are unaware of their civil rights. You call them wetbacks to their face and demean them in front of fellow officers of different ethnicities so that you will receive some sort of acceptance from your colleagues. I’m not impressed. Most likely, your parents or grandparents were immigrants at one time, but you have forgotten that. You are a high value target.
Those lesbian officers in supervising positions who go to work, day in day out, with the sole intent of attempting to prove your misandrist authority (not feminism) to degrade male officers. You are a high value target.
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.
Those of you who “go along to get along” have no backbone and destroy the foundation of courage. You are the enablers of those who are guilty of misconduct. You are just as guilty as those who break the code of ethics and oath you swore.
Many in the blogosphere have condemned Dorner for his actions, while others have quietly agreed with Dorner’s accusations of ethical violations and misconduct against the LAPD. Personally, I see no way to rationalize the actions of a man who resorts to brutal killing to make a point. I don’t plan on making any conclusions about Dorner and his actions until all the facts are in, but there is nothing that justifies cold-blooded murder.
My thoughts and prayers go out to the Quan family, and the family of the other victims. This post will be updated as news comes in.
Update: The burnt out wreckage of Dorner’s truck was found in a secluded mountainous region near Big Bear Lake. Search teams are now focusing on that area.
