Gordon Wendell Kahl (January 8, 1920 – June 3, 1983) was an American World War II veteran, farmer and tax protester who was known for being a one-time member of the Posse Comitatus movement and for his involvement in two fatal shootouts with law enforcement officers in the United States in 1983.
Raised on a farm,[2] Kahl was a highly decorated turret gunner during World War II, shooting down 10 enemy planes.
[3] After the war, "he had a 400-acre (1.6 km2) farm near Heaton, Wells County, North Dakota,[4] [but] bounced around the Texas oilfields in later life as a mechanic and general worker.
"[2] In 1967, Kahl wrote a letter to the Internal Revenue Service stating that he would no longer pay taxes to the, in his words, "Synagogue of Satan under the 2nd plank of the Communist Manifesto".
[citation needed] On November 16, 1976, Kahl was charged with willful failure to file federal income tax returns for the years 1973 and 1974, under 26 U.S.C. § 7203.
[6] W. M. Rinehart died of a heart attack while in prison at the same time as Kahl, who subsequently left and never returned to the Posse Comitatus group.
Marshals attempted to arrest Kahl for violating his parole as he was leaving a Posse Comitatus meeting in Medina, North Dakota.
Three lawmen fired their weapons during the confrontation, and only one, US Marshal Carl Wigglesworth, escaped the gunfight unharmed by hiding in a ditch.
Deputy Bradley Kapp and US Marshals Robert Cheshire and Jim Hopson followed the Kahl party, while Medina police officer Steven Schnabel and US Marshals Kenneth Muir and Carl Wigglesworth moved south towards Medina in two cars to intercept the Kahl party.
Gordon Kahl, his son Yorie Von, and friend Scott Faul exited their vehicles armed with Ruger Mini-14 rifles.
One of Faul's shots hit the already wounded Cheshire a second time, and a bullet blew off Kapp's index finger.
Kahl chose not to shoot the fleeing officer, and instead turned to the fatally wounded Cheshire, who was trying to climb back inside his vehicle.
Following the gun battle, Kahl became a wanted fugitive by the FBI, and both local and federal authorities organized a massive manhunt.
Several days after the Medina shootout, a SWAT team surrounded Kahl's farmhouse in Heaton, North Dakota.
Unaware that the farmhouse had been abandoned, the SWAT team fired hundreds of shots into the home, killing Kahl's dog, and saturated the house with tear gas.
After entering the house, the SWAT team found no sign of Kahl, but discovered numerous weapons, ammunition, and white supremacist literature printed by the Posse Comitatus.
Hall and Fitzpatrick, hearing the gunfire, fired several shotgun blasts inside the house, accidentally striking Matthews in the torso with buckshot.
[16] Leonard and Norma Ginter were each additionally charged with the capital murder of Sheriff Gene Matthews in relation to the federal harboring trial in state court.
[20][21] David Ronald Broer (1939–2022) was acquitted of assaulting a police officer, but was convicted of harboring and concealing a fugitive, with conspiracy to do the same.
[24] Gordon Kahl was considered a martyr among tax protester groups, which helped disseminate his views and radicalize the movement.
[26] Linda Kahl Holder, Gordon's eldest daughter, was found dead in her car on March 6, 1984, at the age of 36, after committing suicide with a single self-inflicted gunshot wound in the head.