Details continue to emerge about Omar Mateen, the man who murdered 50 people and injured over 50 more at Pulse, a popular gay club in Orlando, FL.
NBC News has reported that Mateen called 911 right before he committed the massacre. Officials told reporter Pete Williams that Mateen told the operators he “pledged allegiance to Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.”
One law enforcement agent told CNN that the FBI opened “two cases on Mateen in the past,” but they could not find “evidence to charge him with anything.” They placed him on their radar as a possible Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL) sympathizer:
In response to a question to whether the shooter may have had a connection to radical Islamic terrorism, FBI Assistant Special Agent in Charge Ronald Hopper said investigators are “looking into all angles right now.””We do have suggestions that that individual may have leanings toward that particular ideology but we can’t say definitively,” Hopper said.
The Miami Herald reported that federal agents arrived on the scene to investigate if “Mateen has links to international terrorism.” They wrote:
As the country awoke Sunday to the shock of yet another mass shooting, federal agents with South Florida’s Joint Terrorism Task Force had joined in the investigation into Mateen, who is of Afghan descent. Authorities with knowledge of the investigation say agents have already begun interviewing Mateen’s relatives, and search warrants are expected to be executed Sunday afternoon.
However, Mateen’s father Mir Seddique does not believe this has anything to do with his religion. Seddique said his son “got angry” when he saw two men kissing Miami. Mateen expressed disgust with the action, especially since he had his son with him.
Mateen married Sitora Alisherzoda Yusufiy in 2009 and they share a three-year-old son. State documents show they divorced in 2011. She described him as “violent and mentally unstable.” She told The Washington Post the marriage began normal, but became abusive:
“He was not a stable person,” said the ex-wife, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because she feared for her safety in the wake of the mass shooting. “He beat me. He would just come home and start beating me up because the laundry wasn’t finished or something like that.”
They met online and she moved to Florida to marry him. She never witnessed any movement towards radical Islam during their brief time together.
But her parents swooped in and rescued their daughter when they learned her husband assaulted her. They took her back home, which is not mentioned in the article, but they came from Uzbekistan, and left all her belongings in the condo.
However, this article did not mention a son or child between the two.
He worked as a private security guard in Miami and held an associates degree in criminal justice from Indian River State College. He also possessed a Statewide Firearms License.
He used a rental car to drive to Orlando from Port St. Lucie. Officials have arrived at his apartment with the bomb squad.
We’ll keep you updated as more details about the terrorist emerge.
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