Constitutionalist blames police for fatal shootout (shooting in Massillon, Ohio)

The Canton Repository (Ohio) ^ | August 13, 2002 | ED BALINT

[ResistorSister]

CANTON — Dwight Class said it didn’t 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 Denny’s 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.

STRONG BELIEFS. Dwight Class and his wife, Sárra,
stand outside Reed Funeral Home after attending
calling hours for Donald Matthews of Jackson
Township on Monday afternoon. Police shot and
killed Matthews after he led police on a chase and shot and
killed Massillon Police Officer Eric Taylor on Friday
night. Class said the shootout wouldn’t have occurred
if the state trooper who pulled Matthews over on a
traffic stop had shown proof that he had an oath of
office and a bond. Repository / Michael S. Balash

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 don’t 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. That’s 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 he’s filed a lawsuit in federal court in Akron over alleged civil rights violations.

He said he’s 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 doesn’t 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 doesn’t have the power to arrest a citizen, Class says.

Standing outside the funeral home, he said, “We don’t 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 Friday’s incident to boost attendance at the National Constitutionalist Academy meetings.

But not everyone who attended the calling hours shared Class’s point of view.

John Newlund, 49, of East Liverpool, said Matthews was his wife’s 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:

ed.balint@cantonrep.com

[wimpycat]

I'm still waiting for you to cite which provisions of the Constitution have been violated by city codes and ordinances and the like. Until you come up with an article or amendment of the Constitution, your claims are fraudulent.

[general_re]

"Out of the way, I am a SOVEREIGN motorist!!!!!"

Still doesn't work.

"Out of the way, Royalist scum - I am a SOVEREIGN motorist!!!!!"

[Dead Corpse]

"They are laws created by Constitutionally elected officials; therefore they are Constitutional."

I've stayed out of these threads because I find Mattews position did not justify his actions. However, this has got to be the DUMBEST thing anyone has said so far on any of the Massillon threads.

There is no provision in the Constitution for legislators to ensure that the laws they pass are Constitutional. That is up to the Courts to decide. Check vs. Balance. Unless you end up dealing with "permutations", "emmanations", and "penumbras", the Judges are to decide what Laws pass Constitutional muster. Legislation has at times been purposed to require Constitutional review for any new law passed. This would, of course, gore too many lawmakers oxen.

I'll let you get back to your blood dance now.

[wimpycat]

And another thing, do you think anyone should listen to you trying to pass yourself off as a Constitutional scholar when you DON'T EVEN KNOW THE ORIGINS OF COMMON LAW? What else is there that you DON'T KNOW? You're a fraud and a sham, and you do everybody who's really interested in the Constitution a disservice by associating yourself with them.

[justshe]

Everyone who kills innocent lives for their belief in their own version of a constitution is a terrorist. Everyone who advocates violence for that belief is a terrorist.

Well said. Mathews could have simply run from the cops and crashed his vehicle. He didn't need to exact HIS version of 'justice' on the cop.

[exodus]

And no government, Local, State, or National, is allowed to interfere with any of the rights that will forever be retained by the People.
- exodus

To: exodus
Unless the People CHOOSE officials to create laws to limit themselves (ie speeding).
# 148 by AppyPappy
*************************

Regulating traffic is a legitimate governmental power.

Requiring a license before travel is allowed is not a legitimate function. That is an infringement of our freedom to travel.

Requiring citizens to show identification is also an illegitimate use of power. That interferes with our right of privacy.

[wimpycat]

Requiring a license before travel is allowed is not a legitimate function. That is an infringement of our freedom to travel.

You may have a right to travel, but it doesn't mean you have a right to drive. Clinton said the same thing you did a couple of years ago, and it's as wrong a statement now as it was when he said it.

[Wm Bach]

Somewhere out there, some newbie is visiting this site for the first time and clicking back out with the impression that Free Republic is where government-line statists and lonegunman-nutburger anarchists gather to bicker over whose vision of fascism has more Constitutional merit.

The former justifies insult to the Constitution over the murder of an officer. The latter tries to justify murdering an officer over insult to the Constitution.

Reaganism this ain't.

[AppyPappy]

Requiring a license before travel is allowed is not a legitimate function.

You don't need a license to travel. I traveled all the time when I was a child. You only need a license to operate a motor vehicle.

[AppyPappy]

I meant the CREATION OF THE LAWS was Constitutional.

[Dead Corpse]

I will agree with your statement that licensing operators on public roadways is a legit local government function. However, due to increased pressure from the Feds, it is becoming a de-facto nationally mandated ID card that is clearly extra-Constitutional. Some municipalities actually require you to carry your ID at all times and to surrender it to an LEO upon request. Even if you are just walking to the store to get some ice cream. It happened to me in Austin, Texas.

This is not freedom to travel.

It also is not justification for shooting a cop.

[exodus]

And are you trying to say that everyone who feels this way is a potential terrorist?

To: Maelstrom
Everyone who kills innocent lives for their belief in their own version of a constitution is a terrorist. Everyone who advocates violence for that belief is a terrorist.
# 151 by AppyPappy
*************************

So you're saying that we live under a terrorist government, AppyPappy?

David Koresh would agree, if he were able to. Randy Weaver would agree. And hundreds of thousands of victims of the drug "war" would, too.

Good point, AppyPappy.

[american spirit]

We have to understand where our rights come from. We either have God-given Constitutional rights or civil rights, which are granted to us by gov't. authorities. Civil rights can be revoked or trampled upon at will by out of control gov't. agencies, whereas Const. rights supersede all. Our problem is that we've never been taught anything else but the supremacy of civil rights and our whole lives are governed by agents working for artificial entities sometimes in direct conflict with the intentions of our founding fathers.

[Dead Corpse]

Please choose your wording a little more carefully then. Even a casual re-read of what you typed clearly gives the impression that any Laws passed are therefore Constitutional.

What I can't help but wonder is how we would all feel about Mattews if he had shot this LEO in a "mistaken address-no knock" raid? Granted, the death of anyone under such circumstances is never a good thing, but I have read plenty of posts here on FR about people boasting about where their "battle lines" are drawn. Not so long ago, several of us where asking "When Claire? When?"

It looks like Mattews had a bad case of premature revolutionary anxiety.

[Catspaw]

You don't need a license to travel. I traveled all the time when I was a child. You only need a license to operate a motor vehicle.

Last I looked, the right to travel didn't include motoring down a highway in a Ford Taurus at excessive speeds, refusing to show one's license to a police officer, getting into a chase, pulling a gun on a police officer, getting into yet another chase, then starting a gun battle in which one kills a police officer.

[american spirit]

An interesting point is that licenses to drive are commercial in nature such as for a taxi driver. Why are private individuals driving a private conveyance required to have a commercial license?

[Dead Corpse]

Shooting random LEO's for a traffic stop is no way to endear someone to your cause. My father was an LEO for 23 years. I know how I would feel if he had been murdered by some loose-cannon over a 12 MPH Over speeding ticket.

[Maelstrom]

Everyone who kills innocent lives for their belief in their own version of a constitution is a terrorist. Everyone who advocates violence for that belief is a terrorist.

So long as you include all people in that, whether government official or citizen, law enforcement officer or survivalist, beaurocrat or KKK-member, we have exactly this one thing we agree upon.

[Catspaw]

Requiring a license before travel is allowed is not a legitimate function. That is an infringement of our freedom to travel.

Requiring citizens to show identification is also an illegitimate use of power. That interferes with our right of privacy.

You wouldn't happen to have a specific legal cite to back these up?

[AppyPappy]

So would every paranoid crackpot who thought the government was beaming waves into their heads.