Free Republic

<p>NACO, Ariz. -- A Border Patrol agent was shot and killed near Naco, Arizona, on Tuesday, the agency said. Another agent sustained injuries that are not considered life-threatening, said Brent Cagen, a Border Patrol spokesman.</p> <p>The shootings happened in the southeastern part of the state, near the Mexican border.</p>

OK, OK, enough already. I get that American Atheists Inc. has every right to wield its beliefs - publicly and loudly - against all things suggesting that God is in his universe. Atheists serve a useful purpose in this country. They are the burr under the saddle of this predominantly Christian nation. They are like the kid in class who won't sit quietly and join in while everyone else is practicing perfect penmanship. When atheists poke and prod at none-too-subtle efforts to co-mingle church and state, they help shake up the 80 percent of Christians in this nation and nudge...

AKRON -- A line of 30 Akron police officers, dressed in their summer uniforms, paraded through a hallway in the Stewart-Calhoun Funeral Home on Thursday. They were heading to work. As each passed by, Massillon Police Officer Ken Hendricks clasped their hand. “Thank you,” he’d say. “Thank you.” “Thanks for coming out.” “Thank you.” “It helps the healing.” Tears welled in Hendricks’ eyes. Then again, eyes had been filling with tears all afternoon long. At 3 p.m., Massillon police officers decked out in dress uniforms closed the doors in the funeral home’s chapel and spent some time to say goodbye...

A letter discovered over the weekend at a makeshift memorial for Eric B. Taylor, the 31-year-old Massillon patrolman killed in a shootout Friday night, defends his killer and predicts that more police officers will die in traffic stops. READ ENTIRE ARTICLE HERE

JuWanna Taylor, widow of slain Massillon Patrolman Eric B. Taylor, is finding the strength to cope from the most precious gifts her husband gave her: their two young children. ``My children are what have kept me going,'' Taylor said Tuesday at the family's home in Massillon. ``You have to put you on the back burner. They need their mother.''Taylor, 31, said she has tried to keep her children, Ty, 2, and Lauren, 1, as close to their regular daily schedules as possible since her husband was shot and killed Friday night while on duty. Eric Taylor, 31, joined the Massillon...

A motorcycle and a car remain parked in the double-car garage. A black iron eagle is mounted above the door of the white ranch-style home with navy vinyl shutters. At the end of a cozy Massillon street, the home, once filled with a young family’s joy, has become a place of mourning. JuWanna Taylor, widow of slain Massillon police officer Eric Taylor, is surrounded by family – her two children, her mother and her brother, David Jones. Jones said his sister, JuWanna and her two children, Ty, 2, and Lauren, 1, are faring well in the wake of the Friday...

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...

MASSILLON — There were plenty of warnings that Donald W. Matthews might one day open fire on a police officer. More than four years ago, a Jackson Township police officer warned that Matthews was dangerous and that Matthews threatened to kill any officer who would try to arrest him. And Matthews himself wrote in a document filed Jan. 21, 1998, in Municipal Court, that “Anyone who tries to enforce a bogus warrant will do so at their own peril.” The moment of peril came Friday night at the corner of First Street and Cherry Road NW. Ohio Highway Patrol troopers...

Friends of Donald W. Matthews, a 61-year-old former Steelworker who quoted the U.S. Constitution like a preacher thumbing a worn Bible, say he was suspicious of government.But nobody knows why he chose a routine traffic stop Friday night to make his final stand, fatally shooting a Massillon police officer in the back before he was killed himself in return gunfire.He might have been returning home from a constitutionalist study group in Cleveland when a state trooper pulled him over for speeding.The trooper stopped him near Edwards Road in the short stretch of state Route 21 that crosses Wayne County. It...

JACKSON TWP. — Federal agents and police searched for weapons and explosives Saturday in the apartment of a man who was killed in a shootout along with a Massillon police officer Friday night. Less than a day after Police Officer Eric Taylor was shot and killed, about 25 agents and police officers spent more than three hours at the home of gunman Donald W. Matthews at 6688 Casper Ave. NW. At about 7 p.m., a group of agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, many wearing blue shirts and gloves, entered the two-story red brick apartment. ATF Agent...

JACKSON TWP. -- He believed that the U.S. Constitution is the governing force of the people. And he carried an imported semiautomatic military handgun. He refused to pay personal income taxes, at least three times. In a Web site posting in May 2000, Donald W. Matthews protested “unconstitutional and onerous gun laws” in the United States. He tried to gather support to petition the U.S. Supreme Court about citizens’ gun rights. His screen name was “Broom Handle.” Even so, friends of 61-year-old Jackson Township man struggled Saturday to understand what led him to flee police, bail out of his moving...

MASSILLON – The chase which ended Friday evening with the deaths of a Massillon police officer and a 61-year-old Jackson Township man began over a speeding ticket. The Ohio Highway Patrol, in a press conference Saturday morning, said Donald W. Matthews, of 6688 Casper Ave. N.W., off Portage St. near Lake O’Springs Ave., killed Massillon patrolman Eric Taylor, 31, in a shootout following the pursuit. Sgt. Jim Mizeres, who heads the Massillon detective bureau, said Massillon Ptl. Tom Solinger also was wounded in the gun battle. He was hit with a fragment of a bullet and received treatment for the...

MASSILLON (OHIO) -- A city police officer and a man he was chasing are dead, killed in a shootout at the old Agathon ballfield Friday night. Killed were Eric Taylor, 31, a four-year veteran of the Police Department, and a still unidentified suspect. “This is a major tragedy for our city,” said Mayor Francis Cicchinelli, who announced Taylor’s death at Massillon Community Hospital at about 11:45 p.m. Taylor was married, with three young children. Investigators from the Ohio Highway Patrol, Massillon Police Department and Stark County coroner’s office remained at the scene past midnight, as did the body of the...