Snafu in federal background check let accused Charleston killer Roof buy gun, FBI says

COLUMBIA, SC A mistake by the FBI that allowed accused mass murderer Dylann Roof to purchase a gun drew criticism Friday from South Carolina elected leaders and pledges to investigate how the deadly misstep occurred.

U.S. Rep. Tom Rice, R-S.C., called for a Congressional probe into the breakdown at the FBI, saying someone needs to answer for the mistake that led to the deaths of Emanual AME Church members during a bible study last month at the Charleston house of worship.

Roof is accused of gunning down nine members of the church, including state Sen. Clementa Pinckney. Roof, a Columbia area resident, purchased a hand gun used in the attack from a West Columbia weapons shop, multiple media outlets have reported.

“Whoever made this mistake that resulted in the death of nine people should absolutely be held accountable,’’ Rice said. “Whoever made the error should be fired.’’

While Rice acknowledge he needs to learn more about the circumstances, he and Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C., said the failure of the background check system is a concern.

It shows the “the utmost importance’’ of enforcing existing gun laws,’’ said Scott, who said the FBI is expected to issue a report in the next month on the mistake and “I eagerly await the results of the invesgitation.’’

Meanwhile, West Columbia Mayor Joe Owens said he will look into a report that the FBI cleared Roof for a gun purchase after calling his city’s police department. Efforts by The State to reach West Columbia Police Chief Dennis Tyndal were unsuccessful Friday.

“I’d like to see if we dropped the ball,’’ Owens said.

The breakdown occurred when an FBI background checker contacted the wrong police department in South Carolina to see whether Roof had a criminal record that would prevent him from buying a gun, the FBI told reporters in Washington. Instead of calling the Columbia Police Department, which had outstanding charges against Roof, the fact-checker contacted the West Columbia Police Department, according to media reports from a press briefing Friday in Washington.

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FBI director James Comey said Roof should have been prevented from buying the .45-caliber weapon used in a shooting that authorities have said was motivated by Roof’s racist views, The Washington Post reported Friday. The fall out from the shootings led South Carolina lawmakers to remove the Confederate flag

political repercussions of the June 17 massacre at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston led South Carolina to remove the Confederate flag from its statehouse grounds Friday.

“This case rips all of our hearts out, but the thought that an error on our part is connected to a gun this person used to slaughter these people is very painful to us,” said Comey.

The lapse was the result of errors not only by the FBI but by the Lexington County prosecutors’ office, and Comey said he has ordered a review of procedures that led to the failure. The errors came to light as investigators examined a gun purchase Roof made two months before the shooting in Charleston.

Roof had been arrested for possession of narcotics in February, a felony charge that alone did not disqualify him from buying a gun. But Comey said that Roof’s subsequent admission of the drug crime would have triggered an automatic rejection of his gun purchase if the information had been properly recorded in background-check databases.

Instead, Comey said the data was not properly entered in the bureau’s National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS), and that an FBI examiner assigned to review Roof’s purchase never saw his admission to the narcotics charge.

Comey’s disclosure to reporters who were summoned to FBI headquarters on Friday amounted to a heartbreaking admission by the FBI director that the attack on members of a Bible study group might have been averted.

The failure to block Roof’s purchase is likely to renew scrutiny of a troubled federal background-check system that also allowed seemingly troubled young men to acquire firearms in previous shootings, including a 2011 attack in Tucson that wounded then-congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.).

Comey said Roof’s transaction began when he went to a gun store in West Columbia, S.C., on April 11. The dealer submitted his biographical information to NICS, which handles background checks for gun purchases for about 30 states, including South Carolina.

Under the law, the FBI has three business days to deny or approve a purchase. But if a decision is not made during that time frame, the law permits the dealer to complete the sale.

On April 13, a veteran FBI examiner who routinely handled 15 or more cases per day pulled up Roof’s request. Checking his criminal record, she saw the narcotics arrest by the Lexington County Sheriff’s Department. She faxed a request for information to the sheriff’s office and county prosecutor. But officials at the sheriff’s office told her they were not handling the case and referred her to the Columbia Police Department.

Her effort, however, was tripped up by a geographic irregularity.

Only a small part of the city of Columbia is located in Lexington County, with most in neighboring Richland County. The FBI’s system did not account for that jurisdictional split, and the examiner unwittingly contacted only the West Columbia Police Department, which reported no record of Roof’s arrest.

“It’s not clear why that happened,” Comey said of the gap in the FBI’s database, “but it made a big difference.”

Had the examiner been able to see the Columbia police report that Roof had admitted to possession of a drug, or had prosecutors told her of its existence, “that transaction would have been denied,” Comey said.

On April 16, after the three-day waiting period had lapsed with no adverse ruling from the FBI, Roof got his gun — a .45-caliber Glock pistol. There is no requirement for the dealer to notify the bureau when it has sold a gun, bureau officials said.

Comey said he had spoken to the examiner and described her as “heartbroken,” but he said she had followed proper procedures. He said one of the questions under review is whether to treat “delayed pending” checks differently.

In 2014, the FBI handled 8.2 million gun checks, and 228,000, or about 2.8 percent, remained as “delayed pending” for longer than three days, officials said.

This story was originally published July 10, 2015 at 7:42 PM.