STANTON HEIGHTS (KDKA) – Crews have torn down the Stanton Heights home where convicted murderer Richard Poplawski shot and killed three Pittsburgh Police officers.

Ever since that tragic day in 2009, neighbors have said they want the house to be torn down.

They also said they do not want to see a memorial or a playground at the site.

They would prefer to see a green space with trees.

At 7:13 a.m. on Monday, Janell Minniefield got to do what a lot of Pittsburghers have wanted to do for a long time.

“It had a great significance to me. For that part, to give back to the community,” Minniefield said.

Minnifield was at the controls of the excavator that reduced the home to rubble.

Tracy O’Brien, whose brother-in-law is a Pittsburgh Police officer, lives behind the former Poplawski home on Fairfield Street.

“I’m happy. I’m happy that it’s down, but still it brings back so many memories. I’ll never forget that day. I still can relive every moment of that day like it was just yesterday,” O’Brien said.

Within an hour, Minniefield finished his work and the debris was loaded into dump trucks and carted off to a landfill.

“What does it mean? I’m hoping, closure. Healing, which I think not only this neighborhood, but our city needs,” another neighbor said.

The house – which was owned by the family of Richard Poplawski, who was convicted in the shootings earlier this year – was sold in a sheriff’s sale for $3,011.04 last week.

JP Morgan Chase donated the house to the city’s Urban Redevelopment Authority, which scheduled Monday’s demolition.

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