On October 10, 2021, a man fired a Mossberg MC2c pistol inside the Seventh Street Truck Park bar in downtown St. Paul, Minnesota. Two other men fired back. When it ended, a 27-year-old woman was dead, and 14 people were wounded.1Affidavit of Kylie Williamson, Minnesota v. Fleet Farm, 4-5, https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/65640782/223/7/state-of-minnesota-v-fleet-farm-llc/; Stephen Montemayor, “The Life of a Gun,” Minnesota Star Tribune, July 14, 2023, https://www2.startribune.com/st-paul-truck-park-bar-mass-shooting-tracing-gun-texas-twin-cities/600289509/.
Ten weeks earlier, Jerome Horton purchased that Mossberg pistol, along with two other handguns, at the Fleet Farm in Blaine, Minnesota.2Affidavit of Kylie Williamson, Minnesota v. Fleet Farm, 6. Horton bought 24 handguns from four Fleet Farm stores between June 15 and October 17, 2021, including eight in a single week.3Id, 9; Memorandum Opinion and Order, Minnesota v. Fleet Farm, 6-7, https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/65640782/249/state-of-minnesota-v-fleet-farm-llc/. Of those purchases, 22 were in 9mm caliber.4Id. Horton frequently paid in cash and Fleet Farm loyalty rewards redemptions,5Deposition of Michelle Granato, Minnesota v. Fleet Farm, 189-194, https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/65640782/148/3/state-of-minnesota-v-fleet-farm-llc/ and Fleet Farm employees observed him on the phone while shopping, discussing what to buy with others.6Stephen Montemayor, “The Life of a Gun.”
Newly unsealed documents show that Fleet Farm had a chance to stop the sale involving the Mossberg pistol. That evening, the store’s operations manager flagged the pattern — the third multiple-gun purchase in nine days — and asked coworkers if any company policy capped how many firearms one customer could buy and if the sale looked like a straw purchase.7See Fleet Farm documents, 1-2, https://smokinggun.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/Fleet-Farm-Documents.pdf. Finally, he emailed the corporate compliance team asking whether the company should stop selling to Horton. No one answered.8Fleet Farm documents, 3; Plaintiff’s Memorandum in Opposition to Motion for Summary Judgment, Minnesota v. Fleet Farm, 15, https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/65640782/220/state-of-minnesota-v-fleet-farm-llc/.
Following the violence perpetrated with these weapons, Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison worked upstream from Horton, and other straw purchasers like him, to investigate the licensed gun dealers selling them weapons. In October 2022, Ellison sued Fleet Farm, alleging negligence, negligent entrustment, public nuisance, and violations of the Minnesota Gun Control Act. After the company unsuccessfully argued that the case should be dismissed, the parties engaged in three years of discovery — including depositions, expert reports, and summary judgment motions with hundreds of exhibits. Shortly before the trial was set to begin in March 2026, the parties filed a consent judgment instead. While Fleet Farm did not admit liability, the company agreed to pay $1 million to the state and implement changes to gun sales practices at its Minnesota stores.9Consent Judgment, Minnesota v. Fleet Farm, https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.mnd.203921/gov.uscourts.mnd.203921.256.0.pdf.
KEY Documents Reflect Warnings That Went Unanswered
This week, on August 19, Ellison, survivors, and other key stakeholders held a press conference to announce the unsealing of more documents in the case that will be housed by the Industry Documents Library at the University of California, San Francisco, providing a rare opportunity to look behind the counters of gun dealers at internal incident reports, sales records, corporate training materials, and depositions. Taken together, the documents show a company that continued to make sales despite clear indicators of straw purchasing, and whose systems were not built to recognize straw purchasing spread across stores. Here are five of those unsealed documents worth reading.
1. Fleet Farm Incident Report
On February 25, 2022, Cory Klebs, the operations manager at Fleet Farm’s Blaine location, entered a narrative into the store’s loss-prevention file recounting a July 31, 2021, sale to Jerome Horton. The record lists Horton under “Suspect Information” and itemizes 11 firearms and a box of ammunition, totaled at $5,463.88.10Fleet Farm documents, 1.
The narrative describes what Klebs did before approving the sale. Notably, Klebs observed that the transaction was flagged for a multiple sales report filed four days earlier, which he described as “odd.” He asked an assistant manager whether any company policy limited how many firearms one customer could buy in a given period, and was told there was none. He asked the salesperson whether there was reason to suspect a straw purchase, and, despite the quantity of guns purchased in such a short timeframe, was told no.11Fleet Farm documents, 2. Klebs authorized the sale, which included the Mossberg pistol used in the Seventh Street Truck Park bar shooting 71 days later.
2. The COMPLIANce EMAIL
After completing the sale to Horton, Klebs emailed Michelle Granato, one of two firearms compliance employees at Fleet Farm’s corporate office, and copied the Blaine store’s assistant manager. He stated that Horton had bought at least six pistols from that store between July 23 and July 31, 2021, attached the transaction records and multiple sales reports triggered by those sales, and asked whether the company should stop future sales to him.12Fleet Farm documents, 3-15.
According to court filings, Granato did not reply to the email or take any other action. During her deposition, she testified that she had no recollection of receiving the email.13Plaintiff’s Memorandum in Opposition to Motion for Summary Judgment, Minnesota v. Fleet Farm, 15, https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/65640782/220/state-of-minnesota-v-fleet-farm-llc/. Over the following 11 weeks, Fleet Farm sold Horton 11 additional handguns.14Id.
3. The Compliance Webinar
By October 2021, Horton’s suspicious purchases had caught the attention of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), and the ATF informed Fleet Farm that Horton was a suspected straw purchaser.15Affidavit of Kylie Williamson, Minnesota v. Fleet Farm, 6. Weeks later, Granato and another compliance team member, Mike Radl, presented at the company’s quarterly all-store firearms compliance webinar,16Fleet Farm documents, 23-44. which included a slide with screenshots of two multiple sales reports filed in connection with sales to Horton.17Fleet Farm documents, 28. They are also the reports that Klebs had attached to his July 31 email,18Fleet Farm documents, 8 and 14. which Granato later testified she did not recall receiving.19Plaintiff’s Memorandum in Opposition to Motion for Summary Judgment, Minnesota v. Fleet Farm, 15, https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/65640782/220/state-of-minnesota-v-fleet-farm-llc/.
In other words, Fleet Farm built a training exercise out of a warning it had not acted on. Among the firearms listed in the multiple sales report is the Mossberg sold to Horton and recovered from the Truck Park bar shooting a month before the webinar. Beneath the screenshots, a caption reads, “Does anyone else find this suspicious?”
A video recording of the webinar shows that when Granato presented this slide, she told staff, “They’re coming in. They’re buying 9 millimeters, handguns. It appears to be pretty obvious what’s going on here.” The two forms Granato held up as an obvious example of straw purchasing were the same two forms she had received from Klebs on July 31 and never answered.20Fleet Farm documents, 48-49.
4. Granato’s Depositions
Granato was deposed twice — once in June 202421Fleet Farm documents, 45. and a second time that September22Plaintiff’s Memorandum in Opposition to Motion for Summary Judgment, Minnesota v. Fleet Farm, 15, https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/65640782/220/state-of-minnesota-v-fleet-farm-llc/. — only because the Blaine Incident Report containing Kleb’s notes surfaced 11 days before discovery closed and the court reopened her deposition to cover it.23Plaintiff’s Memorandum in Support of Motion to Further Modify Amended Pretrial Scheduling Order and Compel Discovery, Minnesota v. Fleet Farm, 5-8, https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/65640782/135/state-of-minnesota-v-fleet-farm-llc/; Transcript of Motion Hearing, Minnesota v. Fleet Farm, 28-32, https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/65640782/152/state-of-minnesota-v-fleet-farm-llc/.
Asked in June whether she knew who Cory Klebs was, Granato answered that she did not. Asked in September about his July 31 email, she testified that she had no recollection of receiving it or responding to it.24Plaintiff’s Memorandum in Opposition to Motion for Summary Judgment, Minnesota v. Fleet Farm, 15, https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/65640782/220/state-of-minnesota-v-fleet-farm-llc/.
The testimony that matters most, though, concerns what Fleet Farm’s policy actually required once a customer had been identified as a suspected straw purchaser. Klebs had asked that question, too, in a November 2021 email sent to Radl and later forwarded to Granato: Is there a waiting period, or is such a customer barred from buying again?25Fleet Farm documents, 62.
Granato testified that she was not aware of a waiting period or automatic ban on purchasing as part of company policy.26Fleet Farm documents, 62. Radl’s written answer to Klebs, which was read into the record, was that the customer could return and buy a completely different firearm, and that Fleet Farm could lawfully sell to him if employees believed that purchase was not a straw purchase: “So it is not black and white.”27Fleet Farm documents, 62.
During her deposition, Granato was confronted with Fleet Farm’s own point-of-sale receipts showing that Horton predominantly paid in cash for his firearms.28Fleet Farm documents, 65-67. Paying in cash is a well-known indicator of straw purchasing. The ATF and National Shooting Sports Foundation, the gun industry’s trade association, identify it as a red flag along with buying multiple identical firearms over a short period of time and taking directions from someone else during the transaction.
The receipts also showed that Horton used Fleet Farm loyalty rewards to discount the total prices for the firearms. Granato confirmed that customers accrue points by spending more money. Thus, Fleet Farm could view Horton’s loyalty point total at any register as he purchased 24 handguns across four locations in four months.29Fleet Farm documents, 65-67. The company had cross-store customer tracking — but apparently only for marketing, not compliance. In other words, Fleet Farm automated the tracking that it could monetize, but failed to develop the systematic tracking that could have stopped the man who armed the Truck Park bar shooter.
5. The Employee-Assisted Straw Purchase
On October 29, 2021, a Fleet Farm district manager emailed Radl and the company’s senior human resources manager regarding the Ankeny, Iowa, store. An employee had reported anonymously that the sporting goods team lead brought a friend to the store to purchase a firearm, but the friend was denied by the federal background check system. The Fleet Farm employee then instructed him to have his wife make the purchase instead.30Fleet Farm documents, 17. The background check forms attached to the email indicate that the wife purchased two Heckler & Koch pistols.31Fleet Farm documents, 18-22.
The district manager later found that the husband had previous charges for assault and domestic violence. In that email, the manager also noted that the same employee had recently transferred a firearm before receiving a background check response and retrieved it by telling the customer it was subject to a recall.32Fleet Farm documents, 17.
In other words, a Fleet Farm employee circumvented the background check system when it functioned as intended, denying a sale to a person prohibited from purchasing a firearm due to pending or prior convictions for domestic violence or assault. Yet the employee helped the prohibited purchaser illegally obtain a firearm. The stakes are well documented: Access to a firearm makes it five times more likely that a woman will be killed by an abusive male partner. Every month, more than 70 women are shot and killed by an intimate partner on average.
The record does not disclose whether Fleet Farm disciplined or fired the employee, whether it reported the incident to ATF, or whether any charges followed.