Details continue to emerge in Soles' case

Police often at Soles’ home

By Michael Biesecker

In the four years before state Sen. R.C. Soles Jr. shot a man at his house in August, records show Tabor City police officers responded to at least 40 emergency calls to Soles’ home and law office.

Some of the incidents were routine, such as an alarm being set off accidentally or someone dialing 911 and then hanging up.

But dozens of the calls involved circumstances such as neighbors hearing gunshots and screams, attempted burglaries, loud arguments, reported assaults and complaints of young people on mopeds circling Soles’ house.

At the time of the shooting, agents with the State Bureau of Investigation were already inquiring about Soles’ relationships with several young men with long criminal records. …

In a two-week stretch in September 2008, records show police were called to the Soles’ home seven times.

“We have some locations with more,” Tabor City Police Chief Donald Dowless said Thursday when asked about the frequency of emergency calls at Soles’ sprawling waterfront home. “We have some with a whole lot less, too.”

The SBI is now probing the Aug. 23 incident during which Soles, 74, shot Thomas Kyle Blackburn, 22. Blackburn’s wound was not life-threatening and Cheshire said the senator acted in self-defense.

Tapes of 911 calls and police incident reports show law enforcement officers have repeatedly been called to intervene in incidents involving Soles.

In March, for example, a man called Columbus County 911 dispatchers to report that two men were at Soles’ office, loudly cursing the senator, who was in his car. “He needs help,” the caller said. “This happens all the time. I know he’s had problems.”

Soles, a Democrat whose district stretches through a sparsely populated area near the South Carolina line, did not respond to messages seeking comment Thursday. …

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