re: #653 hazzyday

What boot camp would kick you out for throwing a food tray at a drill sergeant? That should just get you extra duty and a hard time. I am thinking he was mentally unfit and couldn’t perform the simplest things.

I think there’s clearly more to this story than what’s been reported so far.

Just from reading the AP report on the shooting, I noticed a couple of details that people seem to have gotten wrong in the discussion above:

Richard Poplawski, 23, met officers at the doorway and shot two of them in the head immediately, Harper said. An officer who tried to help the two also was killed.

If this is correct, it was basically an ambush. Two cops knocked on th door, he opened it, and shot them both in the head. It doesn’t specify what kind of weapon was used to kill the first two cops, but I would assume a handgun, given the way it seems to have gone down. You can’t open a door and bring an AK-47 to bear quickly enough to shoot 2 people standing that close to you in the amount of time he would have had.

Poplawski, armed with an assault rifle and two other guns, then held police at bay for four hours as the fallen officers were left bleeding nearby, their colleagues unable to reach them, according to police and witnesses. More than 100 rounds were fired by the SWAT teams and Poplawski, Harper said.

This is very different from the shooter himself having fired 100 rounds. If there was a full scale firefigt between him and the SWAT team, it makes a lot more sense than the way it was being portrayed above.