Posted on 08/13/2002 3:48:08 AM PDT by ResistorSister
CANTON Dwight Class said it didnt have to end this way for Donald Matthews and the Massillon police officer whom he shot and killed.
Class said Patrol Officer Eric Taylor and the other officers and state trooper who were part of a fatal police chase Friday night did not have the authority to pull Matthews over on a traffic stop.
Or to pursue and attempt to arrest him.
Class attends the meetings on constitutionality that Matthews used to lead before he died in the shootout with police that started with a traffic stop on Route 21 in Doylestown and ended at First Street NW and Cherry Road in Massillon.
Matthews was president of the National Constitutionalist Academy and studied the U.S. Constitution. He held weekly meetings at the Dennys Restaurant on Tuscarawas Street W in Perry Township. About 15 to 22 people usually attend, Class said. He said Matthews also held weekly meetings in Cleveland.
Class attended calling hours for Matthews at Reed Funeral Home on Monday. Visitation was held from 3 to 5 and 6 to 9 p.m.
The first session appeared to be sparsely attended. Roughly 12 to 20 vehicles were parked in the funeral home lot. Visitors trickled in during the two hours. Family members and friends occasionally gathered in the parking lot or near the entrance of the funeral home.
Class spoke strongly about the events that unfolded Friday when a state trooper pulled Matthews over for driving 12 mph over the speed limit.
If the trooper could have produced proof that he had taken an oath of office and had a bond, it would have been a nice, simple conversation (and Matthews would have said,) I recognize you as an officer now.
That would have prevented the gunshots, Class said.
I dont think it had to have happened at all, the Canton resident said, citing constitutional issues.
However, his wife, Sárra Class, said Taylor should have been shot.
Dwight Class disagreed and told his wife to stop making the comment.
I thought he was a good man, he said of Matthews. He tried to get things done; he tried to get them done peacefully. Thats what he taught in class.
Matthews taught other constitutionalists to get the paper trail started by filing cases in court, Class said.
Class said he has filed lawsuits over traffic violations involving himself and Rodney Class. One of the cases involves New Philadelphia police, he said.
Dwight Class also said hes filed a lawsuit in federal court in Akron over alleged civil rights violations.
He said hes planning to take legal action this week against Massillon Municipal Judge Edward J. Elum in the Ohio Supreme Court. That complaint involves a warrant issued against Class he said he doesnt know what for.
Dwight Class, 51, said he retired after working 30 years at the Timken Co.
He gave a reporter a notice of civil rights violations by Ohio police and (the Ohio Highway Patrol).
Ohio is a home-rule state, it says. Chances are that if the brothers and sisters are stopped by any local police, they do not have an oath of office or bond to hold a position as a civil servant.
Without the oath or bond, an officer doesnt have the power to arrest a citizen, Class says.
Standing outside the funeral home, he said, We dont have a police force in the state of Ohio; we have private, at-will employees.
A bumper sticker on a pickup truck at the calling hours carried the slogan: I love my country but I fear my elected officials.
Class said he expects Fridays incident to boost attendance at the National Constitutionalist Academy meetings.
But not everyone who attended the calling hours shared Classs point of view.
John Newlund, 49, of East Liverpool, said Matthews was his wifes brother-in-law.
He gave me a card one time, Newlund said of the academy, and I just blew it off. I believe you should pay your taxes.
Newlund said he would absolutely pull over for a traffic stop.
He should have stopped, he said of Matthews. It was only a speeding ticket it happens thousands of times a day.
You go by the law, the law of the land.
You can reach Repository writer Ed Balint at (330) 580-8315 or e-mail:
At first it was reported that the shooting started when he pulled into a constrution site, jumped and rolled from his moving car and started shooting at the police. I thought it odd that his car would be shot up, if it happened that way.
When it was reported that he was driveing around and around while shooting at the police, then the car being shot up made more sense.
CORRECTION: We're only dancing on ONE grave, that of Matthews, to use as a springboard for illustrating what one intellectually weak man's twisted and wrong view of the Constitution can accomplish. In his case, it ended in death.
Of course, american bolshevik spirit will never speed in front of the "unconstitutional" police. He doesn't have the courage of his convictions, although he might have convictions.
What facts? All I've seen is rhetoric and blow. Where are your supporting documents, court decisions and case law to back up your assertions?
Witch hunters/vetters today are the liberals...
"living/morphing constitutionalists---
EVO science/RELIGION!!
Look at Ashcroft/Bork/Thomas---TEST(gauntlet) for office!
The constitution is the dnc/wwf playbook and the Republicans are playing flag football---dwarf wrestling!
Right out of the TURNER DIARIES.
If you can post here, you're not working "inordinate amounts of stressful hours."
I doubt you know what a stressful job really is.
To: american spirit
Nuh-uh, you've got it ass backwards. The burden of proof is on you. Cite which provisions of the U.S. Constitution are violated by these administrative laws.
The 10th Amendment gives to the States any power that is not prohibited under the Constitution.
If it's not prohibited, then it's allowed.
# 106 by wimpycat
Wrong, wimpycat. No State government can claim a power without specific authorization from the People. If a power isn't allowed to the State by the People, it is prohibited.
The 10th Amendment doesn't grant anything, wimpycat. It is not a "you get this" kind of Amendment. It is a "you can't have that" kind of Amendment.
The 10th Amendment says that the Federal government can not have any power not specifically given to it in the Constitution. Those powers are reserved either to the States or to the People.
In the U.S. Constitution government is prohibited from usurping powers without authorization from the People and the States. That is the basis of a Representitive Republic, of a nation ruled by the laws the very People of that nation created.
The U.S. Constitution requires of every State a Republican form of government, thus the limitations on the many States are set just as on the National level; the powers of the several States must be given to each State by the People.
The same applies to the Local level of government. Since each State is required to be a Republic, each local government that forms that State must be a Republican form of government as well. No Local government may claim a power without a specific mandate from the People.
All power comes ultimately from the People. No State is allowed to usurp any power. And no government, Local, State, or National, is allowed to interfere with any of the rights that will forever be retained by the People.
How does being taxed too heavily have to do with ignoring a local ordinance and getting in a firefight with the local authorities?
I love it. When pressed to detail how this in any way justified(yes, I know you said the police officer's death was wrong) the refusal of the ticket and being proven wrong on the Consitution you so adamantly claim to defend, you resort to calling people tax slaves???
Could you please direct us to the source of your information? Screeching at someone is not a specific source from which you derive your theory of governance.
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