James B. Comey

In a meeting at FBI headquarters, Comey says failures in the gun purchase screening system enabled Roof to acquire the weapon used in the Charleston attack. Roof’s arrest for possession of narcotics in February — a felony charge — should have surfaced on criminal databases and prevented him from buying a weapon at a gun store. Comey indicates that the data was not properly entered in federal criminal justice computer systems, or had been mishandled by an analyst with the National Instant Criminal Background Check System. Comey:

This case rips all of our hearts out, but the thought that an error on our part is connected to a gun this person used to slaughter these people is very painful to us.