The Joplin Globe, Joplin, MO

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October 5, 2009

Drive-by shooting reported in Mulberry

By Jeff Lehr

jlehr@joplinglobe.com

MULBERRY, Kan. — A man who moved away from McCune after the mayor shot and killed his dogs earlier this year reported a drive-by shooting Monday afternoon at his home in Mulberry.

The Crawford County Sheriff’s Department said in a news release that Duane Wahl, 33, reported that a man in a silver, newer model Toyota pickup truck with an extended cab shot at his home at 410 W. Perry St.

Authorities reported receiving a call about the drive-by shooting at 12:20 p.m. Wahl reportedly told Mulberry police that a man in a pickup truck had fired several shots at his home before driving off to the south.

Wahl, according to authorities, was unable to obtain license plate information on the vehicle or a detailed description of the driver. The news release said Wahl was outside his home when the shots were fired, and that at least three shots struck his house.

Wahl’s two dogs — a German shepherd and a terrier mix — were shot and killed Feb. 1 at his home when he lived in McCune. McCune Mayor Donald “Don” Call was charged with two felony counts of animal cruelty and a misdemeanor count of criminal discharge of a weapon in connection with the shootings.

The charges remain pending, with a hearing scheduled later this month.

Call told the Globe in a telephone interview Monday that he did not know anything about the drive-by shooting until his wife called to tell him it had been on local television news. He said Wahl moved out of McCune to Mulberry this past spring.

Call has maintained that he went to Wahl’s home in February in response to a call from a neighbor, Tim Gomez, who reported that Wahl’s dogs were running at large and had chased Gomez’s children into their house.

According to a police report and the mayor’s own account, Call drove to Wahl’s home at 612 Oak St. and shot the dogs with a 9 mm rifle as they lay on a sidewalk outside the home. Call maintained that he took matters into his own hands because the Sheriff’s Department had not acted on previous complaints about the dogs running loose.

Sheriff Sandy Horton has acknowledged that the Sheriff’s Department had received at least four complaints since July of last year about three German shepherds that Wahl owned running through the streets and menacing residents. Horton has said none of the complaints came from actual victims of the dogs, and that deputies were unable to locate any victims. He said that without a victim, the deputies could not make a case.

In April, McCune residents gave a show of support for their embattled mayor, re-electing him by a margin of almost 3-to-1, even though his name was not on the ballot. Call received 98 votes to defeat Debbie Rennie, who was the only candidate on the ballot in the mayor’s race. Rennie received 36 votes.

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