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

[Catspaw]

The latest is when Big Brother goes to States who have passed legitimate medical MJ laws and fedgov says that they are not allowed to do that.

So if you got your doobies, you'd be happy? Then you'd consider the Constitution & the 10th Amendment to be working?

[Dead Corpse]

On the other hand though, you have the Bush-bots and wanna-be JBT's who assert that LEO's are NEVER in the wrong and that questioning them is the worst thing a citizen could do short of shooting them.

It takes all kinds I guess. I'd rather have the heated debates then a bunch of people sitting around agreeing with each other. No matter how screwed up their logic gets at times.

As for your Constitutional question, yes. Public Officials are supposed to be held accountable to the standards of their office while dischargin their duties. Other than that, they are just supposed to be regular tax payers. Not always the case, but we still have the whole illusion of equality under law going on if not the fact.

[habs4ever]

There is a word to describe Matthews.

Anarchist.

[american spirit]

Do yourself a favor and go read #134 and compare that to the wimps stance. His assertion is so full of holes it's not even funny.

[stands2reason]

Forgive me, but your screenname implies otherwise....

[habs4ever]

I wish I could understand your posts, but I can't.

Could you try to make them a tad more coherent?

[wimpycat]

You don't even know the origins of common law, you can't cite the specific prohibitions in the Constitution I asked you NUMEROUS times to cite, which you are obviously UNABLE to provide, and yet you still think you have a freakin' clue. So don't pretend that you know anything about my stance.

[f.Christian]

ok...

if you are a truth seeker 'God pleaser'---bad people won't like you!

If you are a liar---man pleaser...

good people won't like you!

[Dead Corpse]

Think more along the lines of "Thanatos' Viscera" or the "death of Death" and things should become much clearer.

[american spirit]

We can agree to disagree but if ever take the blinders off just look how we are being regulated to death by an unending blizzard of codes, reg's, etc. The growing property rights movement in the country is continually uncovering the deception used by gov't. types to move people off their land. Study the Klamath Falls case to see how ill-conceived notions of a few enviro/gov't. agencies used false data to literally destroy that farming community.

[Dead Corpse]

Klamath Falls and Ruby Ridge are a far cry from getting pulled over for a speeding ticket.

[Poohbah]

Now you just hush. You're using logic and reason on the boy.

I mean, he hung me a nice pitch right over the plate, and I knocked it clear out past the cheap seats, and he's been in denial (hey, it's not just a river in Egypt anymore!) ever since.

[Dane]

So if you got your doobies, you'd be happy?

IMHO, it seems that by the rhetoric of people who are defending the cop-killer Matthews, could smoke a doob and blow the smoke in your face and speed in their car at will, they would be happy.

But that isn't the whole crux.

JMO, these "constitutionalists" will never be happy. They will complain about anything and hide behind the Constitution as their excuse.

They will complain that that the government caused their hangnail. They are no different than the liberals who complain about anything and will try to justify a murder of a cop, just like the liberals justify the cop murderer Mumia Jamal.

Like I have said many times before, the ACLU and Libertarians, not a dimes worth of difference.

[Dead Corpse]

Dane, no one here is defending Mattews.

Go crawl back under your rock will you? We'll wake you up the next time we actually start talking about drugs OK?

[Poohbah]

Most of the "constitutionalists" want limited government, except that they want to be guaranteed a good job at a wage that they find satisfying.

[justshe]

****The latest is when Big Brother goes to States who have passed legitimate medical MJ laws and fedgov says that they are not allowed to do that.*****

>>>>>So if you got your doobies, you'd be happy? Then you'd consider the Constitution & the 10th Amendment to be working? <<<<<<<<

---

This debate has the potential to be taken over by the MJ crowd. I think it's bait. JMO.

[Kevin Curry]

These threads are about using one man's death and another man's slaughter to initiate ad hominem attacks against ALL THOSE who believe the US Constitution is one creating a limited government of enumerated powers.

No, they are about exposing a particularly virulent form of extremist idiocy posing as "love of the Constitution."

An extremist zealot slaughtered an innocent human being--a law enforcement officer--for reasons that had NOTHING WHATSOEVER to do with the Constitution. This abhorrent, wholly indefensible, and pathology-driven murder ought to be and will be condemned by reasonable men and women everywhere. If you don't want to have that same scorn heaped upon you, cease trying to defend or explain this horrible act.

[NeoCaveman]

These freaks give people who actually believe in the Constitution and limited government a bad name.

[Poohbah]

Dane, no one here is defending Mattews.

And the Islamic mullahs in the US aren't defending the hijackers, either.

But they're very quick to say that the US somehow had it coming, and they're REALLY quiet when it comes to actually condeming the terrorists.

And we're seeing this MO again with folks like american spirit.

[Catspaw]

This debate has the potential to be taken over by the MJ crowd. I think it's bait. JMO.

Oh, sure it is. But I figured they've just toked up and won't be functional until morning.