Third, the slain officer was shot from behind, indicating that he was surprised by the suspect and was taking cover when shot.
# 475 by Abundy
The official report said that Matthews showed the State trooper his weapon during the second stop, and then drove off again. The police knew he was armed before the firefight started, before Matthews left his car.
The official report also said that Mathews jumped out of his moving car, rolled, and came up shooting at the police cars that were still chasing his moving car.
I see very little chance that Taylor was surprised by Matthews.
The story doesn't fit the facts.
The official report also said that Mathews jumped out of his moving car, rolled, and came up shooting at the police cars that were still chasing his moving car.
I see very little chance that Taylor was surprised by Matthews.
The story doesn't fit the facts.
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With all due respect, the story doesn't fit the facts that you want to hear or the way you want to interpret them.
There is no disputing that the coroner determined that the officer was shot from behind as he was attempting to exit the passenger side of his vehicle.
This indicates surprise. Why?
Because we are taught in officer survival to position a cruiser on a traffic stop in order to provide cover and if the threat was coming from the driver's side, forcing the officer to exit the passenger side for cover, than the officer didn't have time to stop the cruiser properly or he did and the suspect moved quickly enough to take away the cover advantage of a properly positioned cruiser.
Either way, Matthews quickly created such an enormous tatical advantage on Taylor which forced Taylor to turn his back on Matthews rather than return fire.
That's called surprise.
It's also called premeditated murder. Period.