Pistol Had Many Owners Before Furrow

By STEVE BERRY

Aug. 14, 1999 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

The 9-millimeter Glock semiautomatic pistol that white supremacist Buford Furrow Jr. says he used to gun down a letter carrier on a sunny Chatsworth street traveled a cross-country route from the Deep South to the far Northwest, passing through several hands until, ultimately, it came within an accused killer’s grasp.

The gun’s journey illustrated how much of the gun trade is conducted in the United States,through pawnshops, gun dealers, and largely unregulated private owners.

The 10-round Model 26 was made by Glock Inc. in Smyrna, Ga., and sold for about $450 new.

In February 1996, the manufacturer sold it to the Police Department of Cosmopolis, Wash., a town of 1,600 people about 60 miles west of Tacoma.

It then passed through at least two gun dealers and two private gun collectors, to Furrow, to a pawnshop dealer, and finally back to Furrow.

“I was like his banker,” said David McGee, owner of Loan Too pawnshop in Everett, Wash., where Furrow pawned the Glock in 1998 and reclaimed it a few days later.

“He never left them here long,” McGee, 52, said. “He liked to keep his guns near him.”

The Glock was one of seven weapons police seized from Furrow after he allegedly killed Joseph Ileto and carried out an assault on the North Valley Jewish Community Center in Granada Hills, where three children, a teenage counselor and a receptionist were wounded.

Federal and Los Angeles law enforcement authorities said he used a 9-millimeter Chinese-made Norinco rifle in the Jewish center. Earlier reports had him using an Uzi handgun.

Furrow also had with him in his van a Bushmaster .223-caliber AR-15 rifle, a Maadi rifle, two Imbel .308-caliber rifles and a .22-caliber derringer.

The Glock’s route to Furrow’s hands began when the the five-officer Cosmopolis Police Department bought it to try out as its standard service sidearm.

“But nobody cared for it, because it was too light,” Chief Gary Eisenhower said. His officers wanted a heavier weapon that had a thicker grip and carried more ammunition.

So Eisenhower traded it to the now-closed Don’s Gun Store in Montesano, Wash., which is about 10 miles east of Cosmopolis, for a bigger Glock.

“I kept it about two weeks,” said store owner Don Dineen, who later closed the business and retired. Dineen sold the Glock to an Aberdeen gun collector, David Wright, who kept it for about two years.

Wright declined to comment, in deference to federal officials’ request that he not discuss the investigation of Furrow. But Dineen said Wright used the gun mostly for target practice.

Dineen said Wright gave the gun to another Aberdeen gun collector, Andy C. Palmer, in 1998 to sell for him. Palmer dealt mostly in old guns but obtained newer guns to make deals for more collectible guns, Dineen said. Palmer would say only that he sold it to a gun dealer, declining further comment at the request of federal authorities.

Not long after Palmer sold the gun, it wound up in Furrow’s hands.

McGee said Furrow came into his pawnshop about 15 times in 1998 to pawn or retrieve weapons.

He came in with the Glock on Aug. 8, 1998, and retrieved it Aug. 18. Four days later, he came in with the barrel of the Bushmaster .223-caliber rifle that was later recovered from his van.

He pawned the barrel of the Bushmaster shortly after he reclaimed the Glock. He reclaimed the barrel in September.

McGee said that every time Furrow pawned something, he would reclaim it fairly quickly and usually buy a country music compact disc.

McGee said that if these transactions had taken place several months later, he could have refused to return the weapon to Furrow, because new provisions of the federal Brady law went into effect requiring criminal background checks on people reclaiming guns out of pawnshops.

Furrow was arrested for assault in October 1998, and convicted of the crime last April.

“That law is a great law,” McGee said. “We have denied several [owners] their guns with it. We should have had that law a long time ago.”

But that provision didn’t exist in August 1998.

So Buford Furrow took the Glock from the pawnshop and eventually carried out his mission to California.

Times staff writer Nona Yates contributed to this story.

* FACING EVIL: Shooting revives a look at the age-old question of God, good and evil. B2

* THE INTERNET: On hate-filled web sites, ‘wake-up call’ gets a volatile, divided reaction. A17

* A LOOK AT THE ARSENAL. A16

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

The Arsenal

Five assault weapons, two handguns and 7,000 rounds of ammunition were recovered from vehicles allegedly used by Buford O. Furrow Jr. Below are some of the weapons and their firing capabilities and the ammunition.

NORINCO 9-mm.

Uzi submachine gun clone

Capacity: 32 rounds

Originally designed for the Israeli Army

GLOCK 26 9-mm subcompact pistol

Capacity: 10 rounds

Originally designed for the Austrian Army

IMBEL .308- or 7.62-mm

Capacity: 20 rounds

Originally designed for the Belgian Army

DAVIS DERRINGER .22-caliber

Capacity: 2 rounds