Furrow's Gun Originally A Police Weapon

The handgun Buford O'Neal Furrow apparently used to kill a Los Angeles postal worker was originally purchased by the Cosmopolis Police Department in Grays Harbor County.

The department bought the 9-mm Glock 26, a small-framed, easily concealed semiautomatic handgun, in 1996, Police Chief Gary Eisenhower said today.

Eisenhower said the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms contacted him earlier this week about the weapon, saying "it was in regard to a high-profile case."

Yesterday, federal authorities in California said Furrow, 37, a self-avowed racist and neo-Nazi, shot letter carrier Joseph Ileto with a Glock handgun shortly after Furrow raked a Los Angeles Jewish community-center day camp with gunfire from a 9-mm Uzi.

Federal authorities, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Furrow had obtained the Uzi from an Aryan Nations cohort in the Tacoma area about three weeks ago.

Meantime, an Everett pawnshop operator said Furrow pawned several firearms - including a Model 26 Glock handgun and an AR-15 assault rifle - in April 1998. He ultimately reclaimed the weapons in October 1998, said Jennifer Jenkins, the assistant manager of Loaner Too pawns.

After Ileto was shot, police found several weapons, body armor and hundreds of rounds of ammunition in a van Furrow purchased last week in Tacoma and a car he hijacked after the day-center shooting.

Eisenhower said his department purchased the Glock handgun in 1996 to determine whether it might be suitable for undercover work. The Model 26 is a relatively tiny handgun with a 10-round magazine.

"It turned out to be too small for our needs," Eisenhower said. A month after purchasing the gun, the department sold it to Don's Gun Shop in Aberdeen.

The chief said Don's sold the weapon a short time later to David Wright, an Aberdeen businessman and reserve police officer. Wright said he sold it last year on consignment at a gun show.

Furrow, a former security lieutenant for the racist Church of Jesus Christ Christian and Aryan Nations, was known to be an avid gun collector who once told police he always carried a handgun and several knives.

When he was arrested last October after pulling a knife on the clinical director and a counselor at the Fairfax Psychiatric Hospital in Kirkland, police found a loaded 9-mm Taurus handgun in the glove box of his truck.

Furrow pleaded guilty to second-degree assault in April this year, after which it would have been illegal for him, as a felon, to own a handgun.

Furrow has been a customer at the Loaner Too pawnshop for years, said Jenkins. But it wasn't until April 1998 that Furrow pawned several guns. Jenkins said that Furrow pawned a Taurus 9-mm handgun, a Mossberg shotgun and an AR-15 with two spare barrels.

"He never made funky gestures or said anything off the wall," Jenkins said. "It's like, my God, our hearts go out to these families."

Mike Carter's phone-message number is 206-464-3706. His e-mail address is: mcarter@seattletimes.com