Massillon Patrol Officer
Eric Taylor
Posted on 08/10/2002 6:07:37 AM PDT by ResistorSister
MASSILLON (OHIO) -- A city police officer and a man he was chasing are dead, killed in a shootout at the old Agathon ballfield Friday night.
Killed were Eric Taylor, 31, a four-year veteran of the Police Department, and a still unidentified suspect.
“This is a major tragedy for our city,” said Mayor Francis Cicchinelli, who announced Taylor’s death at Massillon Community Hospital at about 11:45 p.m.
Taylor was married, with three young children.
Investigators from the Ohio Highway Patrol, Massillon Police Department and Stark County coroner’s office remained at the scene past midnight, as did the body of the suspect, a balding, white man who was driving a four-door Ford sedan with Stark County license plates. His body was covered with one sheet, another blocked the view of the more than 100 bystanders who gathered near First Street and Cherry Road NW.
The trouble began shortly before 8:30 p.m. on Route 21 and Edwards Road in Wayne County near Doylestown, according to Lt. Herb Homan, commander of the Wooster Post of the Highway Patrol.
One of his troopers had stopped the southbound Ford on Route 21 at 8:22 p.m. for speeding. The trooper talked with the driver, there was a confrontation and five minutes later, the trooper reported the car was fleeing. He chased it south, and Massillon police got involved.
The chase ended in Massillon east of Route 21, in the ballfield just south of Cherry Road.
Lt. Gary Lewis of the Highway Patrol said the man got out of his car with a high-powered semiautomatic weapon, and that he fired first at officers. At least three Massillon officers and a trooper were involved in the gunfire. He said they don’t know which officer fired the shot that killed the suspect nor do they know which shot killed Taylor.
Scott McElfresh said he was watching television in his home on Cherry Road, northeast of the scene, when he heard shots. He looked out his window and saw flashes from gunfire.
He estimated he heard four shots and then an additional 30 to 40 shots, and that he saw flashes indicating police were returning fire.
“It’s not something you expect to happen in Massillon,” he said.
Other witnesses said they heard 10 to 12 shots.
“We didn’t know if it was fireworks or gunshots,” said Dave Hodgson, who was with friends about a block to the north.
Stark County Coroner James Pritchard said the suspect died of gunshot wounds, but he won’t know how many until he does an autopsy on the man today. He’ll also do an autopsy on Taylor.
Taylor was rushed from the scene to Massillon Community moments after the shooting.
The suspect’s body remained on the corner of a field off of First Street and Cherry Road until after midnight. Police said they had not verified the man’s identification, and they wouldn’t release his name until family was notified.
Through the early morning, Taylor’s cruiser and the suspect’s car remained in the middle of the field on which The Arena is being built.
The Highway Patrol and Massillon police are sharing the investigation.
They used 44 red cups to mark shell casings and other pieces of evidence on First Street. Bright lights illuminated the scene, showing the back window of a Massillon cruiser was shattered, and glass was scattered across the street.
A helicopter from Columbus was brought in to map the crime scene.
A handful of officers not involved in the investigation showed up at the scene, some in uniform and some in street clothes, somber and stone faced. Family of other officers showed up, patted a couple of officers on the back, shook their hands and hugged them.
A police chaplain met with the family at Massillon Community.
A red tent for officers was pitched in the yard of the Massillon Recreation Center, across the street from the crime scene.
And that is the legal, CONSTITUTIONAL authority of the State of Ohio and any municipality you might have been in at the time. It is NOT, UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES, anything even remotely resembling a battlefied upon which one should take up arms to exert Constitutional rights.
I believe that will be tough to do.
Stay safe; stay armed.
Well, he's already dead, so that would be a bit redundant...
I'm trying to geta job with the Department of Redundancy Department....
Well, I guess the only way you could really 100% prove it is to ask JimRob to check the records for whatever his freeper name was and see if his real name and state matches up, but I doubt that's something he'd be willing to do. In any case, the freeper that posted the deleted thread about this vouched for him and said that he/she had talked on the phone with him very often over the last X numbers of years.
Back about twenty years ago, the FDA told the Texas Department of Corrections that the drugs they used for lethal injection were both safe and effective. The headline for the column was "One out of Two Ain't Bad..."
Uh, the dead policemen was not OHP(Ohio Highway Patrol). He was a Massilon city cop, who now has three children left behind due to a senseless shooting over minor traffic stop.
_________________________________
Apparently, he was registered at FR.
-- Your protest that he is 'not a freeper' only encourages nutcakes like CJ to spout their hysterical hype and make the situation look even more ridiculous. 68 po tpaine
Guess what, tpaine? CJ is right on this one.
Guess what Dboy? I was commenting to the Mod about CJs 'bloody drivel' banning hype, not:
State and local traffic laws, as long as there are conducted with probable cause as the basis for a stop, are not a Constitutional issue, but are the realm of states and municipalities under the 10th Amendment. Doing 72 in a 60 is probable cause.
As usual, you're so eager to hype your positions , that you can't be bothered to actually read my posts.
Waco and Ruby Ridge are sound positions to decry the actions of the federal government. This, however, is NOT a position to do such. Barring other information, the guy was dead wrong here. If he wants to die for his cause, that his his business. But killing a cop for his warped perception of the cause, that is just plain immoral, wrong and insane.
And you're insane to think that my post to CJ & the Mod implied any such position. - Get an emotional hold on yourself.
I know in some places car chases have been questioned because breakneck speeds are dangerous to everyone else on the road. I just think since they had his drivers license number and license plates, they could have handled it differently. The cops should be able to handle citizens who are stressed out or over the edge. Once they chased someone to the end of this dead end street and I was afraid I was going to witness something pretty awful but luckily it ended okay. I didn't think that case was handled the best either.
Why, because I want to know what transpired at the traffic stop?
Because I don't think that cops are always smart, or right, or good?
I'd like to stay and play, but I've got to go to the gym.
LOL. Now that is good dark humor.
I would agree with that ... however, stopping someone for doing 72mph in a 60mph zone fits just about anyone's definition of probable cause for a traffic stop...
And which libertarians inspired this Conservative to kill that cop, genius?
He shoulda read a little bit of Henry David Thoreau. He might be alive today if he had.
Five is more reasonable than one, though, frankly, anything less than ten is petty.
The rule in Texas is ten over on the weekends, fifteen during the week.
Good answer!!! ;<)
Stay safe; stay armed.
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