Fleet Farm enacts sweeping policy changes, pays $1M to settle Minnesota attorney general straw gun buyer lawsuit

The state of Minnesota announced it has won significant policy changes and a $1 million settlement from Fleet Farm over disregarding warning signs and selling guns to “straw buyers,” including one man whose illegal purchase played a role in a downtown St. Paul mass shooting several years ago.

The agreement between the Attorney General’s Office and the retailer, based in Appleton, Wis., came in a consent decree filed on Feb. 24 in U.S. District Court, nearly 3½ years after the state sued Fleet Farm.

“I took Fleet Farm to court after the company put the lives of Minnesotans in danger by ignoring clear warning signs and selling guns to straw buyers,” read a statement from Attorney General Keith Ellison. “The warning signs that Fleet Farm ignored were so clear that Fleet Farm themselves went on to use those sales as examples of obvious red flags in internal trainings.”

While the consent decree includes policy changes and a monetary payout by Fleet Farm, the filing also notes that it “is not an admission of liability by Fleet Farm. Fleet Farm continues to deny the attorney general’s allegations.”

The Minnesota Star Tribune has contacted the retailer’s legal counsel to ask why the company signed a settlement instead of continuing to challenge the lawsuit.

The company’s attorneys responded with a statement that read, “We are pleased to have reached a resolution with the Minnesota Attorney General’s Office on this matter. We condemn gun violence and remain committed to partnering with law enforcement and community leaders to help keep our communities safe.”

At the time the suit was filed, Fleet Farm spokesman Jon Austin said the stores “comply with all applicable gun laws and devote substantial resources to training and compliance.”

The suit was filed about a year after a Minneapolis man illegally bought and resold one of the pistols used during a mass shooting in October 2021 at the Seventh Street Truck Park bar in St. Paul that left a woman dead and more than a dozen other people wounded.

The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) traced the gun to Jerome Horton, who had bought it and two others at a Fleet Farm.

Starting in June 2021, Horton bought 33 guns, including many that investigators say he illegally sold to others, according to an ATF affidavit. He was convicted and sentenced to slightly more than two years in prison.

Once the court signs off on the consent decree, as anticipated, the Attorney General’s Office can make public Fleet Farm documents it received in the course of the legal action that include “warnings a store manager raised about straw sales, which Fleet Farm ignored,” Ellison’s office said in announcing the settlement.

Those warnings from a Blaine store manager included concerns about guns being bought by Horton.

Straw purchases are illegal under Minnesota and federal law, but investigators say they can be difficult to identify while balancing the rights of legal gun owners.

Among the more prolific straw buyers was Sarah Jean Elwood of Crystal. She purchased nearly 100 guns for others at Fleet Farm and other stores across the Twin Cities.

Law enforcement said it found numerous Elwood-purchased guns connected to shootings within weeks of her buying them. She sold many of the guns, from handguns to AR-15s, to a black-market dealer.