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  1. #1
    Bring on the Revolution
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    Police official: 3 officers killed in Pa. shooting

    PITTSBURGH — A man opened fire on officers during a domestic disturbance call Saturday morning, killing three of them, a police official said. Friends said he recently had been upset about losing his job and that he feared the Obama administration was poised to ban guns.

    Neighbors described how a quiet street in the city's Stanton Heights neighborhood turned into a battlefield with hundreds of rounds cracking through the morning air and fallen police officers lying bleeding in the street, their colleagues unable to reach them.

    Three officers were killed, said a police official at the scene who spoke on condition of anonymity because was not authorized to talk to the media. Police spokeswoman Diane Richard would only say that at least five officers were wounded, but wouldn't give any other details.

    Friends identified the suspect as Richard Poplawski, 23, but police would not immediately confirm his name. The gunman was arrested after a four-hour standoff, police said.

    The shooting occurred just two weeks after four police officers were fatally shot March 21 in Oakland, Calif., in the deadliest day for U.S. law enforcement since Sept. 11, 2001. The officers were the first Pittsburgh city officers to die in the line of duty in 18 years.

    Neighbors said the shooting began at about 7 a.m. and that two officers were shot almost immediately.

    "When I looked down I saw two police officers laying in the street," said Don Sand, who lives across the street and was awoken by the sound of gunfire.

    A short time later, more officers, SWAT teams and other law enforcement arrived and a third officer was shot, Sand said.
    Story continues below

    "They couldn't get the scene secure enough to get to them. They were just lying there bleeding," Sand said. "By the time they secured the scene enough to get to them it was way too late."

    Gail Moschetti, who lives diagonally across the street from the Poplawski house, said she heard hundreds of shots as she and her husband took refuge in their basement. Tom Moffitt, 51, a city firefighter who lives two blocks away, said he came to the scene and heard "hundreds, just hundreds of shots."

    Police planned to release more details at a mid-afternoon news conference Saturday.

    Edward Perkovic said Poplawski, his best friend, feared "the Obama gun ban that's on the way" and "didn't like our rights being infringed upon." Another longtime friend, Aaron Vire, said Poplawski feared that President Barack Obama was going to take away his rights, though he said he "wasn't violently against Obama."

    Perkovic, 22, said he got a call at work from him in which he said, "Eddie, I am going to die today. ... Tell your family I love them and I love you."

    Perkovic said: "I heard gunshots and he hung up. ... He sounded like he was in pain, like he got shot."

    Vire, 23, said Poplawski once had an Internet talk show but that it wasn't successful. Vire said Poplawski had an AK-47 rifle and several powerful handguns, including a .357 Magnum.

    Another friend, Joe DiMarco, said Poplawski had been laid off from his job at a glass factory earlier this year. DiMarco said he didn't know the name of the company, but knew his friend had been upset about losing his job.

    The last Pittsburgh police officers killed in the line of duty were Officers Thomas L. Herron and Joseph J. Grill, according to a Web site that tracks police killings. They died after their patrol car collided with another vehicle while chasing a stolen car on March 6, 1991.

    According to the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund, 133 law enforcement officers died in the line of duty in 2008, a 27 percent decrease from year before and the lowest annual total since 1960.

    Poplawski had often fought with neighbors and had even gotten into fistfights with a couple, Sand said.

    "This is a relatively really quiet neighborhood except for him," Sand said. "He was just one of those kids that we knew to stay clear from."

    Rob Gift, 45, who lives a block away, said the well-kept single-family houses with manicured lawns are home to many police officers, firefighters, paramedics and other city workers.

    "It's just a very quiet neighborhood," Gift said.
    If this guy turns out to have purchased his guns legally it gonna shit on all the gun advocates argument the last few Gun topics.



    also
    Spoiler: show
    If the cops had guns this wouldn't have happened!

  2. #2

    Darwinism, etc

  3. #3

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  4. #4
    Relic Horn
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    2009: The year of the rampage killing spree?

  5. #5
    The Anti Miz
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    god damn what the fuck is wrong with people

  6. #6
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  7. #7
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    If this guy turns out to have purchased his guns legally it gonna shit on all the gun advocates argument the last few Gun topics.
    not sure i understand what you mean.
    "The officers were the first Pittsburgh city officers to die in the line of duty in 18 years."
    "They died after their patrol car collided with another vehicle while chasing a stolen car on March 6, 1991."
    so it took over 18 years for a police officer to die to a firearm in Pittsburgh? i don't see how this is shitting on advocate's arguments. from the article, the guy seemed mentally unstable and unusually aggressive. seems more like a failure of background checks. i don't think advocates are against stricter background checks to keep weapons out of the hands of looneys, i know at least i'm not against it.

  8. #8

    There was no failure, shit just happens.

    A cop got killed here the other day when a crook ran him over with a car. It wasn't a flaw in the system.

    Your chance of getting murdered, by any means, is so low you really don't have to worry about it.

  9. #9
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    Quote Originally Posted by aru View Post
    not sure i understand what you mean.
    "The officers were the first Pittsburgh city officers to die in the line of duty in 18 years."
    "They died after their patrol car collided with another vehicle while chasing a stolen car on March 6, 1991."
    so it took over 18 years for a police officer to die to a firearm in Pittsburgh? i don't see how this is shitting on advocate's arguments. from the article, the guy seemed mentally unstable and unusually aggressive. seems more like a failure of background checks. i don't think advocates are against stricter background checks to keep weapons out of the hands of looneys, i know at least i'm not against it.
    Look you're gonna pick and choose what you want to read but the fact of the matter is they been saying that the gun that was used in the other Police killings where owned Illegally by a felon. That no law abiding gun owner would be capable of doing it.

  10. #10
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    you are saying that I'M the one picking and choosing what i want to read?
    'oh look, he used an AK and 357 magnum, i should bold that!'
    of course he could have purchaced those guns legally. it's not against the law to own them.
    one asshole slips through the system in over 18 years and what, you want to ban everything now? give me a break. if anything this goes to show how well things are going as far as firearms used against police in Pittsburgh.

  11. #11
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    Quote Originally Posted by aru View Post
    you are saying that I'M the one picking and choosing what i want to read?
    'oh look, he used an AK and 357 magnum, i should bold that!'
    of course he could have purchaced those guns legally. it's not against the law to own them.
    one asshole slips through the system in over 18 years and what, you want to ban everything now? give me a break. if anything this goes to show how well things are going as far as firearms used against police in Pittsburgh.

    lol

    First off I bolded The AK and .357 because I had an argument recently with someone who was trying to justify not re instituting the AWB. Secondly its nice that you just brush this off as a non-issue because it hasn't happened in PA in 18 years even though it does happen across the country.


    Lets all sit back and ignore it.

  12. #12

    Or focus on things more prevalent.

    You're more likely to die from a fall than you are likely to be murdered(by any means).

    If you're white you are 4 times more likely to die to poison than you are a firearm, think about it.

    I don't know a single person that has died to a firearm(well, besides my neighbor who shot himself in the head), but I knew a few people killed by a terrorist.

  13. #13

    Quote Originally Posted by aru View Post
    you are saying that I'M the one picking and choosing what i want to read?
    'oh look, he used an AK and 357 magnum, i should bold that!'
    of course he could have purchaced those guns legally. it's not against the law to own them.
    one asshole slips through the system in over 18 years and what, you want to ban everything now? give me a break. if anything this goes to show how well things are going as far as firearms used against police in Pittsburgh.
    One? This is the second major shooting in the country this week.


    Can we all just agree that the bullshit rhetoric of the gun lobbies are to blame here, they seriously need to shut the fuck up.

  14. #14
    Mr. Anna Kendrick
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    Aren't full-auto AK47s illegal already anyways?

    And being a Pittsburgher, this is suprising and dismaying...

  15. #15
    BEAHCAT
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    Quote Originally Posted by Sepukku View Post
    Aren't full-auto AK47s illegal already anyways?

    And being a Pittsburgher, this is suprising and dismaying...
    In most states they are, but not all.

    Yet, clearly laws don't mean shit anyways.


    I just hope Penn. has the death penalty?

    *edit*

    So what is this.... 11-12 officers killed in the last 2 weeks?

  16. #16

    Wait...I'm afraid Obama is going to take guns away from me, so I'm gonna shoot me some cops? WTF?

  17. #17

    You wouldn't want to use an ak-47 on full auto anyway.

  18. #18

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    Tell Counter-Strike noobs that.

  19. #19

    Trust me, in Pittsburgh, this is not unusual. Down in the Northside, where Allegheny General Hospital is located (and where I worked as patient transport and my father as an ALS tech in the ER) to just enter that hospital's ER you MUST pass through a metal detector unless you on a stretcher or a medic. Reason with it being a level 1 trauma center, and the Northside being gang central, one to two GSW or penetrating wounds a night there is not unusual. Though, most of this is gang related.

    What happened today was a dishonorably discharged marine flipping out, having weapons no one should ever have, all, from what my father has told me (and described the exact process of) could've been modded into fully automatic from semi-auto in 15 minutes in a home garage. This is what this guy had, and now three family friends are dead... pissed is not describing the words my father and I (and the rest of the family) are feeling atm.

    What has us going is this will do nothing for anti-gun legislation... just how many more need to die before we ban handguns from civilians? I have no clue.

  20. #20
    Ridill
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    Quote Originally Posted by Sepukku View Post
    Aren't full-auto AK47s illegal already anyways?

    And being a Pittsburgher, this is suprising and dismaying...
    Technically, yes.


    But it's 100% legal to walk into a gun show, buy a semi-auto one with absolutely no background check of any sort and walk away.

    At which point it takes a good file and 10 minutes to make it fully auto.



    Honestly the problem with 99% of people arguing against gun legislation is they've either never been to a gun show to see how things actually work there, or they've been to plenty and don't want to lose their ability to get anything short of an rpg at cheap prices with absolutely no background checking.

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