April 4, 2009: Police Murderer Discovered to Be White Supremacist Who Feared Gun Confiscation

Within hours of Richard Poplawski’s murder of three Pittsburgh police officers (see April 4, 2009), the media learns that he is an avowed racist and white supremacist who has been preparing for a violent confrontation with authorities. Poplawski has contributed to racist Web sites, writing about his hatred of “race mixing,” the economic recession, Zionist conspiracies, and his fondness for his “AK” rifle. He also bears what one columnist will describe as a “Nazi-style tattoo,” and on Stormfront, a neo-Nazi Web site, described the tattoo as a “deliberately Americanized version of the [Nazi] iron eagle.” In a March 13 post on a racist site, he wrote: “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 [and] critical thinking—will discover their insidious intentions.” In the same month, Poplawski also posted 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.” His more recent posts, according to the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), were escalating in their rhetorical violence, urging fellow white supremacists to achieve “ultimate victory for our people” by “taking back our nation.” He promised that he would be “ramping up the activism” soon. After the Pittsburgh Steelers won the Super Bowl in February 2009, Poplawski dismissed NFL football as what he called “negroball,” then went out, conducted surveillance of how police tried to control crowds, and posted about his findings, saying that it was a prelude to the government rounding up citizens for imprisonment in concentration camps. Most of Poplawski’s postings were on Stormfront and Infowars, a conspiracy-minded Web site hosted by radio talk show host Alex Jones. The posts began, as far as can be ascertained, in 2007 and ended a few hours before the shootings. The ADL’s Mark Pitcavage says of Poplawski’s writings: “Cumulatively, what these postings reveal is a lot more about his mindset. They show a growing anti-government and anti-police hostility.” Other postings made by Poplawski show his intense, race-based dislike of President Obama and his intention to violently resist any government attempts to take away his guns. Pitcavage notes that in the last month, Poplawski changed his online moniker from “Rich P” to “Braced for Fate.” He says of the change, “I mean, this is talking about some inevitable confrontation, and possibly a fatal confrontation.” [New York Times, 4/7/2009; Anti-Defamation League, 4/8/2009; Jewish Telegraphic Agency, 6/12/2009] Mrs. Poplawski tells police that her son, who was discharged from the Marine Corps for assaulting his drill sergeant during basic training, had been “stockpiling guns and ammunition, buying and selling the weapons online, because he believed that as a result of the economic collapse, the police were no longer able to protect society.” [Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 4/6/2009] Poplawski and his friend Edward Perkovic collaborated on an Internet broadcast where they showed video clips and talked politics [Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 4/4/2009] , including a clip and subsequent discussion of a discussion on Fox News between host Glenn Beck and guest Representative Ron Paul (R-TX), which featured warnings about concentration camps run by FEMA, the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Perkovic, who shares many of Poplawski’s beliefs, will say of his friend: “He was really into politics and really into the First and Second Amendment. One thing he feared was he feared the gun ban because he thought that was going to take away peoples’ right to defend themselves. He never spoke of going out to murder or to kill.” He adds: “We recently discovered that 30 states had declared sovereignty. One of his concerns was why were these major events in America not being reported to the public.” [Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 4/5/2009; Anti-Defamation League, 4/8/2009] On his MySpace page, Perkovic has written of his admiration for a novel called The Turner Diaries, which depicts the white supremacist takeover of the US and the extermination of minorities (see 1978), and the long-debunked “Protocols of the Elders of Zion,” a manifesto that purports to lay out the plans of “Zionists” to take over the world. [Crooks and Liars, 4/4/2009] Perkovic has posted about the “Zionist occupied government,” “mixed bloodlines that will erase national identity,” and Jewish control of the media. [Anti-Defamation League, 4/8/2009]