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Michigan Officer Killed in Early Morning Shootout
Detroit Free Press via YellowBrix July 23, 2010
TAYLOR, MI – 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 identified the officer as 31-year-old Matthew Edwards, who leaves behind a wife and two children.
Edwards was responding to a report of a nearby breaking and entering when he encountered a male suspect, who opened fire, police said. The officer, fatally wounded, returned fire and struck the suspect, who is now in Oakwood Hospital.
Lt. John Blair said Edwards is the first Taylor officer ever 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.
City of Taylor, within Wayne County, Michigan 
A Michigan police officer was shot and killed yesterday in an early-morning exchange of gunfire. Corporal Matthew Edwards, 31, of the Taylor Police Department, was responding to a call about a  of a home in an apartment complex on Pine Street near Telegraph and Northline Roads, in , Michigan.

After arriving at the scene, the Taylor Police Department say that two of their officers observed a man trying to enter an apartment through a window.  While his partner walked towards the building, Edwards approached the suspect and began speaking to him.  The suspect pulled out a gun and shot at the officer.  Edwards and his partner then opened fire on the suspect, who police say is 36-year-old Tyress Matthews from , which resulted in a volley of bullets being exchanged.  Residents told investigators that they heard between 15 and 20 gun shots in the shootout, and saw Edwards lying on the ground near his vehicle and screaming for help for about five minutes. 

Edwards and Matthews were taken to Oakwood Hospital in , where Edwards was pronounced dead. Matthews underwent surgery, and is reported to have non-life threatening injuries.  The second officer was not injured in the incident.  The  and officers from the nearby cities of  and  are assisting the Taylor PD in investigating the incident. Taylor police Commander Dan Crowell said while the initial report was of a break-in, it was more likely a domestic disturbance. Matthews has "quite a lengthy criminal history".

Residents of the apartment complex say that crime and gunfire is a common occurrence there. "I heard the shots. There were a lot of them," Teresa Webster told the ''''. "They woke me up. But I didn't think much of them because we hear so many gunshots around here. There was a stabbing here about a month ago. And three days ago, I found a body in a car in the parking lot. We thought (a teenaged male in the front seat) was passed out, but he was dead." Another resident, Arthur White, told the Associated Press that drug use and teenage delinquency is common in the complex, while Deborah Brown has decided that the incident today has convinced her to move out, following an increase of criminal behavior in recent weeks.

Matthew Edwards, a five-year veteran of the Taylor Police Department, is survived by his wife Shannon and two children, Luke, 8, and Moriah, 6. Before returning to his hometown of Taylor in January 2005, Edwards was with the . He is the first Taylor police officer to be killed in the line of duty since it formed in the 1930s. In 2008, Edwards was named Officer of the Year by the Police Officers Association of Michigan for shooting a drunken knife-wielding man who was attempting to .