This is what happens when corrupt Government targets certain industries for oppression. One man stood up for freedom and was gunned down for his trouble. Whether you agree with what he was doing or not, this is what tyranny brings.
Gordy Wheeler's strip clubs, bars, restaurants — and prostitution stings at his business — made him a regular visitor to the halls of Morrison County government, its courtrooms and its public record.
So it was only slightly unusual that Wheeler, dressed in long underwear, bib overalls and a Camp Bar cap, sat quietly in the audience as county commissioners started to put the wraps on their meeting that sweltering June day.
More unusual was that the board's agenda that day contained no business regarding Wheeler. The county and Wheeler first bumped heads in 1982, and met numerous times in contentious commission meetings and court hearings during the next 25 years. The legal docket had been lopsided and not in Wheeler's favor.
A jury convicted him of promoting prostitution, and he spent thousands in legal fees and fines to pay for civil actions brought against him by the county for zoning and health violations. Now banks had taken one business and a letter informed him they would claim the other.
At 60, he had slipped into financial ruin and blamed a vast government conspiracy targeted at him and his businesses.
As commissioners considered a motion to adjourn the June 24 meeting, Wheeler calmly rose to his feet. Before the vote could be taken, and the public record closed, Wheeler cocked the hammer of a 9 mm Beretta pistol.
He had brought his business to the board that day, and they were going to listen.
"What are we going to do about the Camp Store, boys," Wheeler asked, "and all the corruption?"
What followed were the last 21 minutes of the life of Gordon Kenneth Wheeler Sr. A man universally described as litigious but respectful, hard-headed but thoughtful, would hold those four commissioners and three other county officials hostage, forcing three law enforcement officers to make their most difficult professional decisions.
It was a desperate choice and a violent end for a nonviolent man whose family watched him tire from defeat after defeat. His countless battles with the county over his businesses, accompanying liquor licenses and criminal activity left him with nothing to lose, he told commissioners that day.
They had taken everything from him and couldn't put it back, he said, as he held the gun to the head of the county administrator. As his options dwindled, the walls squeezing in on him for years had begun to collapse.
Making money
Gordy was a local boy who learned early how to make a quick buck.
He and his brother, Don, were youngsters when they would hitchhike from the Little Falls area to Camp Ripley and shine shoes for soldiers.
Gordy enlisted in the Navy Reserves in 1966, when he was in high school, and he served on the USS America before being honorably discharged in October 1970.
He worked for a time in the Twin Cities but always wanted to return to start a business in the Ripley area. In 1981, he got his chance when he bought Camp Bar, a bar within walking distance for soldiers at the camp.
With an eye to the fast buck that could be made from all those soldiers, Wheeler offered lingerie nights, then topless dancing.
It wasn't long before it prompted citations for indecent exposure at the bar.
An ally in the early days of Wheeler's clashes in court was Judge George Wetzel, father of Michel Wetzel, who is now Morrison County sheriff.
It was Judge Wetzel who dismissed indecent exposure charges against Wheeler, when he determined that laws at the time didn't allow the township to enact ordinances against nude dancing.
It was a decision that kept Wheeler's bar in the business of nude dancing, a polarizing and politically divisive issue at the time.
"They came after him immediately," said his son, Gordy Jr. "And over the years, they beat him down with everything because they couldn't close him down the first time."
Don Wheeler, Gordy Sr.'s brother, sees it the same way.
"It seemed like every time he turned around and went to the county for a permit to do this or that, it always seemed like they gave him a hard time."
Building problems
Gordy didn't always abide by the terms of permits, though, and when he built an addition to the Camp Bar under the guise of it being a "storage shed," the county tried to halt construction.
Wheeler completed the structure in 2001 and applied for an after-the-fact land-use permit for a walkway to connect the two.
The county denied the request. Wheeler ignored the county's letters and built it anyway.
In late 2001 or early 2002, Wheeler began operating the Krazy Rabbit sports bar adjacent to the Camp Bar.
At about the same time, the county imposed a one-year moratorium on new adult businesses, which eventually was extended to two years.
Wheeler saw it as a direct attack and pushed back. As the moratorium was about to expire in November 2003, Wheeler tried to open Lookin' Fine Smut and Porno near Swanville.
"They had been on his case so bad," said Don Wheeler. "How did he rebel? He brought in X-rated magazines. That was his attitude. 'You don't like it, fine. Then I'll bring in this stuff.' That was his logic in trying to deal with them when everything else had failed."
He never got Lookin' Fine open, and days later, the county amended its adult- use ordinances and imposed setback requirements that Wheeler and his attorney argued were tailored to prohibit only Wheeler's business.
"He gives the county board a bunch of grief and then they deny him permission to develop his main property (at Camp Ripley) the way he wants to, so he writes a letter to the county board saying he intends to open a second use," said Randall Tigue, Wheeler's lawyer. "And within two weeks, the county board passes a moratorium saying no new adult uses anywhere in the county. He was about to develop a perfectly legal use at his existing location. The county rewrites the ordinance … to make it just large enough so his proposed use is prohibited."
The county also used septic system health ordinances to prevent Wheeler from operating Lookin' Fine.
Above law
In April and August 2005 Wheeler would be arrested twice in a five-month period in prostitution stings at Camp Bar. A Morrison County jury convicted Wheeler on charges from one of the arrests and found him not guilty on the other.
"The one thing you could get definitely from Gordy during his testimony (at trial) is that Gordy seemed to think he was ever-so-slightly above the law — not Nixon-above-the-law type of thing — but that he was just clever enough to do everything he had to to skirt the edge, and that he was smarter than we were," said Todd Kosovich, the assistant county attorney who prosecuted the prostitution cases.
Listen to prosecutor Todd Kosovich discuss his perception of Gordy Wheeler Sr. in court."He couldn't imagine why we were bothering him. This is a guy who really doesn't care what the rules are."
The rules weren't applied evenly to all county residents, Wheeler's family said. In fact, they argued that certain anti-nudity laws were tailored for Wheeler's businesses alone.
Wheeler spent several weeks in jail for the prostitution conviction, which also branded him a felon. As such, he couldn't get a liquor license.
The legal losses piled up. "He felt he was victimized by bigoted government officials, and the judiciary turned a blind eye," Tigue said.
Morrison County wasn't out to get Wheeler, said former County Administrator Tim Houle, who left in July to take the same position in Crow Wing County.
"They were out to have him follow the same rules that everybody else is expected to follow," Houle said. "It was never about being moralistic about what he did."
If Wheeler had followed those rules, he likely would still be in business, Houle speculates. "But he saw it as an effort to persecute, so he resisted at every turn."
Listen to Tim Houle: "He continued to lose the significant issues..."Pushing limits
The legal and financial losses piled up and weighed on Wheeler, said his wife, Kathy.
"Gordy was pretty spunky. And toward the end, I used to watch him. He'd be walking around out there," she said, motioning to the land outside their house, "and I thought to myself, 'My God they've just brought him down to, like, a little old man.'"
Listen to Kathy Wheeler discuss the toll the legal losses took on her husband.Don Wheeler, who like Gordy Sr. was battling diabetes, could also see the changes. He recalls watching Gordy's nervous habit of bouncing his foot off the ground when he sat.
"I saw that it was getting worse. He couldn't stop the leg from moving," Don Wheeler said. "I knew this was eating at him."
Nobody who knew Wheeler saw a violent side to him. Kosovich, who prosecuted the prostitution case, thought Wheeler "would litigate us to death" rather than resort to violence. "I didn't expect he'd bring a gun," Kosovich said.
Listen to prosecutor Todd Kosovich talk about Wheeler's nonviolent nature.
Neither did Kathy and Gordy Jr.
"He was no different that morning than he was any other morning," Kathy Wheeler said. "He was not different the day before or the day before that or the day before that. He was Gordy.
"Let's face it. We knew he was down in the dumps. You can't deny that. He was losing everything. (But) we could sit around and talk, and we would laugh, and kids would come over and we would have fun."
Tigue says he also wouldn't have predicted Wheeler's actions. "I guess there's limits on how much persecution a guy can take."
Targets
Commissioner Tom Wenzel had known of Wheeler for three decades.
That June day in the boardroom, Wheeler recalled a visit he once paid to Wenzel's Randall farm to discuss his business issues.
Wheeler was never rude or threatening, Wenzel said.
During a 10-minute board recess earlier in the day, Wenzel passed Wheeler on the stairs as he headed to the restroom. He noticed the red bandanna in Wheeler's hand.
Wenzel said good morning.
There he is, Wheeler replied.
When Wenzel reached the bottom of the stairs, he looked back up.
Wheeler was staring down at him.
The bandanna concealed the handgun that Wheeler soon would be waving around the boardroom.
"I think the first thing that hit me is that this cannot be happening. Shock and disbelief is what I felt," County Attorney Brian Middendorf said. "He's simply not a violent person. He's never been a violent person, has no history of violence."
It surprised Houle as well.
"I think we were aware that the walls around Gordon had continued to get smaller and smaller and smaller," Houle said. "That said, he had given absolutely no previous indication of a tendency toward violence ... I kind of liked Gordon. I didn't agree with Gordon, but he was never disagreeable."
Middendorf had even helped Wheeler once, after a man was convicted of assaulting Wheeler.
Wheeler was seeking restitution from the man, and Middendorf asked Wheeler questions during a hearing to determine what the man owed Wheeler.
Now Wheeler was holding a gun near the heads of Middendorf and Houle and the county was a target.
In an interview this month, Middendorf declined to discuss his thoughts and feelings at that moment. It's not something he wants to dwell on, he said, and not something he cares to discuss with the media — or privately.
But his words to a Bureau of Criminal Apprehension investigator in the hours after the standoff ended capture the desperation and fear inside the boardroom that day.
"I thought about my family," Middendorf told BCA Senior Special Agent Brian Marquart, "and my wife and my daughter and … how this could be the last day of my life. I thought about dying, and those were the two things that kept circling in my mind."
"My place was beneath you, but now I am above and now I send you a message of love. I know I'm headed for the bottom but I'm riding you all the way." -- Soundgarden.
