Air Force failed to alert authorities to Texas gunman’s domestic violence conviction

The Air Force failed to enter the Texas church shooter’s domestic violence conviction into a federal database used for background checks on gun sales — a move that could have prevented him from purchasing a rifle used in Sunday’s mass shooting.

The Pentagon announced a department-wide review of the case, and of relevant polices and procedures, after the Air Force said it did not put Devin Kelley’s court-martial for domestic assault into the database used to run background checks for firearm sales.

{mosads}Kelley went on a rampage at a church on Sunday, killed 26 people in Sutherland Springs, Texas.

Kelley had been court-martialed in 2012 for assaulting his wife and stepson, including cracking the infant’s skull.

The conviction likely would have prevented Kelley from buying the military-style rifle that he used in the shooting, as well as three other guns he had purchased over the past four years, The New York Times reported.

“The Air Force has launched a review of how the service handled the criminal records of former Airman Devin P. Kelley following his 2012 domestic violence conviction,” the Air Force said in a statement provided to The Hill. “Federal law prohibited him from buying or possessing firearms after this conviction.”

Air Force Secretary Heather Wilson and Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. David Goldfein directed the Air Force Inspector General in collaboration with the Defense Department Inspector General to conduct a complete review of the Kelley case and relevant policies and procedures.

The probe will include “whether information about Kelley’s conviction was properly entered into the National Criminal Information Center database.”

Kelley was found dead in a car after a brief car chase following the shooting. Investigators said he shot himself, but his cause of death has yet to be determined, according to the newspaper.

—Updated at 7:38 p.m. Ellen Mitchell contributed.