Charleston church shooting lawsuit over faulty background check

[Euler]

CBS News

A lawsuit over a faulty background check that allowed a South Carolina man to buy the gun he used to kill nine people at AME Emanuel Church in Charleston was reinstated Friday by a federal appeals court. The three-judge panel reversed a ruling from a lower court judge who threw out the claims brought by relatives of people killed by Dylann Roof in the 2015 massacre and by survivors.

 

The 4th Circuit panel found that an examiner who conducted the background check on Roof failed to follow a mandatory procedure when she did not contact the arresting agency.

 

The ruling means the lawsuit can move forward.

 

The FBI acknowledged that Roof's drug possession arrest in Columbia, South Carolina - weeks before the shooting - should have prevented him from buying a gun. Roof has been sentenced to death for the slayings.

 

A series of clerical errors and missteps allowed Roof to buy the handgun he later used in the massacre.

 

In his ruling last year, U.S. District Judge Richard Gergel said a jail clerk wrongly listed the Lexington County Sheriff's Office as the arresting agency in the drug case. The examiner then sent a fax to the sheriff's office, which responded that it did not have the arrest report and directed her to Columbia police.

 

Gergel said that under the system's operating procedures, the examiner was directed to a federal listing of law enforcement agencies, but Columbia police did not appear on the list. After trying the separate West Columbia Police Department and being told it was the wrong agency, the examiner did nothing more.

 

After a three-day waiting period, Roof went back to a West Columbia store to pick up the handgun.

 

A spokeswoman for the U.S. Department of Justice declined to comment on the ruling.

[CHICAGO HANDGUN OWNER]

I don't believe this event was real. It was another staged shooting PSYOP. Supposedly the church held services one day after the numerous murders. Who did the crime scene cleanup? The blood and guts were not even dry before they opened up the church for a service. There was no video footage of the shooting or dash cam video. Just believe what ever they tell you on mainstream media. It is legal for them to use fake events for domestic propaganda. Research the "Smith Mundt" Act.

[chicagoresident]

Where did we get all these Alex Jones nutters? If any of you really think these events are hoaxes I suggest getting in a car or airplane and show up on site to see for yourself instead of relying on you favorite YouTube glue sniffers.

 

Ever notice how many prominent conspiracy theorists are ex government, giving ideas to ravaing lunatics to cover up shoddy law enforcement/bureau work?

[mauserme]

A couple off topic posts have been removed.

[chicagoresident]

Why can't we publicly debunk the false flaggers to show their level of incompetence? They're just going to keep posting their glue sniffing ramblings. By silencing them you're feeding their paranoia and giving them credibility that there's a vast cover up.

 

As a diverse website of gun owners it's better that the outside world knows we don't accept these people's ideas.

[mauserme]

Why can't we publicly debunk the false flaggers to show their level of incompetence? They're just going to keep posting their glue sniffing ramblings. By silencing them you're feeding their paranoia and giving them credibility that there's a vast cover up.

 

As a diverse website of gun owners it's better that the outside world knows we don't accept these people's ideas.

You can if you'd like to start a new backroom topic. Out of respect to OP, we should keep this thread on his topic.

[Quiet Observer]

I guess that some might argue that a 3 day waiting period is too short, but there is no indication that the examineer would have done anything more if the waiting period was longer.

Also, what about someone who is need for protection whose permit would be delayed because of a longer waiting period, or screwup like above?

[Euler]

I guess that some might argue that a 3 day waiting period is too short, ...

I suspect that some would argue that a check should default to negative at 3 days unless it returns a positive before then, as opposed to defaulting to a positive at 3 days unless it returns a negative before then. Lots of people would be denied a constitutionally protected civil liberty that way.

 

That's not a issue in this case, though. If this is just a standard wrongful death lawsuit, the remedy demanded is money. However, it's not clear they'd even get that.

 

From another story (with a lot of words the same): PBS Newshour

...

Gergel said that under the system's operating procedures, the examiner was directed to a federal listing of law enforcement agencies, but Columbia police did not appear on the list. After trying the separate West Columbia Police Department and being told it was the wrong agency, the examiner did nothing more.

...

During arguments before the 4th Circuit in May, Thomas Ward, a deputy assistant attorney general in the Department of Justice's Civil Division, told the judges that the standard operating procedures are not binding. He said they are meant only as guidance for examiners who process about 22,000 inquiries per day and about 8.2 million a year.

...

A wrongful death lawsuit needs to show negligence. Based on Ward's statement, the DoJ doesn't have any actual duty to exhaust every possible inquiry. The procedure isn't "mandatory," as the suit claims. Due diligence was probably satisfied by contacting the erroneously-specified county sheriff. Therefore, there was no negligence.