Marysville Shooter's Dad Charged With Buying Guns Illegally

The father of a Tulalip Tribes teenager was charged Tuesday with illegally possessing the gun his son used to kill four classmates at Marysville-Pilchuck High School.

The FBI said in found that the father, Raymond Fryberg, lied on federal documents when he purchased five guns from a Marysville gun dealer – including the pistol used in the school shooting on Oct. 25, 2014.

Read the federal complaint

Fryberg, 42, bought the guns at Cabelas, a sporting goods store on the outskirts of the reservation, between January 2013 and July 2014. When he bought those firearms, he was required to fill out a form as part of the background check process. He wrote that he wasn’t subject to a restraining order, when in fact he was.

In 2002, Fryberg's girlfriend at the time, the mother of one of his children, said that he had threatened her and in the past assaulted her -- hitting and slapping her and pulling her hair. A permanent protection order eventually was issued.

In September 2012, Fryberg pleaded no contest to a charge of violating that order.

Why the restraining order wasn't flagged in a background check by Cabela's is unclear. Officials are looking into whether the order was included in the federal database that is used for gun background checks.

“There is a much larger problem going on for many years with the federal database,” said Laura Cutilletta, a senior staff attorney at the Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence.

That’s because the federal government cannot require that states submit records – the feds can only encourage. That means it’s up to states to mandate that records be submitted to the FBI.

Washington state has a good track record of submitting records to the FBI, Cutilletta said.

On Oct. 25, Fryberg’s 15-year-old son, Jaylen, obtained his Beretta model PX4 and brought it to school. He killed four of his classmates and wounded one in the school cafeteria. He then killed himself.

After the shooting at Marysville-Pilchuck, investigators searched Jaylen’s room. They saw a large gun safe, which was locked. Because they didn’t know that Fryberg wasn’t allowed to buy guns, they didn’t look inside.

A Cabela's spokesman said a background check was performed for this transaction.