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FBI: background check loophole let Dylann Roof buy gun

Xinhua, July 11, 2015 Adjust font size:

The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) acknowledged on Friday that the white gunman who shot death nine African-American churchgoers in Charleston, South Carolina last month, should not have been able to buy his gun if not for flaws in the national background check system.

FBI Director James Comey told reporters on Friday that a critical record detailing the 21-year-old white gunman Dylann Roof 's previous admission of drugs possession was not included in materials to be examined by the FBI's National Instant Check System.

The document would have barred Roof from purchasing the 45- caliber handgun used in the massacre at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston on June 17, said Comey.

"Because of an error on our part that allowed the gun to be used to slaughter those people is very painful," said Comey.

Roof initially attempted to buy a gun from a dealer in South Carolina on April 11, but his application was postponed after a FBI background examiner found a felony drug charge in his criminal history. Only admission of drugs possession, not a drug charge, bars a person from purchasing weapons.

Under federal law, the FBI has three days to determine whether there is adequate evidence to deny any purchase of the gun.

According to Comey, Roof was arrested in March by the state's Columbia Police Department on felony drug charges and later admitted to possessing drugs.

However, the record of Roof's admission of drugs possession was not included in his file and his March arrest record was mistakenly attributed to the Lexington County, South Carolina, instead of the Columbia Police Department.

Therefore, when the FBI examiner called the Lexington sheriff's office for more information, she was told the office was not investigating the case. Though officials recommended further checking with the Columbia Police Department, Comey said the FBI's database did not include contact number of the Columbia Police Department.

The FBI examiner never saw the record of Roof's admission of drugs possession, and after the three-day waiting period lapsed, Roof returned to the store and was sold the gun.

"We are all sick this happened," said Comey. "We wish we could turn back time." Endite