It doesn’t matter whether or not you’re a dedicated history student with an interest in realistic reenactment; the police may take a dim view of your hobby.
There goes my weekend plans. 
Minor nitpick: Evidently, the poor kid was in a WW2 Wehrmacht uniform, not Nazi gear. Still a damned stupid thing to do, of course. The linked article mentioned that this kid actually pointed his gun at police officers - what else were they supposed to do?
Damn shame. I knew guys like this in college - smart, outrageous, and viewed any attempt to stifle their individuality as “the man” bringing them down. Poor bastard probably spent his last seconds trying to explain to the cops that he wasn’t a Nazi, and had every right in the world to wear a Wehrmacht uniform and carry a rifle if he wanted.
Wow. He seemed like kind of a cool person. What the fuck was he thinking pointing the rifle at an armed policeman? This all just seems so unnecessary.
As a devotee of vintage stuff myself (not lifestyle, however, and not Nazi - tho I do have an alarming amount of German culture lying around), I can easily see an incident like this happening now and then. “Retro” is a very seductive thing for obsessives, people with deep shame and trauma they want to hide, and people who want to live in their own worlds.
People I know who are this seriously into retro - to the point of a lifestyle - almost without exception have pre-existing social or emotional troubles that they’re either trying to recover from or are in deep denial about. They’re often high-intelligence underachievers and/or spectrum disorder people, and you will often find a great deal of bitterness and cynicism inside them, woven in very finely with joy and delight.
I call BS. Seriously, the guy was by all accounts a non violent historical re-enactor. I wouldn’t be surprised if the police were not being fully honest here.
Seriously, something doesn’t seem right.
Why would anyone answer the door with what was likely a "Open the door, Police!’ announcement with a weapon on hand, and then not only refuse to drop it but point it at armed officers?
Only someone who was trying to commit suicide by cop (and it seems this guy didn’t have a reason to, and could have offed himself with replica weapons anyway) or a criminal, which this guy obviously wasn’t.
Were there any other witnesses? Was this guy in his apartment dressed up by himself?
From his MySpace page:
I could say something mean about that, but it’s just sad.
Given that this is the SPD we’re talking about, I wonder how well the officers’ description of the event matches reality.
Granted, we’ve established that the guy exhibited extremely poor judgment by discharging a firearm in a residential area for recreational purposes, and the presence of a large quantity of alcohol on New Year’s Eve might have something to do with his extremely irrational behavior. Still, I hope that there were plenty of witnesses, and that an investigation can fully verify the facts of the event, and the justifiability of the shooting.
According to the story, this went down around 2AM.
Can’t blame the cops off hand. I don’t know if the kid was blind drunk, mentally unstable or what have you.
I’m not giving anyone in this story a free pass, but I’m not about to place the blame on either side of this disaster without more information.
A 22 year old college kid shooting guns in an alley at 2 AM? I can’t be sure, but I’ll bet “Dude, I’m so fuckin stoned!” was part of his thought process 
From the Dept. of Weird Coincidences, this incident was just a few blocks from where a veteran neo-Nazi was nabbed a few years ago.
Coincidence?
I doubt it.
The MySpace page has been deleted.
I did get a chance to look at some of the photos. The German uniform was just one of many costumes Murphy had. In addition to military uniforms from the 19th Century through about the WWII period from other countries, he also had civilian clothes such as people wore in that era. It’s too bad he chose to dress as a German. The highland kilt would have been much more festive for New Year’s Eve, and he may have been less likely to be shot if he’d had a claidheamh mòr.
He may well have been depressed /anxiety-ridden and suicidal despite the lack of external signs, and the confrontation with a police what was he was after. I don’t think he was nearly stupid enough to not know the ramifications of pointing a rifle at the police, no matter how drunk / stoned he was. Been there, but luckily not done that.
The OP link quoted a neighbor as hearing the police call out for the guy to drop his weapon.
I agree. I mean, yeah he’s dressed up as Wehrmacht, but who nowadays in their right mind thinks of Nazis as credible, street-criminal threats anymore? Granted, the police were probably amped up on adrenaline on “reports” of gunfire, but I doubt that kid had a chance to bring the stock up to his shoulder. But, of course it’s a matter of the polices’ word against all others–and who’s gonna win? That’s right.
Tripler
Besides, we all know that Communists and “Terr’rists” are the real threat.
For those who didn’t get a chance to look at the page, this article has a link to a gallery of some of his pictures.
And apparently this guy had a habit of showing up to class or his workplace wearing uniforms. That’s taking things just a weensy bit too far. Speaking as an ex-SCAdian, I’ve met a few people who had similar problems demarcating their hobby from real life. They tended to have Issues. Obviously I can’t comment on this guy, never having met him, but if it looks like a goose and steps like a goose…
You know who else killed young men in WW2 uniforms?
On a more somber note, this whole thing sounds like such a stupid tragedy. IMO the kid was blitzed out of his mind, was with a few friends, they decided to play with the guns and enter their little fantasy-retro land, cops show up, disaster ensues.