A Florida security guard twice investigated by the FBI for possible links to terrorism was the assault-rifle wielding gunman who opened fire on hundreds of unsuspecting people inside a popular gay nightclub predawn Sunday, killing at least 50 and wounding 53 more in the worst mass shooting in U.S. history.
The FBI confirmed that Omar Mateen, 29, was the attacker who took Club Pulse hostage for several hours, engaging in a gun battle with more than a dozen officers before he was felled by police bullets.
The tragedy that unfolded throughout the day evoked the carnage and chaos that has punctuated recent terrorist attacks in Southern California, Paris and Boston — friends and rescuers carrying out bloodied victims, heavily armed police and tactical vehicles patrolling streets and thousands gathering to mourn victims in tearful candlelight vigils.
For Terry DeCarlo, who arrived at Pulse at 4:30 a.m. Sunday morning, the scene was “right out of a movie.” Police had blocked the street to the club, where DeCarlo and others gathered, desperate to learn what had happened to the hundreds of patrons inside.
“It was surreal. I felt helpless,” said DeCarlo, director of The Center, a community resource for the LGBT community. “I kept thinking, if this is a bad dream, I need to wake up.”
A somber President Obama spoke to the nation in the afternoon, his sixth mass shooting address in the last year, and called the attack “an act of terror and an act of hate” against the gay community. On mainstream and social media, there was an outpouring of outrage and grief, from the LGBT community, ordinary citizens and presidential candidates.
In Orlando, thousands of people lined up for hours in the midday sun to do the one thing they knew would help, donate blood. And as hospitals and public officials released the names of the dead, grief-stricken Americans needing to mourn together, packing gatherings from Orlando to Miami Beach and Wilton Manors.
At the epicenter of the deadly mass shooting, in a city synonymous with the American ideal of family vacations, Mayor Buddy Dyer pledged to fight back against the stain of violence that had been thrust upon his community.
“This is probably the most difficult day in the history of Orlando,” Dyer told reporters Sunday afternoon. “We will not be defined by a hateful shooter.”
For law enforcement, the investigation shifted into high gear on Sunday afternoon. The FBI, which is spearheading the probe, must now uncover what motivated Mateen — a state-registered firearm holder and security guard who lived in the Fort Pierce area — to unleash so much carnage.
From the start, agents have suspected Mateen may have been at least inspired by the notorious Islamic State terrorist group, which has targeted gays, Christians and other groups while taking hold of large swaths of territory in the Middle East. Gruesome images, released as propaganda by the group, have shown purportedly gay men being tossed from rooftops and then stoned to death before throngs of onlookers.
On Sunday afternoon, an ISIS-affiliated Twitter account claimed responsibility for the attack. But as of yet, no direct operational links to ISIS have been announced by the FBI.
The shooter’s father, Mir Seddique, told NBC News that he believed the shooting “has nothing to do with religion” but instead was sparked by outrage after his son, during a family trip, saw two men kissing at Bayside Marketplace in downtown Miami a few months ago.
“We are saying we are apologized for the whole incident,” Seddique told NBC News. “We weren’t aware of any action he is taking. We are in shock like the whole country.”
According to a law-enforcement source who spoke with The Miami Herald, Mateen called 911 from the club to express support for the Islamic State terrorist group. At a press conference on Sunday afternoon, Orlando FBI Special Agent in Charge Ron Hopper would not confirm media reports that Mateen “pledged” allegiance to the militant group. But he did say that Mateen had twice come under FBI scrutiny.
Once in 2013, Mateen was alleged to have made “inflammatory comments” to co-workers regarding terrorism. But a “physical surveillance,” records checks and two interviews with Mateen led to no charges, Hopper said.
“We were unable to verify the substance of his comments,” Hopper said.
Then in 2014, the FBI again investigated Mateen for a possible relationship with American suicide bomber Moner Mohammad Abusalha, who killed himself in Syria in 2014. But the probe did not turn up concrete evidence, Hopper said.
Mateen had no criminal history in Florida and worked as a security guard with the company G4S.
One co-worker told the Miami Herald Mateen was fluent in the language of hate, often using slurs to describe African-Americans and gays.
“He was always on the edge, always hyper and agitated,” Daniel Gilroy said. “He would never have more than three or four sentences without using the word n****r or queer or dike. It was always about violence. It was always the F-bomb.”
Mateen was able to purchase both weapons legally days before the shooting, according to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.
“He is not a prohibited person, so he can legally walk into a gun dealership and acquire and purchase firearms. He did so. And he did so within the last week or so,” ATF Assistant Special Agent In Charge Trevor Velinor said Sunday in Orlando.
Rep. Alan Grayson, speaking to reporters Sunday, said he believed the shooting was a “hate crime.”
Born in New York to parents from Afghanistan, Mateen is a U.S. citizen who lived in the Fort Pierce and Port St. Lucie area, about 118 miles southeast of Orlando.
State records show that he was a licensed Florida security guard, and also held a state firearms license. The media was also showing photos purportedly of Mateen — taken from a MySpace social media account — wearing New York Police T-shirts, the kind easily bought by tourists.
State records show he was briefly married to a woman named Sitora Yusufiy in 2009; they have since divorced. His ex-wife told the Washington Post that he became mentally unstable. “He would just come home and start beating me up because the laundry wasn’t finished or something like that,” she told the newspaper.
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