Monfort fired after excellent worker turned unreliable

After almost two years of exceptional work as a truck driver for Pilot Freight Services in Kent, Christopher Monfort suddenly became so unreliable he was fired Aug. 1, according to the corporate official who personally dismissed Monfort.

It would be Monfort's last steady job before he was charged with the Oct. 31 killing of Seattle police Officer Timothy Brenton.

The official who fired Monfort, Michael Thompson, is a former 19-year Snohomish County sheriff's deputy.

Monfort was aware of his past profession, Thompson said.

But Monfort, who is alleged to have randomly killed Brenton simply because he was a police officer, didn't talk negatively about police and expressed great respect for "what I had done and my viewpoints," said Thompson, who left the Sheriff's Office as a patrol sergeant in 2007.

When fired, Monfort didn't appear to hold a grudge, Thompson said.

Monfort, 41, of Tukwila, was charged last week with aggravated first-degree murder in the fatal shooting of Brenton, 39. Prosecutors are weighing whether to seek the death penalty.

He also is charged with three counts of attempted murder in the shooting of Brenton's rookie partner, Britt Sweeney, 33, who suffered minor injuries; the Oct. 22 firebombing of police vehicles at a Seattle city maintenance yard where responding officers and firefighters allegedly were targeted; and for allegedly trying to shoot a Seattle police sergeant during a Nov. 6 confrontation with detectives.

Monfort, who also was charged with one count of arson stemming from the firebombing, was shot by police during the confrontation outside his Tukwila apartment.

He remains in satisfactory condition at Harborview Medical Center in Seattle and, according to his mother, is paralyzed from the waist down.

Most recently, Monfort had been laid off as a security guard, according to a law-enforcement source, although it is unclear where he held that job and for how long.

His mother, Suzan Monfort, 65, who flew from her home in Alaska to be with her son after he was shot, said through his attorney that she didn't know he had been fired or that he had been working as a security guard.

Christopher Monfort worked as a driver for Pilot Freight Services from June 2007 until his firing, said Thompson, administrative manager for Transmark Logistics, the freight company's parent corporation.

For most of that time, Monfort was considered an excellent worker, Thompson said.

"Our customers really appreciated the value he brought," said Thompson, who described Pilot as a company that delivers various types of freight.

But Monfort's work fell below standards over the late spring and summer, capped by an incident in July in which he failed to notify a dispatcher that he had stopped for a weigh-station inspection while heading to Vancouver, B.C., with a load of temperature-sensitive cherries, Thompson said.

As a result, the dispatcher was kept from alerting an air carrier that was to fly the cherries to the Far East, Thompson said.

The delivery didn't arrive on schedule and the plane left, although the cherries eventually made it on later flight, he said.

Nonetheless, the breakdown represented a serious breach of company rules, Thompson said.

Monfort was disappointed but not angry over his firing, Thompson said, and told Thompson he respected him and his decision.

Thompson said he personally delivered Monfort's final paycheck to him in the first week of August, outside Monfort's Tukwila apartment complex.

During that conversation, Thompson said, he told Monfort he was meant for better things.

Thompson said he and others at Pilot knew Monfort had worked with at-risk youths, and that Monfort had hoped to become a probation officer.

Monfort was very intelligent and always studying or reading a book, Thompson said.

While working at Pilot, Monfort earned a criminal-justice degree in 2008 at the University of Washington.

As part of his UW studies, he worked as a volunteer teacher at the King County juvenile-detention center in Seattle from 2007 through this year, where, according to a supervisor, he confided he had self-image problems because of his mixed-race background.

Monfort never raised that subject at work, Thompson said.

He did talk about the importance of constitutional rights and believed that if something was wrong, it was up to citizens to try to fix it, Thompson said.

In the last presidential election, Monfort strongly supported Ralph Nader because he believed the two-party system was broken, Thompson said.

When they discussed Thompson's past police work, Thompson said, Monfort related that he viewed public service as a major responsibility, particularly when it came to the police protecting rights.

In all their conversations, Thompson said, Monfort conveyed his views in peaceful terms and said nothing that, in retrospect, raised red flags.

Still, Thompson passed Monfort's name to Seattle police after Brenton's killing when investigators said they were looking for an early 1980s Datsun sedan believed to have been used in the shooting. Thompson said he knew Monfort drove a car that matched the description.

Detectives ultimately focused on Monfort when his apartment manager told police he had only recently covered his Datsun with a tarp and had been acting bizarrely.

Thompson said he was watching television news when police swarmed Monfort's apartment complex. Even before Monfort's name was broadcast, Thompson said, he recognized Monfort's other car, a Ford Crown Victoria, parked next to the covered Datsun.

"I was like, 'Oh no,' " Thompson said. "It was so incredibly tragic."

Thompson said it's hard to reconcile the Monfort now charged with murder with his onetime employee.

Although a very private person, who rarely discussed his personal life and family, Monfort was generally likable and reliable, Thompson said.

"It's just unbelievable," he said.

Yet Thompson wonders whether Monfort may have offered a clue that something was amiss.

He said that when he arrived at Monfort's complex to deliver his last paycheck, he said he would bring it up to his apartment. Monfort insisted on meeting in the parking lot, Thompson said.

Thompson said he thought it odd at the time.

Police said that when investigators went into Monfort's apartment after the Nov. 6 confrontation, they found bomb-making materials, improvised explosive devices and rifles in his apartment, including one that was "an identical ballistic match" to the weapon used against Brenton.

Seattle Times reporter Jennifer Sullivan contributed to this report, which also includes information from Seattle Times archives. Steve Miletich: 206-464-3302 or smiletich@seattletimes.com