FBI Director James Comey told reporters on Friday: “This rips all of our hearts out”. Comey. “We wish we could turn back time”.
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Comey said FBI officials in South Carolina, who have developed a relationship with family members of the church shooting victims, would brief them on the situation and his call for an internal review.
In this instance, the difference between the killer being a prohibited person and being legally allowed to buy a gun before his trial on drug charges was that R_ admitted to being in possession of Suboxone in the police report.
The New York Times breathlessly reports today that Dylan Roof could have been stopped from murdering nine people in Charleston were it not for a flaw in the background check.
“We are all sick this happened”, he told NBC News.
Under federal law, the FBI has three days to determine whether there is adequate evidence to deny any purchase of the gun. But if a decision is not made during that time frame, the law permits the dealer to complete the sale.
Comey said he has ordered a full review of the mistake and will make recommendations for improvements to background checks. “We’re familiar with it, but we don’t have any comment about it”, he said. Chuck Grassley. “The facts undercut attempts to use the tragedy to enact unnecessary gun laws”.
Roof has been charged with murder for the June 17 shooting of nine people at the Emanuel A.M.E. Church in Charleston.
The FBI runs federal background checks for gun dealers in about 30 states, including South Carolina.
Instead, she followed protocol after learning Roof had been arrested in South Carolina earlier that year on a felony drug charge and checked with several local jurisdictions over the next three days to verify information.
“The bottom line is clear”, Comey said. But because of a series of errors, including one on Roof’s rap sheet, the examiner performing the check on Roof did not know he had admitted to drug possession in a March 1 incident, which should have rendered him an “unlawful user” ineligible to purchase the gun.
When Columbia police searched Roof’s jacket pockets February 28 at the Columbiana Centre mall, where he had been asking employees suspicious questions, Roof said the strips that officers found were Listerine, according to the arrest report.
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The spreadsheet in retrospect should ideally have listed both counties as home to the city of Columbia, Comey said.
