Expert details gun evidence in Pa. police killings

Associated Press

PITTSBURGH

The personal vehicle of a Pittsburgh police officer — the third shot to death after a 2009 domestic dispute call — was hit by 23 gunshots, according to a crime scene expert who spent hours Wednesday describing dozens of spent AK-47, .357 Magnum and 12-gauge shotgun shells police say were fired by the man on trial in the killings.

City police Detective Blase Kraeer showed the jury photographs and brown paper bags of evidence he gathered from the home of the suspect, Richard Poplawski, 24.

Allegheny County prosecutors contend Poplawski shot the officers and then engaged in a gunbattle with dozens more after his mother called 911 to report an argument with him on April 4, 2009. She was reportedly upset that his puppies had urinated on a floor and called police when the argument escalated about 7 a.m. that day. She told the dispatcher that her son had legal weapons but none that was “in play” in the dispute, Deputy District Attorney Mark Tranquilli has said.

Knowing police were coming, Tranquilli contends, Poplawski put on a bulletproof vest and readied his weapons, shooting Officer Paul Sciullo II, 36, in the head with the shotgun without warning as he got to the front door. Officer Stephen Mayhle, 29, was shot next, but not before he ran past Sciullo’s body and into the house where he engaged in a brief, but intense, gunbattle with Poplawski.

Prosecutors believe Mayhle retreated outside and was shot on the sidewalk.

The third officer killed was off-duty at the time. Eric Kelly, 41 had just returned home from an overnight shift when he drove to Poplawski’s house two blocks away after hearing radio calls about the downed officers. Tranquilli has said the evidence will show Kelly was shot when he pulled up in front of Poplawski’s house before he could even exit the vehicle.