3 Pittsburgh Officers Killed, 2 Injured

[greg72982]

So the defense strategy is that the 911 dispatch operator is partly to blame for the trigger pullers actions and that maybe the mom shot them?

Sorry, but that seems like officer safety/training/discipline issue for the operator but is not a mitigating factor for the murderer. I don't see how that is relevant at all to the murder charge.

I wonder if either side will call the mom to testify.

I'd imagine anything would be a reach for them, it's pretty cut and dry what happened...I get the feeling this may be the first person sentenced to death in a while here...

I really will never understand how some defense attorney's sleep at night. They have to be true evil.

[Aussie George]

...I really will never understand how some defense attorney's sleep at night. They have to be true evil.

Amen Brother!!

[ChesCopPodz]

I read an article on some of the testimony of the first day. It was hard to keep from choking up while reading it. I hope both he and his mother rot in hell.

[greg72982]

Found guilty:

Richard Poplawski Guilty Of Pittsburgh Police Murders
Closing Arguments Stir Emotions Among Family Members

PITTSBURGH -- Richard Poplawski was found guilty Saturday night of first-degree murder, and the jury must now decide if his penalty for killing three Pittsburgh police officers should be death.

Poplawski remained silent as Allegheny County Sheriff's deputies walked him out of the courtroom and back to jail. The man who prosecuted him, Deputy District Attorney Mark Tranquilli, was applauded by onlookers in the hallway nearby.

"Regardless of whatever he's done, I love him unconditionally," Poplawski's mother, Margaret, said outside court. "What am I going to say?"

The jury deliberated for about 3 1/2 hours before convicting the 24-year-old Poplawski. He was accused of shooting Eric Kelly, Paul Sciullo and Stephen Mayhle when the officers responded to a domestic dispute call at his mother's house in Stanton Heights on April 4, 2009.

Judge Jeffrey Manning said the jury -- which was chosen from Dauphin County because of extensive local media coverage -- will return to the Allegheny County Courthouse on Monday morning to decide if Poplawski should spend the rest of his life in prison or be put to death.

"I think to ask a jury to render a verdict on the death of three police officers and expect them to come up with anything other than a guilty verdict with this type of evidence would have been an unreasonable expectation on my part," defense attorney Lisa Middleman said.

Earlier in the day, gentle sobs from victims' families were heard throughout the closing arguments from both sides. Sciullo's mother, Sue, left the courtroom in tears, while Mayhle's widow, Shandra, and Kelly's mother, Frances, and their relatives comforted one another.

"Heroes and cowards" was the theme of Tranquilli's closing argument. He told the jury that Poplawski "massacred Paul Sciullo, even after the kid was already down," and he called Mayhle a "hero with a capital H" who engaged in a shootout after Sciullo got hit.

"These officers, I don't feel, are heroes," Margaret Poplawski said outside court. "What happened is, it's not cowards versus heroes. It was failure of job performance, negligence."

The defense rested Saturday morning without calling any witnesses. Instead, Middleman showed the jury some photos from Poplawski's home and diagrams that described the wounds of Sciullo and Mayhle, and implied that Poplawski's mother, Margaret, may have played a role.

Middleman told the jury that some physical evidence in the case contradicts the official police version, although she acknowledged that her client did kill Kelly. But Manning refused her request to instruct the jury on accomplice liability, and Tranquilli said there's no evidence showing anybody other than Richard Poplawski shot the officers.

Margaret Poplawski was not in Manning's courtroom during the trial. She watched a closed-circuit TV feed in another room where an overflow crowd had gathered. She has never been charged or accused of the police shootings or any related crimes.

"Does anybody think, for one minute, I wanted this for the community?" Margaret Poplawski said. "That I wanted this for those officers? That I wanted this for their families? That I wanted this for me and my son?"

In his closing, Tranquilli told the jury that Poplawski's violent choices and missed chances resulted in his murdering three city police officers who responded to the report of an argument phoned in by his mother. Several more officers came under fire -- and one was struck and injured -- during a high-powered gunfight and standoff after a SWAT team showed up.

Middleman said Sciullo's wounds suggested that someone else might have been involved because a pathologist testified he was hit with fire from three types of guns.

But Tranquilli told the judge that Poplawski shot Sciullo with all three weapons, and he said neighbors testified they saw Poplawski stand over Sciullo and fire shots on the front stoop of the house.

Before resting his case Friday night, Tranquilli called 41 witnesses and introduced about 500 exhibits during five days of testimony.

Much of the evidence was photographic. The jury saw pictures of SWAT tactics as the team assembled outside; a sharpshooter taking aim with a rifle; a large armored vehicle with its windshield shot up; shell casings and broken glass scattered on the lawn and sidewalks; and a room-by-room look at the damage inside the home following the shootout.

"God forbid, I would have never called (911) if I thought this was going to happen," Margaret Poplawski said. When Channel 4 Action News reporter Ashlie Hardway asked why she didn't speak up and try to stop her son, she said, "You had to be there to understand it."

"Were you afraid that he would hurt you if you said anything?" Hardway asked.

"I don't know," Margaret Poplawski said.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Notes from defense attorney Lisa Middleman's closing argument:

•Told jurors they should find Poplawski guilty of homicide in the killing of Kelly, but says they must decide if it's or first- or third-degree.
•Says there are unknown holes in the case of the killings of Mayhle and Sciullo.
•Asked the jurors: what can they infer from the prosecution not calling Margaret Poplawski as a witness?
•Says prosecutors made a "dangerous assumption to treat Margaret Poplawski as a victim," did not test her for gun residue or DNA and "did not explore the possibility she was involved in this incident."
•Notes that one police witness said, at one point, he thought there were two shooters.
•Says there's physical evidence that Sciullo was shot by more than one person.
•Says if they're unable to prove beyond a reasonable doubt, "you don't have to know what the truth is. You cannot convict."
•"I wish you luck in your search for the truth."

Notes from Deputy District Attorney Mark Tranquilli's closing argument:

•Says defense "wants you to buy a conspiracy between Richard and Margaret Poplawski", that she's a homicidal maniac who set up her son for a fall.
•No evidence she did anything to these officers except all them.
•Richard Poplawski confessed, and DNA evidence links him to the weapons.
•"This isn't brain surgery. Don't check your common sense at the door."
•Quotes Poplawski's own words to a police negotiator: "I'm not going to shoot any more innocent police officers."
•He didn't say, "My mother's nuts, she killed three police officers, she's a homicidal lunatic."
•Described Poplawski as "a coward who lays in wait for police officers... and he is an excellent shot."
•Neighbors saw him fire down on Mayhle's body.
•"Heroes and cowards? You figure it out for yourself."
•Says Poplawski fired on officers in SWAT wagon: "He wanted to kill every one of them."
•Says Sciullo was shot at the front door -- "he went right down" -- then shot repeatedly with shotgun, .357 handgun, AK-47.
•"He massacred Paul Sciullo, even after the kid was already down."
•Told jury Mayhle was a "hero with a capital H" who entered into a shootout with Poplawski.
•"For his heroism, his effort, he got shot in the back like a dog." (During this, family of officers could be heard quietly sobbing.)
•Says judgment on Eric Kelly's killing is "the easy one." There's no question how this happened. He was shot before he even got out of his SUV, got out and tried to return fire -- "that's a hero."
•Closed by saying it's all about "choices and chances" ... detailed each choice, step by step, of putting on the vest, getting weapons, firing each shot against each officer.
•Says with each choice, each action," he had chances to just stop, but he did not."
•"He had chances all along to stop this continuum of death. At any point, Mr. Poplawski could have stopped this and he didn't."
•"What is Richard Poplawski all about? Who does this?"
•Says just hours before, he visited the Stormfront white nationalist website -- "that's just a nice way to say Nazism."
•Says lying in wait is one of the best examples of first-degree murder.
•Says actions speak louder than words. Judge him based upon what he did.

Richard Poplawski Guilty Of Pittsburgh Police Murders - Pittsburgh News Story - WTAE Pittsburgh

[Reconciler]

Hopefully the verdict will bring a little comfort to the families of the fallen officers. May God grant them His peace.

[greg72982]

The jury has sentenced him to death. The article is lengthy so I will only post a link:

Richard Poplawski Sentenced To Death For Police Murders - Pittsburgh News Story - WTAE Pittsburgh