Delaware State Trooper Shoots and Kills Suspect after Assaulting Him and Getting into His Patrol Car

A state trooper shot and killed a man he was trying to handcuff outside a Stanton motel on Monday after the suspect attacked him with a metal radar cone ripped from the back of the trooper's patrol cruiser.

Police spokesman Cpl. Jeff Oldham said the shooting followed a trespassing complaint about 11:45 a.m. at the Days Inn, 900 Churchmans Road, which the trooper was sent to investigate.

A motel employee told the trooper a man, later identified as Sean M. Taylor, 36, was acting disorderly, and the trooper asked Taylor for identification.

He told the trooper the identification was in his truck on the other side of the building," Oldham said.

The trooper put the man in the back of the patrol car and drove him to his truck, where the trooper accompanied him to retrieve his identification, Oldham said.

Taylor began acting strangely, Oldham said, so the trooper put him back in the patrol car while checking the truck's registration.

After discovering the vehicle had been stolen in a violent March 30 home invasion robbery in Collins Park, the trooper walked to the back of the patrol car to put handcuffs on Taylor.

When the trooper opened the door, Taylor punched him in the face with the car's metal radar cone, which he had yanked off the shelf behind the car's rear seat. The blow knocked the trooper backward, and Taylor then continued beating him with the radar cone.

A witness later told police she had never seen anyone hit as hard as Taylor hit the trooper, Oldham said.

After attacking the trooper, Taylor ran toward the front of the patrol car, ignoring the injured trooper's commands to stop, Oldham said. When Taylor neared the front door of the car -- which had a loaded shotgun inside -- the trooper fired at him, Oldham said.

Taylor ran toward the motel, then collapsed.

The trooper and another officer who had arrived at the scene performed CPR on Taylor and used a defibrillator to try to revive him, Oldham said.

When paramedics arrived, however, the man was in cardiac arrest, county paramedic Assistant Chief Richard D. Krett said. Paramedics continued lifesaving efforts on the way to Christiana Hospital, where the man was declared dead.

The trooper, a four-year police veteran assigned to Troop 6, was treated at Christiana for cuts and abrasions to his head and face.

It is the second fatal shooting by a law enforcement officer in New Castle County in the past six months.

Police looking for links

Oldham said troopers have not determined whether Taylor is the person who assaulted and robbed a 44-year-old Collins Park man during the home invasion in which the truck was stolen.

During that incident, the victim awoke to find a man hitting him in the face with a crowbar. The assailant told the victim not to look in his direction or he would be killed. Then he bound the victim's hands and feet before ransacking the house in the 200 block of Blue Hen Road.

Along with the pickup truck, a cell phone, wallet, keys, a PlayStation video game system, several bottles of alcohol and a black motorcycle jacket were stolen.

The victim was treated at Christiana Hospital for facial fractures and released.

County police spokesman Cpl. Trinidad Navarro said detectives intend to process the pickup truck today to search for evidence that could link the dead man to the home invasion.

"Simply being in possession of the vehicle is not enough to identify him as the suspect," Navarro said.

People in surrounding restaurants and businesses in the busy commercial district where the shooting occurred seemed mostly oblivious. Traffic slowed on Churchmans Road, however, as people looked at the police vehicles at the scene.

A landscaper at a nearby hotel said he looked up in time to see people running for cover. He said he didn't know where the shots came from.

Shane Morgan said he was putting down mulch when he heard gunshots. "I looked up and saw people on the balcony run off."

On his way to lunch, Dan Harvischak, a truck driver from Ohio who stayed at a neighboring hotel, said he didn't realize the noises he had heard were shots.

The last time a police officer in Delaware killed someone was Oct. 19. Charles Wittland, a 73-year-old mentally ill man, was shot and killed by two officers, police said. Brian Grant, of the New Castle County police, and John Mitchell III, of the Elsmere Police Department, were cleared of any wrongdoing, police said.

Wittland was first shot with a Taser after he lunged at police with a 5-inch steak knife, police said. After Wittland didn't respond to the Taser, the officers shot and killed him.

Following divisional policy, the state trooper has been placed on administrative leave until the incident is investigated by the homicide unit and reviewed by the state Attorney General's Office.

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