On Wednesday, Gen. Mark Milley, the Army chief of staff, told Pentagon reporters that there have been “gaps and failures” on on the part of the Army to report the criminal activity of soldiers to federal civilian law enforcement agencies.
“The data I saw, and again we are drilling into it to make sure it’s accurate, we have a significant amount of omissions that concern the secretary and I, and it clearly tells us that we need to tighten up as well,” Milley said, according to CNN.
“We need to make sure every one of those is transmitted over to the civilian law enforcement agencies, the FBI for example,” Milley said, according to ABC News.
In the military, officials are required to notify the FBI about criminal convictions and dishonorable discharges. However, Milley said that a preliminary review of Army procedures found his service has been failing to report around “10 to 20 percent” of the criminal cases to the FBI.
The Air Force veteran was able to buy guns despite a prior conviction for assaulting his wife and stepson. He was given bad conduct charge and sentenced to 12 months in jail, which should have barred him from purchasing firearms.
Last week, a Pentagon report from 1997 resurfaced, showing the military has been aware of widespread lapses in the process of reporting criminal offenses within the Air Force, the US Army and the US Navy for the last 20 years.
