Rick Perry Cousin Killed: Larry Don Wheeler Shot By Sheriff's Deputies

AP -- The Texas Rangers are investigating the shooting death of a cousin of Gov. Rick Perry in a mysterious exchange of gunfire with sheriff's deputies.

An attorney for Larry Don Wheeler's estate says the 74-year-old North Texas man was sitting on his backyard deck after dinner Saturday night at his home at a Montague County country club. David Gossom says that's when sheriff's deputies responded to a disturbance call.

Montague County District Attorney Jack McGaughey says Wheeler was holding a shotgun and an officer was shot in the hand. No other details have been released, and an autopsy is pending.

Perry's office wouldn't elaborate on his relationship with Wheeler, a retired social worker listed as a member of Perry's 2006 re-election campaign steering committee.

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Comments

[myjoyy]

01:13 PM on 10/02/2009

It's sorta interesting when people can look at two separate incidents regarding the police and a citizen and draw totally different conclusions. I cannot help but think back to so many of the conments on HP regarding the Crowley-Gates incident. Some of the same people who defended the Cambridge police are now saying or implying that (maybe/perhaps) the Montague county police are at fault. Is it demographiics (TX vs CT)? Guns vs Canes? Hmm... Very interesting indeed.

[timetorevolt]

12:54 PM on 10/02/2009

He had his gun and the cops hand their guns. According to the NRA and the-more-guns-the-better-crowd, this all worked out great.

[glitterik]

11:51 AM on 10/02/2009

Was it a case of mistaken identity?

[avshanbh]

11:22 AM on 10/02/2009

He must've taken the secession talk too seriously and started the revolution all by himself.

[demimckingwoodtx]

11:04 AM on 10/02/2009

They know better than to startle an older person and at 74 years old what kind of ruckus could he have been making, this is tragic. But a cousin of Rick Perry's?

[skyreader7]

11:04 AM on 10/02/2009

I am a blue Texan living in Fort Worth and love the place. Yes, we have a large group of idiots in the state, and it is our misfortune that one of them is the governor. Still, due to demographics Texas will be turning blue soon. Once that happens the Republicans are doomed on a national level until they have an "epiphany" of major proportions. That won't happen anytime soon.

[Truelee]

10:29 AM on 10/02/2009

Get used to this story because it will be common for a long time. It's a self fulfilling prophecy: own guns to protect oneself from the government, call the police for help only to come to a shoot out, gun owner gets killed in the process because the police have a right to defend themselves making it a prophecy fulfilled.

[audadvnc]

12:14 PM on 10/02/2009

I see a whole new business opportunity opening up here...hmmm. How's this sound? For a nominal fee, we'll send your gun-toting neighbor a bottle of Jack and a threatening letter about gov't handgun confiscation. Then we'll call the police about your drunken, gun-toting neighbor, and let Nature take its course. We're the Problem Fixers! Order 1-800-RIP-GUNS ! Order today and we'll include an unsold copy of "Going Rogue" for your soon-to-be late neighbor's reading pleasure! That's 1-800-RIP-GUNS

[Tugar]

09:41 AM on 10/02/2009

TRAGIC NEWS !

[JoeBlough]

11:37 AM on 10/02/2009

But to be expected. It's us vs. them.

[CaptainFailmore]

09:40 AM on 10/02/2009

Here's an update from some time this morning, which gives a bit more meat to the story:

http://www.thaindian.com/newsportal/world/texas-governor-rick-perrys-cousin-larry-don-wheeler-shot-and-killed-by-deputies_100254923.html

To summarize, the police were responding to 911 call reporting that shots were being fired at Wheeler's home. When they arrived, Wheeler reportedly pointed a shotgun at the officers and opened fire, wounding one officer in the hand (as described in the original story above) before being fatally shot in the return volley. As yet, there's no information as to why Wheeler attacked the responding officers nor what exactly happened prior to the arrival of the police, only that according to the information available Wheeler initiated the exchange of gunfire that ultimately claimed his life.

Again, my condolences to the family, but provided that the above story is true in its entirety, Wheeler was in fact the instigator and thus responsible.

[harpen1]

09:03 AM on 10/02/2009

This is tragic. Really, not enough information has been disclosed to determine what took place during the incident.

[Lesperado]

09:02 AM on 10/02/2009

After a nice dinner, I always go out on my back porch and hang out with my shotgun, don't you?

[jimme]

09:48 AM on 10/02/2009

Only in Texas I guess.

[myjoyy]

12:56 PM on 10/02/2009

And everywhere else that you find idiots with guns.

[james4truth1066]

08:47 AM on 10/02/2009

Hopefully everyone understood I was making a joke, sorry to hear about this tragedy.

[onegandolf1]

08:19 AM on 10/02/2009

They have Social Workers in Texas?

I'da thought Texas Social Work would ammount to someone yelling "Get a job or take your illegal alien family back where you came from".

[KimoSave]

10:14 AM on 10/02/2009

thats what social work in texas is.

[DannyGee]

10:48 AM on 10/02/2009

another liberal showing us their tolerance

[BigSlick674]

03:25 PM on 10/02/2009

Hello Mr. Goulay

[Logicnotfaith]

08:07 AM on 10/02/2009

What unmitigated audacity! You left wing nuts are criticizing the entire state of Texas because an unfortunate shooting incident, meanwhile Obama's "hometown" of Chicage led the nation with over 500 murders last year, over 200 of them gang related!

[thinkingwomanmillstone]

08:18 AM on 10/02/2009

No, I'm not criticizing Texas because of this one incident. I'm criticizing Texas because of too many incidents to name and most especially because of their love of our last Criminal in Chief, W.

[Donns]

08:50 AM on 10/02/2009

No not just one incident; threats to leave the union, executing more people than everybody else - some maybe innocent. A past Governer (later appointed POTUS) mocking a woman to be executed, Tom DeLay, and the list goes on.

[Hank007]

09:41 AM on 10/02/2009

Plus they keep threatening to secede, yet refuse to actually do it, much to the chagrin of the rest of the country. Secede already!

[Rogan]

09:32 AM on 10/02/2009

"Texas is the reason that the President's dead."
- The Misfits (referring to J.F.K.)
You feel pride in "Texas" as an abstraction, you better be prepared to take the badmouthing that "Texas" as an abstraction, so richly deserves (with, of course, the exception of Austin, the town all civilised Texans settle in to take refuge from the rest of the place - which is why Austin is a cultural mecca little-known outside the deep South).

[DannyGee]

10:49 AM on 10/02/2009

you dont have a clue about Austin or Texas in general.

Generalize much?

[thinkingwomanmillstone]

08:05 AM on 10/02/2009

Guns don't kill people....Sheriff's Deputies kill people.

[SaddieMcCall]

08:36 AM on 10/02/2009

after having a police officer get shot in the hand, I doubt anyone wanted the man to have a chance to shoot again

[buddbo1]

08:55 AM on 10/02/2009

Sherriff deputies with guns !