Posted on 08/11/2002 3:23:16 AM PDT by ResistorSister
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 Francis Cicchinelli Jr. called the episode “the most tragic incident in the history of our city.
“These kinds of incidents should not occur anywhere in our country, let alone in Massillon,” he said. “We’ve lost a hero, and he certainly will be missed.”
Police Chief Mark Weldon remembered when Taylor came looking for a job on the force.
“He seemed a little bit green,” Weldon said, noting that he told Taylor to come back in a couple of years.
“He did that, and we hired him. And I’ve never had reason to regret it until today,” the chief said, struggling to choke back tears.
Ohio Highway Patrol Lt. Gary Lewis and Maj. James Walker were joined by Weldon, Cicchinelli and City Safety Director Al Climer at a news conference at 8 a.m. Saturday.
They tried to answer questions from news media representing northeastern Ohio.
City police, area troopers and investigators from Columbus announced that they were trying to determine whether Matthews, whom friends described as a staunch constitutionalist, had ties to the Ohio Militia.
Friends described him as outspoken when it came to his views on the rights provided to citizens via the U.S. Constitution.
On Saturday, officials gave the following account of the shootout:
The traffic stop started out calmly enough Friday night.
Trooper Joseph Hershey, 25, of the Highway Patrol’s Wooster post, pulled over Matthews of 6688 Casper Ave. NW in Jackson Township for speeding. Matthews was doing 72 mph in a 60-mph zone in his wife’s 1992 Ford Taurus when he was stopped on Route 21 at Edwards Road near Doylestown.
Hershey, a member of the Highway Patrol since March 2001, knew something was wrong right away: Matthews wouldn’t surrender his driver’s license. Matthews only cracked the window open and held the license up to the glass. He muttered something about his constitutional rights being violated.
As Hershey walked back to his cruiser, Matthews sped away.
Hershey followed him, stopping him temporarily at Route 21 and Cherry Road NW in Massillon.
It became clear to the trooper that something was terribly amiss when he walked toward the car and noticed Matthews pulling a large gun from under the car seat.
Hershey backed away and returned to his cruiser.
Massillon police were called in on the chase. Five officers in four cars responded as Matthews drove away again.
Matthews only got a block farther before he pulled into the field at the corner of Cherry and First Street NW where The Arena is under construction. The lot, which used to be the Agathon ballfield, is across the street from the new Massillon Recreation Center.
As Matthews pulled onto the lot, he left the car in drive and bailed out of it, taking his Czechoslovakian CZ-762x25 semiautomatic military handgun with him and firing at police.
Hershey fired back. He wasn’t injured.
Taylor’s patrol car, too, had followed Matthews’ car into a ravine about 100 yards from the curb.
Taylor, who also fired back, was hit and dropped to the gravel. His bulletproof vest didn’t save him. Taylor later was pronounced dead at Massillon Community Hospital.
News of Taylor’s death rippled in whispers through the crowd that had gathered at the lot. Matthews’ body was not removed until several hours after the shootout. Eventually, police covered the body with a sheet and put up another sheet to hide it from onlookers.
More than 130 people lined the yellow crime scene tape strung up by police and troopers. Some onlookers wiped tears from their faces. A few hugged the handful of uniformed and plainclothes officers who arrived at the scene.
Walker, an operations commander for the Highway Patrol in Columbus, announced Saturday morning that all flags at Highway Patrol posts across the state will fly at half-staff in honor of Taylor.
You can reach Repository writer Lori Monsewicz at (330) 580-8309 or e-mail:
That's something you made up. The stories never mention a .32.
But the story does say: Czechoslovakian CZ-762x25. CZ is a manufacturer. The gun in question is a military surplus item in the sense that it was made in Czechoslovkia during the Communist era. All weapons were made for the combined military/police. 7.62x25 is clearly identified as the caliber of this weapon, though the editor was too ignorant of guns to correctly place the decimal place. In European calibers the first number is the diameter of the bullet in millimeters. The second is the length of the case. In the USA we refer to calibers, most commonly, by their diameter in decimal fraction of an inch. Thus a "Colt .45" shoots a large bullet of almost 1/2" inch (.45) diameter. Using metric to inch conversion ratios will show you that the caliber of a 7.62 bullet expressed in more common US terminology is .3048, or "30 caliber". Dirtboy called it a .32 caliber, but it's not unusual for bullets size to be rounded off somewhat. For instance the common .38 Special is actually .357 caliber. The .44 Magnum is actuall .429. I'm not totally familiar with obscure Czech calibers but it is very possible this caliber is routinely referred to as a ".32" by US users, probably based on it's similiarity to other US calibers like the "32 ACP".
Dirtboy did not make anything up.
True enough, but the newstwit who originally wrote it up got it wrong. 7.62 is .30 cal.
I don't get this. Why didn't Hershey just shoot Matthews as soon as Matthews went for the gun? Did he figure that Matthews was about to get out the vehicle with the weapon, or what? Maybe some of our freeper LEOs can explain this to me.
Not so, the 7.62X25 is one of the rounds that will go right through a vest. As my friend the chief of police keeps reminding me. The hyperbole in this article is none the less over the top.
The choice of this archaic round which is very lacking in "stopping power" compared to most modern rounds (9mm, .357, .40, .45 etc) brings up the possiblity that it was chosen for its one standout feature: it's ability to penetrate kevlar.
I bring this up because Matthews' state of mind and possible paranoia have been discussed on other threads.
I don't know one way or the other, but his choice of a kevlar penetrating pistol caliber does enter into the discussion.
? Yep and many are using the same BS here. Gubiment conspiracy, cover-up, innocent "patriot". Why not, just one time, admit that there are nut cases out there from all political persuasions? The guy snapped, the guy killed a young cop the guy is not a martyr.
Ok, he coolly decided that he was going to go out for a drive and kill a cop. That is probably closer to the truth but I was trying to give the idiot the benefit of the doubt.
Is this code for something??
Please post a picture of the 7.62x39 that we were shooting through your SKS last weekend. It didn't look like this to me, but I could be wrong.
Thanks,
Eaker
(Ned Schwing's Standard Catalog of Firearms -- The Collector's Price and Reference Guide)
He carried a reasonably priced (ok - cheap) and formidable weapon, in the same class as the common .357, and not any more sinister because of it's background, color, political affiliation, etc.
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