Orlando, Fla.
Omar Mateen, a 29-year-old security guard from Fort Pierce, Fla., was on the FBI’s radar since at least 2013 when acquaintances — at least one of them a former law enforcement officer — warned authorities that he was prone to violence, made unspecified threats and seemed to have radical Islamic ideas.
Mateen, a would-be cop who never made it through the police academy, had no criminal record, but had a history of domestic violence and was investigated by the FBI twice, including two years ago when he was linked to another Fort Pierce man who killed himself in a terrorist bombing in Syria.
The FBI bureau in Tampa, however, closed their probes after concluding that Mateen, whose parents are from Afghanistan, posed no threat, authorities said.
Still, Mateen’s former co-workers described him as anti-social and someone who seemed to become unhinged at the thought of anyone who was black or gay.
“He was always on the edge, always hyper and agitated,” Daniel Gilroy, a former co-worker of Mateen’s, told the Miami Herald. “He would never have more than three or four sentences without using the word ner or queer or dike. It was always about violence.”
Federal intelligence investigators are still piecing together what led Mateen, who was born in New York but lived in Florida for the past decade, to march into a crowded gay nightclub, pull out two firearms, including an assault rifle, and open fire at about 2 a.m. Sunday.
Mateen called 911 just prior to the massacre and pledged his allegiance to the leader of the Islamic State, and ISIS later claimed responsibility for the attack. There was no evidence, however, directly linking him to the radical Islamic group.
The gunman’s father, Seddique Mir Mateen, told NBC news that his son’s rampage was not motivated by religion, but by homophobia. The elder Mateen said his son had recently visited Miami and became upset after seeing two men kissing in public at Bayside Marketplace.
ISIS is known for its brutal killings of homosexuals and ISIS leaders had been calling for attacks on the United States during Ramadan, the Muslim month of fasting and prayer.
“This has nothing to do with religion,” said his father, who in 2015 hosted a political TV show out of California in which he claimed to be president of Afghanistan.
He theorized that his son became enraged by two men who had been showing affection for each other in front of his son’s wife and 3-year-old son a few months earlier in Miami. “He got very angry … .They were kissing each other and touching each other and he said ‘look at that. In front of my son they are doing that.’ ”
The elder Mateen’s background has also come under scrutiny by federal authorities. Clips of his show, posted on YouTube, portray him denouncing the Pakistani government and pledging his support for the Taliban. According to Florida records, he also is the principal agent of a nonprofit, Durand Jirga, which supports the Taliban. The nonprofit’s mailing address is Mateen’s home on Bayshore Boulevard in Port St. Lucie. The home was searched by the FBI on Sunday.
Mateen earned a degree in criminal justice technology in 2006, the Indian River State College spokeswoman told TCPalm. Abusalha took preparatory classes for two semesters for a physical therapy assistant program from 2010 to 2011.
Ronald Hopper, an assistant agent in charge of the FBI’s Tampa Division, said Mateen had been investigated for ties to Abusalha, but the agency found that contact between them had been minimal, The New York Times reported.
Mateen worked security for a private company, G4S, at the PGA Village in Palm Beach County, where he was known for his cursing, diatribes and verbal slurs toward gays and African-Americans, said Gilroy, the former co-worker.