Man Accused in Pittsburgh Killings Voiced Racist Views Online Published: April 7, 2009
PITTSBURGH — The man charged with killing three police officers here on Saturday was a contributor to racist Web sites, writing about his hatred of race-mixing, the economic collapse, Zionist conspiracies and his fondness for his “AK” rifle.
The police said the three officers were killed, and a fourth wounded, after they responded to a domestic disturbance call early Saturday at the home of Richard A. Poplawski, 22. The police said Mr. Poplawski shot the officers with his AK-47 rifle.
He sometimes wrote about what he saw as a Zionist conspiracy, as in a March 13 post: “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.”
After the Pittsburgh Steelers won the Super Bowl, Mr. Poplawski dismissed football as nothing but “negroball.” Then, instead of celebrating the victory, he went out and did reconnaissance on how the police tried to control the crowds and posted his findings.
“Cumulatively, what these postings reveal is a lot more about his mindset,” said Mark Pitcavage, director of investigative research for the Anti-Defamation League, who found the postings after sorting through the shifting online names Mr. Poplawski used. “They show a growing anti-government and anti-police hostility.”
Linking Mr. Poplawski to the postings, which used different screen names, was a matter of matching them to some aspects of his life that he wrote about, including his MySpace page.
The postings support what Mr. Poplawski’s friends have told reporters: that he was worried about the election of President Obama and that he had said he would defend himself if anyone ever tried to take his guns.
The postings were made on Stormfront, a white supremacist chat site, and Infowars, a Web site affiliated with a radio talk show host, Alex Jones, beginning in late 2007 and continuing until two days before the shootings.
Stormfront’s Web site indicates that Mr. Poplawski last visited the site at 3:32 a.m. Saturday, just hours before the confrontation with the police.
Neighbors said Mr. Poplawski had been out drinking till early Saturday. According to the criminal affidavit, his mother, who called 911 at 7:03 a.m., had woken him up because his dog had urinated on the floor. That started their confrontation and led to a nearly four-hour police standoff.
Most revealing to Mr. Pitcavage is that sometime in the last month, Mr. Poplawski changed his logon name from “Rich P” to “Braced for Fate.”
“I mean, this is talking about some inevitable confrontation,” Mr. Pitcavage said, “and possibly a fatal confrontation.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/07/us/07pittsburgh.html?_r=2&ref=us
