WASHINGTON (AP) – The Air Force says its failure to report the criminal history of the former airman who killed 26 people at a Texas church in early November was part of a pattern of such lapses.
But it’s not yet clear how widespread it was. According to a New York Times article, there were 60,000 incidents involving airmen that could have been included in the federal background check database.
In a statement Tuesday, the Air Force blamed failures in “training and compliance measures” for the lapse involving Devin P. Kelley, who had been convicted of assaulting his wife and stepson in 2012. The fingerprint card and the report on the outcome of his court martial were not submitted to the FBI by Air Force personnel at Kelley’s base in New Mexico. If reported, this information should have stopped him from buying weapons.
The Air Force says it has taken corrective actions to prevent such reporting lapses.
