Conspiracy Theories Prompting Action: Richard Poplawski
Anti-government conspiracy theories seem clearly to have played a role in April 2009, in Pittsburgh, when a young man named Richard Poplawski allegedly gunned down three Pittsburgh Police Bureau officers responding to a 911 domestic disturbance call at his residence.
http://www.truecrimereport.com/2009/04/richard_poplawski_accused_pitt.php
The longer I do this crime blogging thing, the more I try to shy away both from editorializing and from fear-mongering. But I can't help but feel we'll hear from more Richard Poplawskis in the years to come. There are changes happening in the world that they, to say the least, don't like very much. After all, prior to 9/11/01, the worst modern act of terrorism committed on American soil was committed by Americans. And one of those Americans, Tim McVeigh, happened to have pages from The Turner Diaries with him when he was arrested.
I'm just saying: while we were searching for the key to eliminating Al Qaeda, guys like Richard Poplawski didn't go anywhere. Hell, they may have even multiplied. Just remember that.
Richard Poplawski
Suspect in officers' shooting was into conspiracy theories
Sunday, April 05, 2009 By Dennis B. Roddy, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Richard Andrew Poplawski was a young man convinced the nation was secretly controlled by a cabal that would eradicate freedom of speech, take away his guns and use the military to enslave the citizenry. ...
...Mr. Poplawski's view of guns and personal freedom took a turn toward the fringes of American politics. With Mr. Perkovic, he appeared to share a belief that the government was controlled from unseen forces, that troops were being shipped home from the Mideast to police the citizenry here, and that Jews secretly ran the country.
"We recently discovered that 30 states had declared sovereignty," said Mr. Perkovic, who lives in Lawrenceville. "One of his concerns was why were these major events in America not being reported to the public."
Believing most media were covering up important events, Mr. Poplawski turned to a far-right conspiracy Web site run by Alex Jones, a self-described documentarian with roots going back to the extremist militia movement of the early 1990s.
Around the same time, he joined Florida-based Stormfront, which has long been a clearinghouse Web site for far-right groups. He posted photographs of his tattoo, an eagle spread across his chest.
"I was considering gettin' life runes on the outside of my calfs," he wrote. Life runes are a common symbol among white supremacists, notably followers of The National Alliance, a neo-Nazi group linked to an array of violent organizations. ...
The emerging portrait of Richard Poplawski: a white-supremacist radical
Thanks to some sleuth work on the Internet, we're starting to learn more about Richard Poplawski, the 23-year-old who killed three police officers yesterday in Pittsburgh, evidently out of fear that his guns were going to be taken away. ...
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