After the mass church shooting in Texas, lawmakers have expressed concerns regarding the military’s crime reporting system, which they believe may have a serious systematic problem.
Devin Kelley who killed 26 people and wounded another 20 when he opened fire in a church in Sutherland Springs, was a former member of the Air Force. He was discharged in 2014 on accounts of “bad conduct” after being charged by the court-marshal of domestic violence, The Hill reports.
Kelly’s conviction was not reported to the FBI’s National Criminal Information Center database, even though it should have been. In that case, it would have been much more difficult for him to legally buy a gun.
Air Force officials said on Monday that Kelly’s information was not entered in the system, which prompted members of Congress to question the reporting system. Both the chairman of the House and of the Senate Armed Services committees promised the issue will be looked into and rigorously scrutinized. They also pointed out that every military service has to ascertain if similar errors have been made.
“The Senate Armed Services Committee will conduct rigorous oversight of the Department’s investigation into the circumstances that led to this failure,” Chairman of the Senate committee John McCain said, adding that “it’s critical that each of the military services take the steps necessary to ensure that similar mistakes have not occurred and will not occur in the future.”
The Chairman of the House Armed Services Committee said the failure to notify the FBI about Kelly’s criminal background was “appalling”, also expressing his concern about the fact that his domestic violence conviction was not reported either.
The normal reporting procedures of the military are still unknown. Usually, when a member of the troops gets arrested their service branch is notified, but as a Pentagon spokesman pointed out when they are convicted in the military justice system, civilian authorities do not get notified.
However, he did not elaborate on what is included in the process for military branches to notify civilian authorities.
Senator Richard Blumenthal said that even though the Pentagon is required by law to report people to NICS, they do not have a process to comply with that law.
“The Department of Defense apparently has no system in place [to] ensure the FBI has the necessary information to enter an individual into NICS after an individual is indicted or convicted in a court-martial,” Blumenthal wrote in a letter to Mattis.
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