ADL Report Details Pittsburgh Cop-Killer鈥檚 Extremism
The Pennsylvania jury that recommended the death penalty for cop-killer Richard Poplawski earlier this week was kept from hearing about his racist, antigovernment beliefs as detailed in an expert鈥檚 report.
The report was authored by Mark Pitcavage, the director of investigative research for the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), who began his detailed research into Poplawski鈥檚 background just hours after the April 4, 2009, shooting of three Pittsburgh police officers.
Poplawski, 24, was convicted of three counts of murder in Pittsburgh on Saturday. In a hearing on Tuesday, the same jury unanimously recommended that he receive a lethal injection. The judge will formally sentence Poplawski in September.
Pitcavage was to be called as an expert witness for the prosecution, but the judge agreed to a request by defense attorneys that his testimony and 41-page report on Poplawski鈥檚 background not be allowed to reach the jury. Judge Jeffrey Manning ruled that it would be prejudicial and inflammatory if the jury were to hear details about the defendant鈥檚 white supremacist, antigovernment views.
鈥淚 think it would have gone some way to help explain to the jury his [Poplawski鈥檚] mindset and motivation,鈥 Pitcavage told Hatewatch on Wednesday after a gag order was lifted at the end of the trial.
Pitcavage, who has testified as an expert witness in many trials, has documented and analyzed the killings of 84 police officers by extremists since 1965. After the Pittsburgh shootings, he located more than 2,000 Internet postings Poplawski made, including dozens on a site operated by the neo-Nazi organization and others on a site operated by antigovernment conspiracy-monger .
Poplawski used the screen names 鈥淩ichP,鈥 鈥淧op633 and 鈥淩Whiteman.鈥 But at some time in two or three weeks before he gunned down the three police officers, he changed his Stormfront name to 鈥淏raced for Fate,鈥 according to Pitcavage鈥檚 report.
鈥淚 think that鈥檚 significant,鈥 Pitcavage said of change of screen names. 鈥淚 believe it鈥檚 an indicator that he may have been anticipating some sort of confrontation or situation in the near future. Considering how innocent 鈥楻ichP鈥 sounds, he changes it to 鈥楤raced for Fate,鈥 something that has a much more ominous sound.鈥
Poplawski also put up other antigovernment posts on a Pennsylvania firearms owners鈥 website promoting the right to keep and bear arms. Hints of his antigovernment views even found their way into postings Poplawski made on a hockey site operated by the Pittsburgh Penguins, Pitcavage said.
鈥淗e absolutely was a white supremacist, with very standard white supremacy views,鈥 the ADL researcher said of Poplawski. 鈥淏ut he also subscribed to Patriot-style, New World Order theories, and, to an extent, these began to dominate his thinking and postings.鈥
Like many other extremists, Poplawski鈥檚 interest in conspiracy theories began to pick up tempo after the 2008 election of President Obama. They grew even more intense in the months prior to the shootings, Pitcavage said.
Poplawski was worried about gun control, martial law, and the imagined (FEMA). He was mapping his own survivalist plans for 鈥淭he End of the World As We Know It,鈥 sometimes called when the 鈥淪**t Hits The Fan鈥 or SHTF on antigovernment Internet sites, Pitcavage said.
In March 2009 鈥 about a month before the murders 鈥 Poplawski expressed end-time fears on a Stormfront posting: 鈥淭he federal government, mainstream media, and banking system in these United States are strongly under the influence of, if not completely controlled by, Zionist interest(s),鈥欌 he wrote. He said that 鈥渁n economic collapse of the financial system is inevitable, bringing with it some degree of civil unrest if not outright balkanization of the continental [United States and a] civil-revolutionary-racial war.鈥
Two years earlier, in an Internet forum dedicated to the discussion of carrying sidearms, Poplawski, then just 21, asked questions about gun-bearing citizens stopped by police. 鈥淏asically, I'm getting ready to strap on the holster,鈥 he wrote, asking for the 鈥済eneral consensus on the best way to act if hassled [by police] which for some reason I anticipate happening.鈥
鈥淚 don鈥檛 care to bend at all from harassment from the police if I'm doing nothing more than exercising a right,鈥 Poplawski warned. 鈥淚f that means pissing a cop or two off, then so be it, if they are so ignorant as to try to trample my rights or inconvenience me in any way for no reason.鈥
In a January 2008 post on a gun owners site, Poplawski鈥檚 anti-police views again surfaced when he expressed the opinion that some officers demonstrate a 鈥渓ittle god complex.鈥 鈥淭hese guys have the feeling that they can do what they want and nobody is going to say anything to them about it; matter of fact ... nobody will even KNOW,鈥 his posting said.
After the Pittsburgh Steelers won the Super Bowl in February 2009, Poplawski took to the streets of his hometown to see how police responded to unruly revelers and wrote a kind of surveillance report for Stormfront. His comments suggested that he believed the Patriot myth of secret FEMA-run concentration camps.
鈥淢inutes after the game ended the boulevard flooded with bar-goers ... screaming and dancing, small fireworks. Minutes later a few squad cars arrived on the scene,鈥欌 he wrote. 鈥淚 observed a formation of four police motorcycles with side pods and two full sized vans parked in the road along with countless cruisers.鈥
His Stormfront posting continued:聽 鈥淚 think the most ominous tidbit from a rather boring night overall (cops and Negro ball aren鈥檛 among my favorite things in the world) was that the police had commandeered port authority BUSSES for use in riot control! It was just creepy seeing busses put into action by authorities, as if they were ready to transport busloads of Steelers fans to 645 FEMA Drive if necessary.鈥
In another February 2009 posting on the Pennsylvania pro-gun site, Poplawski said he and a group of friends were considering 鈥減urchasing a lot of military surplus rifles from an online retailer.鈥 But that kind of purchase, he complained, would require the shipment of the firearms to a federally licensed firearms dealer.
鈥淭he problem so far is that the local shops want to charge us $35 to $40 per [rifle] to transfer them,鈥 he wrote. 鈥淭his is stopping the group-buy in its tracks as nobody wants to pay $40 each on a rifle that鈥檚 worth less than $100.鈥
Poplawski expressed fears of a federal firearms ban in a posting just a few months before the police shootings: 鈥淭here鈥檚 going be federal gun ban on the way. That鈥檚 a fact. At the very same time there鈥檚 going to be increased domestic military presence. Fact. Islamic jihad on innocent Americans. Fact. Duh.鈥
In another Internet posting advocating the open carrying of firearms, Poplawski advocated arming every U.S. citizen with an AK-47 assault rifle and a sidearm. 鈥淗and everybody an AK and a sidearm,鈥欌 he wrote, 鈥渁nd see how long these mass murdering sprees last, if anybody even dares to attempt them. Watch what happens to armed robbery and murder and rape rates.鈥
Noting that irony, Pitcavage said, 鈥淔our months later Poplawski would use his AK-47 to shoot and kill police officers.鈥 Pitcavage described the shootings as 鈥渦nbelievably cold-blooded.鈥 鈥淛ust that the police were going to be there 鈥 that was the trigger for him.鈥
