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The 2009 Pittsburgh police shootings was a shootout that took place on Saturday, April 4, 2009, at 1016 Fairfield Street[1] in the Stanton Heights neighborhood of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States, stemming from an argument over a dog urinating in the house between a mother and her 22-year-old son.[2] At approximately 7:11 a.m. EDT, 22-year-old Richard Poplawski opened fire on two Pittsburgh Police officers responding to a 911 call from Poplawski's mother, who was attempting to get the police officers to remove her son from the home.[2] Three police officers were ultimately confirmed dead, and another two were seriously injured.[3]
According to Chief of Police Nathan Harper, Poplawski was armed with a semi-automatic AK-47-style rifle and two other guns, protected by a bullet proof vest, and had been lying in wait for the officers.[3] According to police and witnesses, he held police at bay for four hours as the fallen officers were left bleeding nearby, their colleagues unable to reach them. More than 600 rounds were fired by the SWAT teams and Poplawski.
The victims were the first Pittsburgh city officers killed in the line of duty for 18 years.[3] The incident was the second-deadliest attack on U.S. law enforcement since the September 11 attacks, following a March 2009 shooting in Oakland, California.[4][5]
Richard Andrew Poplawski (born September 12, 1986) [1] is a 23-year-old Pittsburgh resident who lived with his mother and grandmother in the Stanton Heights neighborhood. Poplawski had previously enlisted in the United States Marine Corps, but he was discharged from boot camp after throwing a food tray at a drill instructor.[3]
According to friends and former acquaintances, Poplawski first married when he was 17. His first wife was a young woman whom he had encountered whilst detained in a juvenile correctional center. The marriage lasted for almost two years. His first divorce troubled him emotionally until he found a new girlfriend. This new relationship was also very unsteady and on September 14, 2005, Poplawski allegedly assaulted his then-girlfriend outside his home. A month later, Poplawski allegedly violated an order of protection by showing up at the woman's place of work. Poplawski had recently lost his job at a glass factory, and was reportedly quite upset over the job loss.[6] Neighbors also reported that Poplawski was involved in several arguments with neighbors, including a couple of fistfights, and one incident in which he insulted a black Stanton Heights resident by shouting a racial slur in his face.[3][7]
Poplawski moved to Florida in 2006, and rented a room in a woman's house. However, she later evicted him after her German Shepherd disappeared while under Poplawski's care. He later moved in with the woman's neighbor, who said that he spoke lovingly about his grandmother but seemed disappointed in his mother.[8].
After he returned home, he adopted two pit bull mixes from a local animal shelter, one of which would later urinate on his mother's carpet, triggering the April 4 shootings.[7]
Edward Perkovic, a friend of Poplawski, said the gunman feared "the Obama gun ban that's on the way" and "didn't like our rights being infringed upon". Perkovic also stated that Poplawski "didn't like the Zionists controlling the media and controlling, you know, our freedom of speech" and that "He didn't like the control of the guns that was about to happen. He believed everything our forefathers put before us and thought that it was being distorted." Another longtime friend, Aaron Vire, said that Poplawski feared President Obama was going to take away his rights.[9]
Poplawski posted that he believed that "the federal government, mainstream media, and banking system in these United States are strongly under the influence of -- if not completely controlled by -- Zionist interest. An economic collapse of the financial system is inevitable, bringing with it some degree of civil unrest if not outright balkanization of the continental US, civil/revolutionary/racial war . . . This collapse is likely engineered by the elite Jewish powers that be in order to make for a power and asset grab."[10][11]
On March 13, 2009, Poplawski wrote on a white supremacist website that "ZOG (Zionist-occupied government) is... One can read the list of significant persons in government and in major corporations and see who is pulling the strings. One can observe the policies and final products and should walk away with little doubt there is Zionist occupation and -- after some further research & critical thinking -- will discover their insidious intentions."[12]
Mark Potok, a representative of the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) which had reviewed Poplawski's internet postings, stated that "he believed the Jews were coming, the Jews controlled society, you know, we're all under the thumb of Zionists and so on."[12] A report by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) stated that Poplawski had expressed frustration that "not enough attention was being focused on the evil of Jews."[11]
Poplawski was a member of Stormfront, a white supremacist website, where he was a frequent visitor and poster.[13][14] Poplawski had reportedly posted a picture of his tattoo, a "deliberately Americanized version of the iron eagle" to the website, as well as a link to a YouTube video of Congressman Ron Paul discussing with Fox News host Glenn Beck the rumored existence of FEMA-managed concentration camps.[13][15] Poplawski last logged into Stormfront at 3:32 a.m. Saturday, only hours before the shootings.[16][17] Poplawski also frequently visited and occasionally posted on Alex Jones' Infowars website. One of his frustrations with the site, though, was that it supposedly didn't focus enough on the nefarious roles played by Jews in all these conspiracies. "For being such huge players in the endgame," he observed in a March 29, 2009 posting to Infowars, "too many 'infowarriors' are surprisingly unfamiliar with the Zionists." [13][17] Among Poplawski's "last few links from MySpace" were a Meyer Briggs personality test, and a psychotherapy chart.[10] A friend stated that Poplawski was a follower of the survivalist movement.[citation needed]