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Officers killed, wounded in Stanton Heights standoff – Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (4/4/09):

Three Pittsburgh police officers were killed and two others were injured after a heavily armed man began firing at them as they responded to a domestic call this morning at a home in Stanton Heights.

The 22-year-old shooter, Richard “Pop” Poplawski, who told friends he was wearing a bulletproof vest, surrendered to police about 11 a.m., four hours after the standoff began at 1016 Fairfield St. He was shot several times in the legs and was being treated at UPMC Presbyterian.

City officials this afternoon identified the officers as Stephen Mayhle, a two-year veteran of the force, Eric Kelly, on the job for 14 years, and Paul Sciullo III, also a two-year veteran.

Situations like this are becoming all too common. I don’t write about them because this isn’t a crime blog. But this one is different for me.

The blue line is roughly the path between the house in which I grew up and the scene of this senseless crime. I still have family that lives about half that distance, and friends throughout the neighborhood.

At some point during last year’s election, the insane right started encouraging people to stock up on guns because Obama was going to start banning them. I didn’t pay much attention to this because Obama is about as milquetoast on gun control as he is on everything else. The idea that he would expend political capital on the issue is patently absurd. Well, I should have been following this more closely, because now this ridiculous and irresponsible propaganda has a body count:

Poplawski feared “the Obama gun ban that’s on the way” and “didn’t like our rights being infringed upon,” said Edward Perkovic, his best friend.

And it’s not just guns:

Mr. Poplawski had supported Republican candidate John McCain in the presidential election and had “very spirited debates” about Democratic candidate Barack Obama, Mr. Vire said. Mr. Poplawski was opposed to Mr. Obama’s election, which he thought would result in the loss of his rights, Mr. Vire said.

“He wasn’t a racist but thought some of his amendments were overlooked,” Mr. Vire said. Even though Mr. Vire is black and Mr. Poplawski is white, the debates over President Obama did not hurt their friendship, he said.
[...]
“He said he’ll be ready if there’s ever an invasion of the United States and that he had stockpiled foods and guns for that eventuality.”

This is all straight out of the mainstream media stylings of Rush Limbaugh, Glen Beck and others. I don’t plan on getting into a gun control debate unless someone really wants to. The point is the apoplexy and end times rhetoric that has greeted Obama’s candidacy and election, as if he could possibly fuck things up any worse than Bush. Isn’t the whole point of the Obama regime that he can fuck things up in exactly the same ways?

I don’t ordinarily find myself too pissed off to write about politics, but today is one of those days. I have been half holding my breath all day because for a big city, Pittsburgh is a pretty small town. Everyone pretty much knows everyone else, and today is not an exception to that.

I knew Officer Sciullo. We graduated Pittsburgh Central Catholic High School together. He is dead today because an unstable man came under the influence of mainstream hate rhetoric that the right finds politically useful. What a waste.