Editor’s note: This story includes graphic details about suicide and gun violence.
The sound of sporadic gunshots hung in the air on a Sunday afternoon in September 2017 at the outdoor pistol area at Whatcom County’s Plantation Rifle Range.
Just two shooters were practicing at the firing line, with large wooden benches between them and the targets across a field. One man, stationed in the booth farthest away from where employees and safety officers kept a close watch on the range, made his way through a new box of about 50 rounds. He had bought the ammunition and rented his gun — a Glock 17 9mm pistol — from county employees staffing the facility that day.
The 42-year-old man from Kirkland, who employees said had next to no experience with firearms, had driven more than 70 miles to shoot at Plantation that afternoon. At his booth, he placed his rented pistol, his wallet and his keys on the bench — unusual behavior, staff observed.
“It was clear that they were a very inexperienced person,” recalled Tim Surratt, a National Rifle Association-certified firearms instructor and former volunteer at the range. “I noticed he would shoot a little bit, and then would just stop.”
Surratt, who volunteered as a range safety officer at Plantation for about a decade, inquired if the man was OK or needed help. The man declined, saying everything was fine, and Surratt began making his way back to his seat. Before he could reach his chair, the man moved from the back of the shooting bench to the front.
There, he put the pistol to his right temple and pulled the trigger.
The aftermath
In the hours that followed, employees put the range under a cease-fire, prohibiting shooting. They kept the winding road to the range clear for emergency responders and law enforcement and tried to provide emergency medical care. The man’s wounds were too severe.
The Whatcom County Sheriff’s Office took statements from range employees and the other shooter on the line and collected evidence. Later, the man’s death was ruled a suicide by the county medical examiner’s office.
Beneath his wallet and keys, the man had left a note for law enforcement with instructions to care for his dog, Dakota, left in his car in the lot that afternoon. Dakota was brought to the Whatcom County Humane Society, and was picked up by a family member the next day.
Today, the facility is temporarily shuttered while the county manages decades of environmental neglect, caused by 50 years of unmanaged shooting at the outdoor ranges and a failing air filtration system at the indoor range.
In 2017, a man died by suicide at the small bore outdoor range. (Hailey Hoffman/Cascadia Daily News)
The 2017 suicide was not the first at Plantation, owned and operated by Whatcom County Parks & Recreation since the early 1970s.
In January 2009, a 25-year-old man from Coquitlam, British Columbia, visited the range, rented a handgun, then shot himself. In 2010, a 34-year-old Bellingham woman did the same, after firing a few rounds into a target. It’s unclear if previous similar incidents have occurred as older records were not available prior to publication.
Michael McFarlane, the county parks director at the time of the 2017 incident, said suicides were infrequent at the range, and existing policy prevented rentals to minors or anyone believed to be under the influence of drugs and alcohol.
That existing policy, volunteers and employees said, was insufficient.
“We looked at people coming in, but we were not keyed in to what the behaviors might be that a person might exhibit if they were extremely depressed,” Surratt said in a recent interview. “All the signs were there for this individual — we just weren’t looking for it.”
The rental policy, which remains in place today, does not require shooters to provide proof or evidence of education and safety courses. It also does not prohibit solo shooters from renting firearms.
Existing policy
The county’s current “standards of practice” for rentals at the range consist of just one front-and-back page. The guidelines instruct county employees to ask questions about a renter’s shooting history. They also require the renter to be over age 21 and they go on to note “red flags” to look for before and after renting a gun.
Those red flags include a person repeating themselves, exhibiting “over confidence,” slurred speech, or appearing to be “shaking in their boots.”
The document encourages employees to steer new shooters toward a specific caliber gun and to “give them as much or as little orientation that you think they need (first time vs. skilled).” It also tells employees to “watch ‘em like a hawk until you are comfortable with their safe gun handling skills.”
The document includes little guidance specific to solo shooters — a major oversight, Surratt said.
About that, the guidelines only say: “If they are by themselves, is there any indication they could intend to do harm to themselves/attempt suicide,” including avoiding eye contact.
The guidelines suggest a session should end with information about educational classes and a final, “I hope to see you again sometime soon.”
(Document courtesy of Whatcom County Plantation Rifle Range)
In years following the 2017 incident, Surratt pushed the county to update its regulations and requirements for gun rentals at the facility. Though he spent about a decade between 2010 and 2020 teaching courses and volunteering at the facility, he had not seen the standards of practice in written form as obtained by Cascadia Daily News.
Even so, he said, the range made it too easy for those experiencing mental health crises to rent weapons, and limited staffing at the facility meant they couldn’t keep a close eye on shooters.
Surratt, who volunteered as a range safety officer, has significant firearm training from the NRA and has received mental health training from the National Alliance on Mental Illness.
One of the biggest risks at Plantation, he said, was the decision to continue renting to solo shooters with no experience.
“To my knowledge, few, if any, other ranges in the region rent firearms to an individual alone,” he said. “The only condition on which to rent to someone alone is if you walk in with a firearm of your own.”
An alternative to lead
As Whatcom County faces a multi-year, million-dollar cleanup of lead at the Plantation Rifle Range and the shuttering of the popular local gravel pit, shooters are wondering: Are there green ammo alternatives?
Alternatives to the traditional lead bullets, the culprit of decades of environmental degradation near Plantation and other popular shooting spots, are out there, and mandatory in some places, the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife said, as lead shot is banned in some areas of the state.
Hunters, target and rec shooters must use alternative ammo, like steel and bismuth, when hunting several species of waterfowl, turkey and big game, the department said.
Steel is a popular alternative, the department said, and recreational shooters and hunters can learn more about it at department-sponsored educational courses.
Repeatedly, Surratt reached out to McFarlane and county parks operations manager Christ Thomsen with his concerns, he said.
In November 2018, Surratt addressed Thomsen in an email with feedback and safety concerns, including a shortage of full-time staffing, at the range. The response, he said, was lacking.
“I was relatively insistent that they should not rent to standalone individuals,” he said this year, referencing several emails he sent following the 2017 incident. “The only response I got back was, ‘No, we don’t think that’s a good idea.’”
Thomsen said reopening the range gives the county an opportunity to review existing policies and procedures, which have changed minimally since he joined the staff in 2014.
“At the time [2017], we did look at them and … we decided not to change our practices, and it’s time to revisit it again today,” he said in April. “I don’t recall all the details, but it was looking at risk, practices in Washington state, practices nationwide, and the decision at that time was to not implement that policy change.”
McFarlane, who led the department since 2003, retired in June last year. He was replaced by current Parks Director Bennett Knox, who took the helm in September. Knox inherited a sundry of old projects across the department’s 16,000 acres of land.
The projects at Plantation, though, dwarf others. After five decades of neglect at the facility, a $1.3 million lead cleanup and a separate $1.07 million renovation have completely closed the facility to the public due to ongoing contamination concerns. Frequent users of the range, including employees and volunteers like Surratt, were exposed to high levels of lead in the air.
Rewriting standards of practice
Prior to reopening the indoor range, though, county staff say they plan to update rental regulations, particularly related to solo renters.
“We do have policies governing gun rentals, but we are going to be updating policies before we resume operations at the indoor range,” Tom Chisholm, a regional parks supervisor for the county, said in an email. “We will be drawing on tested policies that have greatly reduced tragic incidents at ranges that offer gun rentals.”
A majority of rifle ranges in Washington have strict regulations for gun rentals, and won’t rent to solo shooters without proof of firearm ownership, Thomsen and Chisholm said.
“Those two rules have gone a long way at other ranges,” Chisholm added.
Tom Chisholm, a regional parks supervisor for the county, stands next to a whiteboard with fees for Plantation Rifle Range in January. The county is planning to update rental regulations. (Hailey Hoffman/Cascadia Daily News)
Chisholm emphasized that the facility will not rent guns without a new policy when the indoor range opens in June.
“When and if we do rent out guns again, we’ll definitely have a new policy,” he said.
Thomsen said the county is considering a host of options for rentals when the facility reopens, including not renting firearms at all.
“Not renting will be one of those things we discuss,” he said. “I think gun rentals is a valuable service. It gives an opportunity to folks that don’t own firearms that are exploring their options … to come in and look at some firearms, get some experience, and be able to make decisions about their plans.”
Equipment rental and “concessions” sales, including ammunition and safety glasses, bring in more revenue than other aspects of the range, including range-use fees. According to the county’s website, entry fees are $17 per person per visit, though firearm rentals start at $20. Ammunition prices vary.
Already, Whatcom County Council members have questioned the facility’s future amid its shaky financial outlook and ongoing high-cost renovation projects.
Available funding for the range has also contributed to staffing shortages, which Surratt said cause other safety issues at the facility.
“The staff have been told of directives to reduce hours in order to meet budget through the end of the year,” he wrote in a 2018 email to Thomsen. “Not to be too alarmist, yet my readings on safety and reliability indicate that allowing budget to trump safety has been the basis for large personal injury litigations and settlements.”
Because each renter signs a waiver ahead of shooting, the county is not liable if and when a shooter harms themselves, Thomsen said.
Thomsen said the county’s goal is to have the facility “adequately staffed for safety,” which means at least two employees at the indoor and small bore range, and another at the high-power range.
Each of those employees, he added, goes through formal range safety officer training through the NRA. Both full-time staff and temporary, seasonal help, participate in the trainings, though the state doesn’t mandate it, he said.
Staffing at the range, which has been closed off-and-on since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, remains in flux, as seasonal hires help staff the facility part-time, and volunteers assist throughout the year.
Since the facility was last fully open prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, Thomsen said they’ve seen a complete staff turnover.
While many of the employees have the skill and the knowledge at Plantation, Surratt says the county needs to reemphasize safety.
“Whoever shows up needs to go back home in the same condition they came in,” he said.
The 2017 suicide is still a vivid memory for Surratt, almost six years after the incident. He said the county offered counseling to the staff and volunteers on-site during the incident, but beyond that, not much has changed.
“It’s a day I won’t forget,” he said.
The National Suicide Prevention Hotline phone number is 988. The Lifeline provides 24/7, free and confidential support for people in distress, prevention and crisis resources for you or your loved ones, and best practices for professionals in the United States.
