Slain Gun Control Advocate Is Mourned

More than a week after the shooting death of prominent gun control activist Thomas C. Wales, hundreds of mourners gathered Saturday for a memorial service and vowed to remember his legacy. Police said they are “making progress” on the investigation.

“We only had to see Tom’s dedication and his commitment to ending violence to understand why people will remember him for so long,” said Seattle Police Chief Gil Kerlikowske, one of several prominent leaders and friends who spoke in memory of the 49-year-old federal prosecutor.

Rep. Jay Inslee (D-Wash.) invoked the names of Mahatma Gandhi, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Martin Luther King Jr., saying Wales’ death added “one more name to the roll call of great leaders who have been shot down by the forces of fear and ignorance.”

“Every advance in history has involved a leader who’s been willing to challenge the tyranny of the status quo, and Tom Wales was such a man,” Inslee said. “Tom could not rest with the knowledge that 10 million children will die of gun violence today, and tomorrow, and the day after that, unless our elected leaders act. By his efforts, he forced a public recognition of an ugly fact: that too many guns are getting into the hands of children and criminals.”

Wales, an assistant U.S. attorney in Seattle specializing in white-collar crime, was president of Washington CeaseFire, one of the most active gun control groups in the country. Under his leadership, the organization sponsored a controversial ballot initiative in 1997 that would have required trigger safety locks and safety training for all gun owners. Though the measure was defeated in Washington state, it served as a model for successful legislation in other states.

Wales was shot through the window of his home as he worked at his computer late on the night of Oct. 11. He managed to call 911 but was pronounced dead within hours at a Seattle hospital. A neighbor said she saw a man walking swiftly from the direction of Wales’ house in the fashionable neighborhood of Queen Anne, then driving away.

Police this week said they are “making progress” on the investigation but did not identify any suspects or possible motive.

Associates and family members say Wales’ work for 18 years as a federal prosecutor, a job that involved a number of contentious cases, could as easily be a factor in his slaying as his work with gun control issues.

In Saturday’s service at a downtown Seattle church, so full that dozens of mourners sat in an anteroom outside, Wales was portrayed as a generous, jovial man who had shunned work at a high-paying law firm in New York for a career in the U.S. attorney’s office.

Thomas C. Wales VII said his father, a member of the Seattle Planning Commission who was often considered a potential city councilman, ignored advice to measure his opinions if he aspired to public office.

“The trouble was, his principles often got in the way,” said the young Wales, recalling a commencement address his father gave in June at Edmonds Community College, north of Seattle. In that speech, Wales asserted that no one was “beyond redemption” and said it was “a mistake for the government to execute anyone, even Tim McVeigh,” who was executed by injection earlier this year for the 1995 bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City.

Wales’ Harvard University roommate, Steve Kidder, recounted that after the address, two parents approached Wales. “One told him it was the worst speech he had ever heard. The other told him it was the best speech he ever heard,” Kidder said.

Wales, he said, couldn’t decide which reaction he preferred.

“In the address, he said: ‘Life is not a dress rehearsal. It’s the main event. Don’t waste your time on the stage.’ ”

Wales’ sister, Kitty Wales, read a letter written some time ago to her brother by a former criminal defendant, on whose behalf Wales had apparently argued for leniency in 1993.

“I was in awe at the miraculous words spoken on my behalf, not by my attorney, but by you, culminating in a plea for withdrawal [of sanctions],” the letter said. The writer went on to describe how the former defendant was working, attending college and about to earn a degree with two majors, one in English literature. “In my studies, I have read little prose that matches [the words you spoke on my behalf]. To this date, your mercy brings tears to my eyes.”

The executive director of the office of U.S. attorneys, Kenneth Wainstein, read a letter from Deputy Atty. Gen. Larry Thompson, who said “the federal law enforcement community is extremely fortunate to have the benefit of Tom’s intelligence” and that Wales “exemplifies the best in public service.”

The CeaseFire Foundation this week announced the creation of a Tom Wales endowment fund with a goal of raising $2 million to further gun safety education and legislative efforts. Americans for Gun Safety has contributed $65,000.

“Pop was a dangerous man. He was dangerous to ignorance, folly and hate,” Wales’ son said. “His only armor was courage. That served him well, but [it] could not protect him in the end.”