Gilroy quit after he said Mateen began stalking him via multiple text messages - 20 or 30 a day, he said. Gilroy said he complained to G4S several times, but said the employer did nothing. Mateen took over from him in afternoons and he said Mateen frequently made homophobic and racial comments. The elder Mateen told NBC News on Sunday that the attack "had nothing to do with religion." He said his son harbored anti-gay sentiments - he’d evidently gotten angry a few months earlier after seeing two men kiss in downtown Miami.Ī former Fort Pierce Police officer who once worked security with Mateen said the 29-year-old was “unhinged and unstable.”ĭaniel Gilroy said he worked an early shift shift with G4S at PGA Village, a golf resort, for several months in 2014-15. Durand Jirga is an apparent reference to the Durand Line, the boundary that was established between Afghanistan and Pakistan in 1893. He incorporated it in Florida in November 2010 as a religious, charitable organization, and it is still listed as active in Florida records. Mateen’s father, Seddique Mir Mateen, maintains a Facebook page that prominently cites an organization called Durand Jirga.
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He’d been married for about two years, then divorced. He’d attended public school in Stuart, Fla., and earned an associate’s college degree in criminal justice technology from Indian River State College in 2006. New York-born, Mateen lived in Fort Pierce, about 120 miles south of Orlando on Florida’s Atlantic coast, and worked for the security firm G4S. Mateen was not under investigation at the time of the shooting, a status that allowed for his purchase of a handgun and an AR-15 rifle which were used in the assault. That case also was closed when authorities were unable to "verify'' the comments. In a 2013 investigation, investigators interviewed Mateen twice about "inflammatory comments'' the gunman made to a co-worker about possible ties to international terrorism. In the most recent case, the FBI reviewed Mateen's alleged contacts in 2014 with Moner Mohammad Abu-Salha, an American suicide bomber from Florida who died in Syria the same year. Hopper said the case was closed when investigators determined that Mateen's contacts were "minimal.'' Hopper confirmed that Mateen had been interviewed by federal authorities three times in connection with two investigations during the past three years.
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Islamic State linked to worst mass shooting in U.S. Three horrific hours: Inside the Orlando nightclub massacre He’d actually been on law enforcement’s radar years earlier - FBI Special Agent Ronald Hopper said agents had investigated Mateen in 2013 and again in 2014 regarding terror threats, but that in both cases authorities found insufficient evidence to pursue charges. history.īrevard County (Fla.) Sheriff Wayne Ivey, who took in the scene first-hand early Sunday, called it “one of the most horrific things I’ve ever seen.”Ī federal law enforcement official told USA TODAY that the suspect had been identified as 29-year-old Omar Mir Seddique Mateen. Orlando Police Chief John Mina initially estimated the death toll at more than 20, but after police were able to get access to the scene, Mina said 50 were dead and 53 hospitalized, by far the largest mass shooting in U.S.
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Finally, before 5 a.m., police conducted a controlled detonation and used an armored vehicle to break through a wall at the nightclub. Eleven Orlando Police officers exchanged gunfire with the suspect, who was shot and killed.