Free Republic

A letter discovered over the weekend at a makeshift memorial for Eric B. Taylor, the 31-year-old Massillon patrolman killed in a shootout Friday night, defends his killer and predicts that more police officers will die in traffic stops. The one-page note begins: ``Eric, Sorry you had to die for a speeding ticket.... you now know it was NOT WORTH IT!'' The letter says that because ``peace officers'' will not ``take a lesson from your death and think twice about stopping people... more will die.'' Police are taking the letter seriously. ``It gives insight into how these people are thinking and...

Friends of Donald W. Matthews, a 61-year-old former Steelworker who quoted the U.S. Constitution like a preacher thumbing a worn Bible, say he was suspicious of government.But nobody knows why he chose a routine traffic stop Friday night to make his final stand, fatally shooting a Massillon police officer in the back before he was killed himself in return gunfire.He might have been returning home from a constitutionalist study group in Cleveland when a state trooper pulled him over for speeding.The trooper stopped him near Edwards Road in the short stretch of state Route 21 that crosses Wayne County. It...

JACKSON TWP. — Federal agents and police searched for weapons and explosives Saturday in the apartment of a man who was killed in a shootout along with a Massillon police officer Friday night. Less than a day after Police Officer Eric Taylor was shot and killed, about 25 agents and police officers spent more than three hours at the home of gunman Donald W. Matthews at 6688 Casper Ave. NW. At about 7 p.m., a group of agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, many wearing blue shirts and gloves, entered the two-story red brick apartment. ATF Agent...

MASSILLON — A 61-year-old man in a straw hat led a state trooper and then city police on a chase that ended in a hail of gunfire when the man whipped out a high-powered Czechoslovakian military weapon and fired away Friday night. Investigators are continuing to piece together what started out as a seemingly routine traffic stop for a speeding violation and ended 12.3 miles and 12 minutes later in a double shooting that left a police officer, Eric Taylor, and the suspect, Donald W. Matthews, dead. On Saturday, authorities released more information to a stunned and grieving community. Mayor...