Poplawski frequented right-wing Web sites

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PITTSBURGH, April 5 (UPI) -- The 22-year-old man charged with killing three Pittsburgh police officers was frequent visitor to far-right Web sites, his Internet activities reveal.

Richard Poplawski posted his profile and photographs of his tattoos on the white supremacist Web site Stormfront, which serves as a clearinghouse for neo-Nazi and anti-Semitic groups, using the site to display an eagle tattoo spread across his chest, the Pittsburgh Post Gazette reported Sunday.

"I was considering gettin' life runes on the outside of my calfs," he wrote on Stormfront, referring to a common symbol among white supremacists, especially followers of The National Alliance, a neo-Nazi group linked to a a collection of violent organizations, the newspaper said.

Poplawski was arrested Saturday after a four-hour standoff, charged with ambushing and killing three officers and attempting to slay nine others.

Poplawski also believed in conspiracy theories espousing beliefs that a secret cabal running the United States was bent on eradicating freedom of speech and gun rights at the behest of Jews, a friend told the newspaper.

"For some time now there has been a pretty good connection between being sucked into this conspiracy world and propagating violence," Heidi Beirich, director of research at the Southern Poverty Law Center -- a non-profit that tracks the activities of hate groups -- told the newspaper.