Page 10A
NATION/WORLD
East Oregonian
Saturday, July 11, 2015
%acNgrRXnd checN IaiOed Rn chXrch gXnman
Associated Press
WASHINGTON — The
gunman charged in the
Charleston, South Carolina,
church massacre should
not have been allowed to
purchase the weapon used
in the attack, FBI Director
James Comey said Friday as
he outlined a series of “heart-
breaking” missed oppor-
tunities and background
check Àaws that allowed the
transaction to take place.
“We are all sick that this
has happened,” Comey
told reporters at an unusual,
hastily scheduled meeting at
FBI headquarters. “We wish
we could turn back time,
because from this vantage
point, everything seems
obvious. But we cannot.”
He said he had ordered a
review into what happened
and that FBI of¿cials would
meet Friday with victims’
relatives to explain the errors.
The cascading set of prob-
lems began with the drug-re-
lated arrest of Dylann Roof in
South Carolina weeks before
the shooting, touching off
miscommunication between
local and federal of¿cials
and revealing potential short-
comings in the government’s
background check process.
At issue was a police
report from Roof’s arrest
in which authorities say
he admitted to possessing
illegal drugs. Under federal
rules, that admission alone
would have been enough to
disqualify him from an April
gun purchase even though he
wasn’t convicted.
But, Comey said, the FBI
background check examiner
who evaluated Roof’s gun
purchase order never saw
the arrest report because
the wrong arresting agency
was listed on state criminal
history records. Had the West
Virginia-based
examiner
seen the police report, the
purchase would have been
AP Photo/Chuck Burton, File
In this June 18, file photo, Charleston, S.C., shooting
suspect Dylann Storm Roof, center, is escorted from
the Sheby Police Department in Shelby, N.C.
denied, Comey said.
The purchase order was
on hold for three days as
the FBI examiner tried to
¿gure out if it should be
approved or rejected. Once
that window closed without a
clear answer, the gun dealer
used its legal discretion to
complete the transaction.
Comey said he learned
about the problem on
Thursday night and had
directed an internal 30-day
review into the situation and
the FBI’s background check
process more generally.
“It may be a series of
highly improbable events
coming together, but this
was a gun that was used to
murder nine good people. So
it’s very important to me that
we understand what we can
learn from this,” Comey said.
Sen. Chuck Grassley, the
Republican chairman of the
Senate Judiciary Committee,
condemned the errors.
“It’s
disastrous
that
this bureaucratic mistake
prevented existing laws from
working and blocking an
illegal gun sale,” Grassley
said. “The facts undercut
attempts to use the tragedy to
enact unnecessary gun laws.”
Roof has been charged
with murder in the June 17
slayings of nine people inside
a historic black church in
Charleston.
The problem unfolded
like this:
Roof went to buy the
.45-caliber handgun on April
11 from a licensed ¿rearms
dealer, Shooter’s Choice,
in West Columbia, South
Carolina.
The background check
examiner assigned to Roof’s
case identi¿ed through South
Carolina records an earlier
arrest on a drug charge. But
the arresting agency that was
listed, for reasons Comey
said were unclear, was the
Lexington County sheriff’s
of¿ce. The actual arresting
agency was the Columbia
police department.
Had she reached that
police force, she would
have seen the arrest report in
which Roof admitted having
the drug Suboxone, which is
used to treat opiate addiction,
Comey said.
The FBI’s confusion was
further compounded by local
geography.
The background examiner
knew Roof’s drug arrest took
Confederate Àag taken down in
South Carolina after 54 years
COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP)
— South Carolina pulled
the Confederate Àag from its
place of honor at the State-
house on Friday, marking a
milestone in how America
commemorates the war that
tore the United States apart
150 years ago.
Many people believed
the rebel banner would Ày
forever in the ¿rst state to
leave the Union, despite
bitter feelings that remained
after the Àag was demoted
from atop the Capitol dome
to a Confederate monument
out front 15 years ago.
But the killings of nine
black church members during
a Bible study in Charleston
last month suddenly changed
the political truths and conse-
quences surrounding Civil
War symbols.
The battle Àag unfurled
to assert white power and
protest the civil rights
protest in the 1960s had been
defended by white Repub-
lican leaders until last month
as a symbol of Southern
pride. After the church
attack, even supporters felt
compelled to acknowledge
that the Àag also represents
racial hatred.
“No lie can live forever.
That Àag is a lie,” South
Carolina NAACP President
Lonnie Randolph said.
The Àag came down
Friday without incident, in a
6-minute ceremony, amid a
crowd of up to 10,000 people
chanting “USA, USA,” and
“hey, hey, hey, goodbye.”
A multi-racial honor
guard of South Carolina
troopers wearing dress-gray
uniforms and white gloves
carefully folded and rolled it
up. The Àag was then taken to
the state’s Confederate Relic
Room to be put in a new
multimillion-dollar display.
Later Friday, the 30-foot
pole it Àew on was yanked
out after several mighty tugs
from a crane.
Overseeing it all was an
imposing statue of Benjamin
Tillman, the South Carolina
governor who went to Wash-
ington as a U.S. senator and
proudly described how he
undermined post-Civil War
Reconstruction by killing
black people who tried to
vote in the 1800s.
Gov. Nikki Haley, who
has national ambitions of
her own, felt compelled by
place in Lexington County.
But the spreadsheet she
consulted that listed police
agencies in the county did
not include the Columbia
police force. That department
instead was listed as being in
Richland County — where
most of the city of Columbia
is located.
The spreadsheet in retro-
spect should ideally have
listed both counties as home
to the city of Columbia,
Comey said.
When she didn’t see
Columbia on her list, she
selected what she thought
was the most reasonable
alternative
—
West
Columbia, where the gun
shop was located — but
the police department there
also said it had no record of
Roof’s arrest.
The Lexington County
prosecutor’s of¿ce didn’t
respond to her request for
more information, and the
sheriff’s of¿ce said it had no
records on the case.
Before she could track
down the police report, the
three-day window lapsed and
the transaction went through
on April 16.
Comey’s announcement
came within hours of the
Confederate Àag’s removal
from the South Carolina
Statehouse. Families of the
victims attended the cere-
mony.
AP Photo/John Bazemore
last month’s killings to call
for bringing down the Àag,
only months after calling
her Democratic opponent’s
demand to do the same thing
a “stunt.” Other leading
Republicans swiftly reversed
their positions as well, and
Thursday’s ¿nal votes in
South Carolina’s Repub-
lican-led legislature were
overwhelmingly in favor of
removal.
As the Àag came down,
Haley
joined
family
members of the victims and
other dignitaries on the steps
of the Statehouse, and while
she didn’t speak, she nodded
and smiled after someone in
the crowd shouted: “Thank
you governor.”
President Barack Obama
tweeted minutes later, calling
it “a sign of good will and
healing and a meaningful
step towards a better future.”
The leader of the South
Carolina chapter of the Sons
of Confederate Veterans
refused to attend, instead
recalling his seven ancestors
who fought for the South in
the Civil War. “I’m not going
down there to watch them be
dishonored and defamed,”
Leland Summers said.
But if South Carolina
couldn’t make a last stand
for the Lost Cause, where
else might it happen? From
Alabama to Alaska, Confed-
erate and segregationist
monuments, statues, symbols
and place names are being
re-examined.
“They aren’t going to
be happy until Mississippi
is just like Michigan,” said
Nelson Waller, who joined
several do]en Àag supporters
in a rally at the Statehouse
earlier this week, but said he
was too heartbroken to see it
taken down.
Family members of the
slain churchgoers were given
prime spots to watch the
Àag’s removal, joined by a
crowd of between 8,000 and
10,000 people.
8QGeU ¿Ue IRU
data breach,
ObaPa SerVRQQeO
chLeI VteSV dRZQ
— including members of
Obama’s own party —
mushroomed. On Friday
morning, she came to the
White House to personally
submit her resignation to
Obama.
He named Beth Cobert,
currently deputy director
for management at the
White House’s Of¿ce of
Management and Budget,
to step in as acting director
at OPM.
WASHINGTON (AP)
— The embattled head of
the government’s personnel
of¿ce abruptly stepped
down Friday, bowing
to mounting pressure
following the unprece-
dented breach of private
information her agency
was entrusted to protect.
Katherine
Archuleta
had served as director
of the federal Of¿ce of
Personnel
Management
since November 2013. The
former national political
director for President
Barack Obama’s 2012
re-election
campaign,
Archuleta came under
scathing criticism amid
revelations this year that
hackers — widely believed
to be China’s govern-
ment — had in¿ltrated
her agency’s databases as
well as background-check
records for millions who
applied for U.S. security
clearances.
On Thursday, Archuleta
had rebuffed demands that
she resign, declaring she
was “committed to the
work that I am doing.” But
her continued tenure at the
agency grew untenable
as calls from lawmakers
IraQ taONV at
impasse amid
bicNeriQg,
extended again
VIENNA (AP) — The
Iran nuclear talks shifted
Friday to a blame game,
as Iran’s foreign minister
accused the United States
of shifting its demands and
dismissed a warning that
the U.S. was ready to quit
the negotiations.
Hours
after
his
comments, Iranian Foreign
Minister
Mohammad
Javad Zarif met again with
U.S. Secretary of State
John Kerry for another
attempt at resolving the
differences standing in the
way a landmark deal that
offers Iran sanctions relief
in exchange for long-term,
veri¿able curbs on nuclear
programs that Tehran could
use to make weapons.
AUGUST 11-15, 2015
Tues. Aug. 11 • 9pm
Wed. Aug. 12 • 9pm
JOHN MICHAEL
MONTGOMERY
LATINO NIGHT: THURSDAY, AUGUST 13
DUSTIN LYNCH
(7:00pm) ANTIFAZ &
(9:00pm)
An honor guard from the South Carolina Highway pa-
trol lowers the Confederate battle flag as it is removed
from the Capitol grounds Friday in Columbia, S.C.
BRIEFLY
LA-MAR-K DE TIERRA CALIENTE
Fri. Aug. 14 • 9pm
Sat. Aug. 15 • 9pm
HINDER
WARRANT
In the Watering Hole: LIVE MUSIC: Tues & Wed - Brady Goss; Fri & Sat - Blue Tattoo
RESERVED
TICKETS
ON SALE
NOW!
(does not include
$12 admission)
Call or stop by the Fair office 515 W. Orchard, Hermiston
800-700-FAIR (3247) • www.umatillacounty.net/fair
Visa & Mastercard gladly accepted
CARNIVAL
WRISTBANDS
(until August
10) $12
$23 Concert
Reserve
Seating:
(does
include fair
fair admission)
$30 not after
starts
Place a Yard Sale Ad
25 words, 3 days, private party only
$20.00 East Oregonian & Hermiston Herald
Yard Sale Kits - $5.00
Includes 2 signs, stakes
& price stickers.
Call Paula
541-278-2678
