GUN BLUNDER SPURS MORE FEAR
Others lurk because it’s happened before
Texas church shooter Devin Patrick Kelley sailed through background checks in four separate firearm purchases since 2012 because the US Air Force failed to enter his name in the national crime database — and now federal officials are warning there could be more like him, as Capitol Hill pols are demanding a full-scale review.
Kelley shouldn’t have been able to buy the Ruger AR-556 he used to kill 26 people and injure 20 more — or a 9mm Glock handgun and .22-caliber Ruger pistol he also had in his SUV — because he pleaded guilty in military court to assault and aggravated assault in 2012.
He also purchased another firearm, which he did not have on him the day of the shooting.
The Air Force never sent information on his conviction to the FBI’s National Crime Information Center, which must be checked during gun purchases. And an FBI official revealed Tuesday there are certainly others who slipped through the cracks.
“Unfortunately this has happened in the past from a number of agencies. Nothing is perfect,” agent Christopher Combs said during a press conference Tuesday morning.
Sens. John McCain (RAriz.) and Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) — both of whom sit on the Senate’s Armed Services Committee — are demanding a top-to-bottom review of all branches to determine whether any other dangerous individuals may have been overlooked.
“Learning that this senseless act of violence might have been prevented if only the proper form was filled out by military investigators was absolutely devastating,” Gillibrand wrote Tuesday in a letter to Defense Secretary Jim Mattis.
A gun-store owner in Colorado confirmed he sold Kelley one gun in 2014 and one in 2015, but said his check raised no red flags.
“You never want to sell something to someone that will commit any form of crime, let alone a mass murder like this,” Jeff Lepp, owner of Specialty Sports and Supply in Colorado Springs, told Texas CBS affiliate KENS5.
Meanwhile, the portrait of Kelley grew even grimmer Tuesday as it was revealed that he escaped from a mental hospital in 2012 planning to kill his military superiors, and that he was accused of sex assault the next year.
That follows revelations Monday that Kelley was kicked out of the Air Force for roughing up his then-wife and for beating his infant stepson so badly in 2011 that he fractured the child’s skull.
On June 8, 2012, the Air Force committed Kelley to “pretrial confinement” ahead of his domestic assault case, an Air Force spokeswoman told The Post.
Five days later, on June 13, cops picked up Kelley at an El Paso bus station, after he slipped out of the Peak Behavioral Health Services in Santa Teresa, NM.
After Kelley escaped, a Peak Behavioral worker who reported him missing told police that the airman “was a danger to himself and others as he had already been caught sneaking firearms onto Holloman Air Force Base” where he had been previously stationed.
Kelley “was attempting to carry out death threats” against his military superiors, a police report said.