SEATTLE – An avowed racist illegally purchased a pistol at an Everett pawnshop that he used seven years ago in a Southern California shooting rampage that injured six and killed one, a federal court lawsuit filed Thursday alleges.
The suit also alleges that someone at the Loaner Too pawnshop on Evergreen Way later falsified and backdated a federal firearms reporting form to hide the illegal transaction.
The suit is filed in U.S. District Court against Loaner Too, which is now out of business.
Three young children, a teenage girl and an adult at a Jewish community day care were shot and wounded, and later a Filipino-born postal carrier was shot nine times and killed.
The white supremacist, Buford Furrow, now 44, was convicted and is serving a life prison term in a federal prison.
The 1999 attacks were unprovoked and the postal carrier was killed because he was not white and worked for the federal government, said Michael Withey, a Seattle lawyer who filed the suit.
Furrow pleaded guilty to murder and hate crimes, and now is serving a life prison term in Illinois.
The Loaner Too store has been closed for about two years. John St. John owned it and a downtown Loaner pawnshop, which remains open, Withey said.
St. John died in August. Employees of the downtown store referred reporters to Everett lawyer Russ Juckett, who did not return phone calls.
The suit alleges that pawnshop employees were familiar with Furrow, a convicted felon who also previously had been committed to a mental institution. He pawned a 9mm Glock 26 and another pistol in August 1998. Sometime later, Furrow reclaimed the Glock.
Withey filed the lawsuit on behalf of Ileto’s mother, Lilian Ileto, who lives in California, seeking unspecified damages.
The carrier’s brother, Ismael Ileto, and others attended a press conference Thursday in Withey’s office.
The lawyer said he became suspicious that firearm documents had been tampered with when Furrow was interviewed in prison in February 2005. Furrow then allegedly said he never signed the required firearm document.
A copy of a firearm document the pawnshop used in court in Los Angeles during an unrelated earlier civil lawsuit has Furrow’s name but somebody else’s signature, Withey said.
It also said Furrow was born in Olympia, when he actually was born in Japan. The allegedly forged document was dated Oct. 12, 1998, two months before stricter gun laws went into effect, Withey said.
The lawyer alleges the pistol was bought back from the pawnshop sometime after May 1999, months after a federal law went into effect requiring FBI background checks to buy back guns from pawnshops.
In 1999, Loaner Too manager David McGee told The Herald that Furrow pawned the Glock for $175 on Aug. 8, 1988. He also told The Herald that Furrow bought back the pistol for $195 on Oct. 12 that year – two months before the new law was enacted.
If the rules had been enforced, Furrow would have had to wait three days to retrieve his pistol. In the meantime, a background check would have found him ineligible to buy back the gun, Withey said.
“We’re asking for justice for the Ileto family,” Withey said. The gun sellers “utterly failed to protect the public’s safety.”
Federal firearms registration forms are “indispensable law enforcement tools designed to keep firearms away from people like Furrow, a neo-Nazi, mentally deranged gun nut who had openly expressed his desire to kill nonwhites,” Withey said.
Withey said he’s unaware of any criminal investigation in connection with the case, but he will make information available to authorities.
Ismael Ileto said his brother was an important part of the family of five children. He took over the father-figure role in the family when his father died.
He hopes the lawsuit will send a message to other gun dealers that they have to do their job and follow the law.
“Nothing can bring my brother back, but this might prevent other families from going through this,” Ismael Ileto said.
Reporter Jim Haley: 425-339-3447 or haley@heraldnet.com.
Talk to us
> Give us your news tips.
> Send us a letter to the editor.
> More Herald contact information.
