Watch Ben Bradley's uncut interview with Brian Dorian.
Brian Dorian was charged with murder and then later cleared in the shootings that killed one person and wounded two others.
Investigators say a gun belonging to a robbery suspect killed earlier this week in Orland Park matches the gun used by the so-called honeybee killer. They are awaiting forensic testing before they'll say with certainty that Gary Amaya was the man who carried out those shootings.
For more than two months, Brian Dorian has maintained his silence. He did so for one reason: He says he worried his comments could hurt the hunt for the real killer.
Now, for the first time, this decorated Lynwood police officer talks about finding himself on the opposite side of the law.
Dorian couldn't help his emotions Thursday as he watched the same men who once accused him now confirm that ballistics evidence match a gun carried by Gary Amaya. He was shot and killed as he tried to tie up a customer and clerk at a tanning spa over the weekend.
"It weighs on me a lot. Do you think I'm the only one?" he said.
But Dorian says he's in no hurry to rush to judge Amaya's guilt or innocence as the "honeybee killer."
"Let it play out, let it play out. Everybody rushed to judgment with me including the certain agencies. Let it play out," said Dorian.
Watching the press conference brought Dorian to tears -- because he has been there before.
"Just the rush to judgment," Dorian said. "Citizens always feel a certain way about the police officers, but to have other people in your line of work question you, and say you're some rogue out of control cop and throw some shackles on you and throw you in a cage with no evidence whatsoever. That's horrendous."
In the days following the state line shootings that killed one person and injured two others, detectives approached Dorian because he lived in the general area and drove a somewhat similar vehicle. Will County investigators brought him in for questioning.
"Police officers, you cross the line, there ain't no more comraderie," Will County Sheriff Paul Kaupas told reporters in October.
The veteran Lynwood cop volunteered to talk with investigators and waived his right to have an attorney present. He was charged and spent five days behind bars.
"One minute I'm having this emotion, the next minute I'm trying to think like a cop. Is there something else I can do? Next minute I'm breaking down like a scared kid."
The charges were dropped, and Dorian was released after police finally checked his alibi.
Dorian said he would like an apology.
"Sure, if they go on the TV news and say it. I don't want to see them face to face. The hell they put my family through, the police department, my supporters," Dorian told ABC7.
"After spending almost five days in a cage, the night you're released to hear on national TV that it was 'an inconvenience?' An inconvenience? An inconvenience to me is a snowstorm and you can't get to work...not being told to life this, spread that, thrown in a cage for 23 hours a day almost," he said.
Dorian says it is the shooting victims and their families who really deserve an apology from police and prosecutors. After all, they too, have been on an emotional rollercoaster.
Dorian once walked with the confidence of a cop. Today though, he carries the baggage of having been wrongly accused of being a killer.
"Now I'm forever linked to this," he told ABC7 Thursday. "You can never take that back."
Dorian is not sure whether he will return to the police department.
"At this very point in time, the thought of putting handcuffs on another human being after what I've been through...I don't know. We'll see."
Dorian has nothing but praise for the Lynwood Police Department. Many officers and brass stood by him even after he was charged.
But Dorian's confidence in Will County law enforcement has been shaken to the core.
"If they can do this to a reputable 13-year police officer, my God, how many people off the street are sitting over there because of the same rush to judgment they did on me?" Dorian asked.
