Permit holder was ineligible for having permit

The person who fired a single shot, wounding three people, was ineligible for having a permit.

Suspect shouldn't have had permit
By Nancy Bartley
Seattle Times staff reporter
The man accused of opening fire at Seattle's Northwest Folklife Festival, wounding three people, had obtained a concealed-weapon permit from the Snohomish County Sheriff's Office even though federal and state laws should have prevented him from having one.

Clinton Chad Grainger, 22, has been on a methadone program for drug addiction since he was 18 and also has a "history of anxiety and mental illness," according to King County Superior Court booking documents. Federal and state law prohibits people with mental illness or drug addiction from obtaining a concealed-weapon permit.

Grainger, who lives in Snohomish with his father, went to the Sheriff's Office and completed a state concealed-pistol license application, said sheriff's spokesman Capt. Kevin Prentiss. The permit asks applicants whether they have spent 14 days or longer in a mental-health facility and requires them to sign a waiver allowing police to look at mental-health records.