DEA Employee Kills Himself in Field Office

A civilian employee of the federal Drug Enforcement Administration, suspected of using his computer to download child pornography, shot himself to death Sunday at the agency’s Los Angeles field office.

DEA officials said Tuesday that Charles Carlon, 41, fired a bullet into his head while alone in a room waiting to be interrogated.

He apparently died instantly.

Federal law makes it a felony punishable by five years or more in prison to download child pornography from the Internet.

A spokesman said investigators from the DEA’s Office of Professional Responsibility and the head of the agency’s Los Angeles office, Michele Leonhart, discovered Carlon’s body shortly after 11 a.m. in a training room on the 20th floor of the Roybal federal building.

A 45-caliber weapon was found beside him. The gun was Carlon’s personal property and registered in his name, the DEA spokesman said. Civilian employees are not authorized to carry weapons.

The Los Angeles County coroner’s office listed his death as a suicide.

Carlon, who lived in Long Beach, had been employed by the DEA since 1992, most recently as a computer technician.

The DEA would not comment on the investigation that preceded his suicide, except to say that it is continuing.