Military still fails on reporting criminal data
One month ago, the Air Force learned how deadly a paperwork error can be. Its failure to report an assault conviction to the FBI allowed former airman Devin Kelley to buy the firearm he used to slaughter more than two dozen worshipers at a Texas church.
Kelley’s 2012 conviction for assaulting his then-wife fell through gaping holes the military’s brass had known about for more than 20 years. If military and civilian leaders in previous administrators had acted, the FBI’s background check database could have prevented Kelley’s firearm purchase as it has hundreds of thousands of others.
Now the question is whether the military is making sure it won’t be responsible for more dead American civilians. And the answer is somewhere in the midst of maybe, not yet, who knows, and we’re working on it.
We asked each service a simple question: Are you now submitting 100% of criminal convictions to the FBI? None simply said “yes,” but the Air Force, Army, Marine Corps and Navy each had plenty to say.
The Marine Corps, for instance, said it “has immediately taken several steps to ensure” criminal dispositions are reported. The Army is “taking corrective action.” The Air Force has added “measures to ensure current and future offender criminal history data is submitted,” but a spokesman said she couldn’t answer the specific question because that’s part of an inspector general’s review. The Navy said it’s expecting “corrective actions in our most recent cases to be completed this month.”
Submitting convictions isn’t all that complicated. When the Army, Air Force, Marine Corps or Navy completes a criminal case, it is supposed to report the outcome to the FBI for inclusion in databases checked when anyone tries to purchase a firearm.
Top military officials have known for two decades that each branch was failing to report a huge percentage of convictions to the FBI. According to a 1997 report by the Defense Department’s inspector general, the Navy failed to submit dispositions of serious criminal charges in 94% of cases, the Army in
79% of cases and the Air Force in 50%. In a report last week covering 2015 and 2016, the inspector general found that 2,502 convictions should have been submitted to the FBI. Nearly a third, 780 cases, never were. The Army had the worst record, failing to report
41% of its convictions. The Air Force did the best, with a 14% failure rate.
It should not be that hard for the military to submit a monthly average of
104 records. Four Army privates walking one folder across the Potomac River each day from the Pentagon to the FBI headquarters could get the job done.
The Department of Defense inspector general told the Senate Judiciary Committee last week that “there’s really no excuse for” what happened. He has promised a deeper look into the “causes for the enduring deficiencies.”
At the least, each service should be able to say that right now, every conviction is reported. If they can’t while under a glaring spotlight, it’s hard to imagine what will bring an end to more than 20 years of ineptitude.