Ex-Soldier Dies After Brief Shootout With Ore. State Trooper

   

A clip of a dashboard-camera videoreleased to a newspaper Thursday by the Oregon State Police shows an exchange of gunfire between a motorist and a state trooper that ended with the motorist dead and the trooper wounded.

The motorist had three children in his car when the shooting occurred Aug. 29 on Interstate 84.

The Oregonian obtained the video as part of a public-records request and posted a clip of it online.

 

The video shows Trooper Matthew Zistel pulling over the car on I-84 and ordering a man dressed in camouflage to return to his vehicle. State police say Zistel stopped the vehicle for speeding.

The video shows the man, later identified as John Van Allen, with a gun in his hand. He assumes a firing stance.

The two exchange shots, and Van Allen is shown running past the camera, then gasping and returning to his car.

He drives away, and his three children — a 10-year-old girl, and two boys ages 13 and 15 — can be seen in the back seat of his vehicle. Van Allen was later found dead inside the car a half-mile from the scene of the shooting. An autopsy showed he died of a gunshot wound to the chest.

Zistel was treated at a hospital for a minor gunshot woundand released.

The Sherman County district attorney ruled in September that the shooting was justified. Van Allen’s three children have been placed in state custody.

Van Allen had previous addresses in South Carolinaand Pennsylvania.

His aunt Deborah Morton-Hamlet told The Oregonian that Van Allen and his children were on the freeway because he had decided to return to South Carolina, where much of his family is from.

Morton-Hamlet said Van Allen came to Portland in October 2012 in hopes of getting a new start. She said he and the children had lived with her for a while but recently moved into their own place.

Still, she said, he hadn’t been able to get a job and had decided to leave.

Morton-Hamlet said she learned of Van Allen’s death from detectives but isn’t clear on exactly what led to the shooting.

“It’s just a sad situation,” she said at the time.

SCRIPTURES

REVELATION 13:16And he causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads:

1 JOHN 2:15Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him. 16For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world. 17And the world passeth away, and the lust thereof: but he that doeth the will of God abideth for ever.

MATTHEW 26:51 And, behold, one of them which were with Jesus stretched out his hand, and drew his sword, and struck a servant of the high priest's, and smote off his ear.

52 Then said Jesus unto him, Put up again thy sword into his place: for all they that take the sword shall perish with the sword.

2 CORINTHIANS 10:3 For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war after the flesh:

4 (For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds;)

5 Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ;