FBI drops the ball in Charleston shooting

Dylann Roof passed background check with drug charge

CHARLESTON, S.C. – A new development has come forward in the investigation into the South Carolina shooting that killed 9 people last month at a Bible study.

The FBI is now saying a clerical error in its background check system allowed the alleged shooter, Dylann Roof, to get a gun despite the fact that he had been previously arrested for a drug crime, which meant he should not have been allowed to get a gun.

Apparently the background checker never realized that Roof had drug charges and the failing of the system in this case is drawing a lot of criticism to the FBI's gun background check system.

Roof was arrested in late February on drug charges which should have disqualified him from getting a gun, but when he applied for a license in April he got one.

The FBI background checker had some confusion on which agency arrested him. His rap sheet listed the Lexington County Sheriff's Office as the arresting agency when in fact it was it the Columbia Police Department.

As the background check examiner tried to look into the matter and sort through the confusion to obtain the police report, the federal mandatory 3-day waiting period expired and Roof was sold the gun.

Eric Friday is lead counsel for the gun rights group Florida Carry and he said that's simply how the system works.

"Mr. Roof had a drug conviction and everything I understand is that he admitted it on background check form and the FBI cleared him anyway," Friday said. "The FBI has even admitted they dropped the ball. We've said for years that the NICS check system is flawed, it doesn't work. It denies people who shouldn't be denied. It lets through people who should be denied and yet they want to expand it and make it apply to everybody even though it doesn't work in the first place,"

Friday is a gun rights proponent and said the FBI's NICS background check system needs to be streamlined and not expanded because it's already failed in this case.

"This isn't something gun owners did wrong. This is something the FBI messed up and there's no reason to impose additional burdens on gun owners when the FBI is the one failing to do its job," Friday said.

News4Jax crime and safety analyst Gil Smith said this mistake appears to be an extremely uncommon one. And he questions where it was made, either with the FBI or the local agency where Roof was arrested.

"It's unusual because clerks are usually pretty accurate when they're inputting information and sending to NICS or sending it to the FBI. In most cases it's entered accurately, it's just in this one case it wasn't entered accurately," Smith said.

FBI officials met with family members of the victims to let them know this today. One family member was quoted as saying he wasn't angry before but now he is.
              


About the Author:

Scott is a multi-Emmy Award Winning Anchor and Reporter, who also hosts the “Going Ringside With The Local Station” Podcast. Scott has been a journalist for 25 years, covering stories including six presidential elections, multiple space shuttle launches and dozens of high-profile murder trials.