Firearm trial opens for shooter’s father

SEATTLE – Prosecutors told jurors Tuesday that the father of the teenager who shot and killed four classmates and himself repeatedly lied on forms to illegally buy firearms. But the father’s lawyer countered the man underwent multiple background checks and was never told he was barred from having guns.

Raymond Fryberg is charged with illegally owning the handgun his son, Jaylen, used at Marysville-Pilchuck High School to kill his friends. Prosecutors say Fryberg was the subject of a 2002 domestic-violence protection order, making it illegal for him to have that handgun and nine rifles found in his possession.

During opening statements, Assistant U.S. Attorney Bruce Miyake told the jury that in addition to the original protection order, Fryberg pleaded no contest in 2012 to violating that order. He bought the guns by answering “no” to the question on a firearms form that asked if he was the subject of a protection order.

He was only caught when FBI agents tried to find the owner of the Berretta and traced it back to Fryberg, Miyake said.

The prosecutor didn’t tell jurors that the FBI was investigating the gun used in the school shooting because U.S. District Judge James Robart has prohibited any mention of the shooting during the Fryberg trial because he is not charged with what happened at the school.

But the raw emotions left from the shooting were visible in court: Fryberg’s family filled one side of the courtroom, while family and friends of shooting victims lined the other. Before the jury came in, Assistant U.S. Attorney Ye-Ting Woo said the victims’ families were warned against engaging with Fryberg’s side in front of the jury “to avoid any awkwardness.”

Fryberg’s lawyer, John Henry Browne, said neither his client nor the government knew the order existed. He listed a dozen times when law enforcement conducted background checks on Fryberg and gave him the OK.

Before Fryberg bought the guns, he applied for a concealed weapons permit, Browne said. That application triggered “one of the most intense background checks possible in this country,” he said. Searches of state and federal databases failed to find any reason to withhold the permit and the application was granted, Browne said.

On tribal hunting trips, Fryberg was stopped by game wardens who also ran his name through databases, “and they all came back negative,” Browne said. “Now we have 10 to 15 occasions where he was told by authorities he was not prohibited from having firearms.”

The problem started with the protection order, Browne said.

Fryberg’s former girlfriend, Jamie Gobin, received a temporary protection order from the Tulalip Tribal Court on Aug. 19, 2002, and a hearing was set for Aug. 27, 2002, to consider whether to make it permanent, according to testimony.

When they failed to serve Fryberg with notice of that hearing, a new one was set for Sept. 10, 2002.

Later on Aug. 27, Officer Jesus Echevarria filled out a form saying he served Fryberg with a notice about the September hearing at the “corner of Reuben Shelton Dr. & Ellison James,” Browne said, adding that address doesn’t exist. The streets run parallel to each other.

Because Fryberg, who didn’t know about the hearing, wasn’t there to challenge the domestic violence claims, the judge granted Gobin a permanent order, Browne said. The officer, who claimed he served Fryberg, is married to Gobin’s sister, Browne said. The officer filed that form even though it clearly asks: “Are you a party to this action?” Browne said.

The order instructs the tribal police to serve Fryberg with a copy and send proof of service back to the court, but none was found in the case file, he said.

At the end of the trial “you’ll have to determine if he was ever served by the brother of the woman asking for the protection order at a location that doesn’t exist,” Browne told the jury.