FBI Director James Comey testifies before the Senate Judiciary Committee on July 8, 2015.(Photo: Carolyn Kaster, AP)
WASHINGTON — FBI director James Comey said Friday that Dylann Roof should not have been able to purchase the gun police say he used in the June 17 Charleston massacre.
Comey said an arrest record detailing a March 1 drug arrest by the Columbia, S.C., Police Department was not included in materials to be reviewed by the FBI's National Instant Check System, which would have prohibited the April purchase of the 45-caliber handgun.
"Because of an error on our part that allowed the gun to be used to slaughter those people is very painful," Comey said.
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During the mandatory background check prior to the attempted April 11 gun purchase, Roof's March 1 arrest on felony drug charges was mistakenly attributed to the Lexington County, S.C., Sheriff's Department, not Columbia police.
The Columbia police report included information that Roof admitted to drug possession, which would have triggered a denial by the FBI NICS review process. That information was never seen by the reviewer because the FBI's database did not include Columbia police contacts in its check of Lexington County, where Roof had been held after the arrest.
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Because the reviewer was unable to resolve the matter, the purchase was delayed for the maximum three days before the gun was allowed to be transferred April 16.
"We are all sick about what happened," Comey said, adding that he has ordered a review of the gun background check process.
The records breakdown, Comey suggested, was part of a cascade of failures that allowed Roof to obtain the weapon used in the attack.
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