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A Taylor Police officer caught in a shootout in the parking lot of a Taylor townhouse complex has died and another man remains hospitalized, police confirmed.
Taylor Police Lt. Mary Sclabassi confirmed the officer died from wounds suffered in a hail of gunfire around 6 a.m. today at Coppertree Townhomes on Pine Street near Northline and Telegraph roads. She said police weren’t immediately identifying the officer while they notified relatives.

Police said they would release more information about the incident before 11 a.m. today.

Lt. John Blair said the officer is the first Taylor officer to be killed in the line of duty. He described the officer as a veteran of the force.

“We lost a real good guy today,” Blair said. “It’s a rough day. There are a lot of long faces around here.”

Blair said the other man in the shooting was at Oakwood Hospital in Dearborn, but his condition wasn’t known.

Neighbors said the cop and another man traded gunshots, perhaps more than a dozen, though Taylor Police were not commenting on details of the incident this morning.

Several neighbors said the gunshots startled them awake around 6 a.m. Neighbors including Lakesha Campbell, 23, said they saw one young man injured, handcuffed and taken away on a stretcher while another neighbor, Jerome Wadsworth, 21, said he saw an injured police officer put into an ambulance and taken from the shooting scene.

“I saw the police officer laying on the ground by his squad car” in the parking lot of the Pine Street complex, said resident Valdez Green, 20. “He was laying out there for about five minutes before backup arrived.”

There was no immediate word on the condition of the other man. Michigan State Police and officers from Allen Park and Romulus were assisting Taylor Police at the scene.

It’s the same Taylor townhouse complex where two men killed 38-year-old mother Wendy Meinke in summer 2006. Both men, Jujuan Willis and Michael Johnson, are serving time in prison.

By MATT HELMS
FREE PRESS STAFF WRITE
Source: Detroit Free Press - Link to Article

By Eric Kelderman
From The Chronicle

The U.S. Supreme Court decision on Monday that struck down handgun restrictions imposed by the City of Chicago was seen as a major victory for gun-rights advocates. Higher-education leaders, however, are optimistic that the ruling will not undermine campus bans on firearms.

The immediate effect of the Supreme Court’s opinion is that campus gun restrictions are now open to challenge in federal courts, said Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of the law school at the University of California at Irvine.

But the Supreme Court made clear that an individual’s right to bear arms does not undermine state and local government bans in public spaces, such as schools and colleges, said Mr. Chemerinsky, who spoke on a panel at the annual meeting of the National Association of College and University Attorneys that discussed Supreme Court actions affecting higher education.
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Beginning this Thursday, July 1^st, Michigan police officers will have another law to enforce. The ban on text-messaging while driving will be going into effect and there are questions on how this law is going to be enforced. Police will be able to pull over citizens solely for using their cell phones to send or look at text messages.

While text-messaging and driving will be band and can result in a $100 fine the first time, dialing a cell phone is still very legal. The similarities of the two are what are causing all the questions. How are police officers going to tell the difference between dialing a number and sending a text message?  There really is not a definite answer to that question.

Texting and driving will be a primary offense, which means the police can pull over drivers just for using cell phones. At this point it is up to the officer’s judgment as to whether the driver was texting or making a call. Either way this it will be hard to prove that a driver was texting, which will make this law hard to enforce.

Surely this isn’t going to be an easy law to enforce, but that doesn’t mean it can’t be. Overall, texting and driving is a safety issue and with this law going into effect it could mean safer roads for drivers. Still, is there going to be a way to prove this and what will happen if tickets are handed out because of confusion?

What are your thought on the topics? Is this a good law to enforce and if so what is the best way for officers to enforce it? Please feel free to leave a comment, we appreciate everyone’s input.