A preliminary review of Army procedures has revealed significant gaps in reporting criminal convictions to civilian authorities, the Army’s top officer said Wednesday.
The discovery comes as a result of a Pentagon-wide investigation prompted by the revelation that Air Force failed to report the domestic violence conviction of the gunman in the Nov. 5 Texas church massacre.
“It’s not just an Air Force problem. It’s a problem across all the services,” said Gen. Mark Milley, the Army’s chief of staff.
“There are gaps and failures on our part to report into the FBI,” Milley told reporters at the Pentagon. “We have a significant amount of omissions that concerns the secretary and I, and it clearly tells us we need to tighten up as well.”
Milley says the preliminary data indicate that as many as 20 percent of criminal convictions and dishonorable discharges have not been entered into the FBI’s National Crime Information Center data base in recent years.
“There are enough gaps in there that we need to tighten it it up,” Milley said.
The gunman in the massacre, Devin Kelley, received a bad-conduct discharge from the Air Force after being court-martialed and imprisoned for one year for domestic abuse. Had he received the harsher dishonorable discharge, he would have been barred from buying a gun.
