On April 4, 2009, a shootout occurred at 1016 Fairfield Street in the Stanton Heights neighborhood of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States, stemming from a mother and her 22-year-old son's argument over a dog urinating in the house. At approximately 7:11 a.m. EDT, 22-year-old Richard Poplawski opened fire on two Pittsburgh Police officers responding to a 9-1-1 call from Poplawski's mother, who was attempting to get the police officers to remove her son from the home. Despite Poplawski's mother telling the 9-1-1 operator that Poplawski had guns, the police officers were not told. Three police officers were ultimately confirmed dead, and another two were seriously injured.According to Pittsburgh Police Chief, Nathan Harper, Poplawski was armed with a semi-automatic AK-47-style rifle, a shotgun and three handguns (a .357 Magnum revolver, a .380-caliber handgun and a .45-caliber handgun), protected by a bulletproof vest, and had been lying in wait for the officers. According to police and witnesses, he held police at bay for four hours as the fallen officers were left bleeding nearby, their colleagues unable to reach them. More than 600 rounds were fired by the SWAT teams and Poplawski.The victims were the first Pittsburgh city officers killed in the line of duty in 18 years. The incident was the third-deadliest attack on U.S. law enforcement since the September 11 attacks, following a 2016 mass shooting in Dallas, Texas; and a pair of related shootings two weeks earlier in Oakland, California.
