3 slain Pittsburgh officers to lie in state

By DAN NEPHIN, Associated Press – Mon Apr 6, 10:48 am ET

PITTSBURGH – The bodies of three slain Pittsburgh police officers will lie in state at a downtown municipal building, city officials announced Monday.

The viewing at the City-County Building will begin Wednesday afternoon for officers Eric Kelly, Stephen Mayhle and Paul Sciullo II. A memorial service will be held Thursday at an arena on the University of Pittsburgh Campus.

Richard Poplawski, 23, was wearing a bulletproof vest when he opened fire on the officers who were responding to a domestic disturbance call Saturday, turning a quiet Pittsburgh street into a battlefield, police said.

The 911 call that brought Sciullo and Mayhle to the home where they were ambushed on Saturday, and where Kelly was later killed during a four-hour siege, was precipitated by a fight between the gunman and his mother over a dog urinating in the house.

Thursday’s memorial will also serve as the funeral service for 41-year-old Officer Eric Kelly, who will be buried immediately afterward.

Separate funeral services are set for Mayhle and Sciullo.

The argument between Margaret and Richard Poplawski escalated to the point that she threatened to kick him out and she called police to do it, according to a 12-page criminal complaint and affidavit filed late Saturday.

When Sciullo and Mayhle arrived, Margaret Poplawski opened the door and told them to come in and take her son, apparently unaware he was standing behind her with a rifle, the affidavit said. Hearing gunshots, she spun around to see her son with the gun and ran to the basement.

The mother told police her son had been stockpiling guns and ammunition “because he believed that as a result of economic collapse, the police were no longer able to protect society,” the affidavit said.

Autopsies show Sciullo, 37, died of wounds to the head and torso. Mayhle, 29, was shot in the head.

A witness awakened by two gunshots told investigators of seeing the gunman standing in the home’s front doorway and firing two to three shots into one officer who was already down. Sciullo was later found dead in the home’s living room, and Mayhle near the front stoop, police said.

Kelly, 41, was killed as he arrived to assist the first two officers. Kelly was in uniform but on his way home when he responded and was gunned down in the street.

Kelly’s radio call for help summoned other officers, including a SWAT team. The ensuing standoff included a gun battle in which police say Richard Poplawski tried to kill other officers.

Poplawski is charged with three counts of criminal homicide and nine counts of attempted homicide — one each for the eight officers who were shot at in an armored SWAT vehicle, plus a ninth who was shot in the hand as he tried to help Kelly.

A district judge arraigned Poplawski at a hospital. It was not immediately clear if Poplawski had an attorney.

 

Judge: Man Who Gave Pittsburgh Cop ‘Finger’ Didn’t Break Law

Federal Lawsuit Claims Flip-Off Gesture Is Protected Speech

PITTSBURGH — A federal judge said a man who flipped his middle finger at a Pittsburgh police officer shouldn’t have been cited for disorderly conduct.

 

David Hackbart, of Pittsburgh, said he made the gesture at another driver while trying to back into a parking space on Murray Avenue in Squirrel Hill in April 2006.

 

When he heard someone else yelling at him, Hackbart gave the finger again — not realizing that the second person was a police officer.

“While flipping somebody off or using profane language may not be pleasant, it is constitutionally protected speech, especially when it’s uttered towards a public official,” said Vic Walczak, of the American Civil Liberties Union, when he sued on Hackbart’s behalf in September.

 

U.S. District Judge David Cercone filed a 19-page decision Monday, agreeing that the gesture was protected under free speech.

 

Still to be determined at an upcoming trial is whether city police were improperly trained. The ACLU claims city police have filed 188 citations for similar offenses in 2005, 2006 and 2007.

 

 

“The police need to understand that they’re not Miss Manners, they can’t be enforcing nice language, and that it’s inappropriate for them to use the criminal laws to punish somebody because they may use profane language,” Walczak said in September.