Taunts Resulted In False Terrorist Claims By Orlando Club Shooting Gunman

The gunman who opened fire at a Florida gay nightclub apparently had co-workers who “ganged up” to tease him forcing him to claim terrorist ties in order to get them off his back, according to a letter written by Mateen to his bosses.

Documents released on Monday showed that Omar Mateen reported being taunted at his job as a security guard in the St. Lucie courthouse leading him to say he had relations to terrorists and a mass shooter. However, he later told bosses that he had made that up and the FBI deemed him not a threat.

Due to his remarks, an FBI investigation was launched in 2013 and raised concerns with the St. Lucie County Sheriff’s Office with officials requesting employer G4S Secure Solutions to reassign him away from the courthouse.

In addition to Mateen’s explanation to his bosses that he had concocted the story, the documents revealed that the FBI found it hard to believe that he was a terrorist, with an agent telling a sheriff’s office major that he doubted that Mateen “would go postal or anything like that.”

According to the documents released by the sheriff’s voice, Mateen wrote a letter to his bosses at G4S Secure Solutions claiming, “I love the United States. The boasting I did it just to satisfy the gang of co-workers who ganged up against me… I’m 1,000 percent pure American. … I’m against these terrorists anyone of them.”

On June 12, during “Latin Night”, Mateen opened fire at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando in a rampage that left 49 victims dead and 53 wounded. It marked the worst mass shooting in modern US history. Pledging his allegiance to the militant Islamic State (IS) group during a call to the police dispatchers during a three-hour standoff, Mateen died in a flood of gunfire after police stomped the venue.

Mateen was born in New York and his family was from Afghanistan. Records show that he had told his bosses that when he initially started working at the Courthouse, a guard had told deputies that he was “a Muslim extremist and potential terrorist.”

Boxes delivered to the courthouse showed that another guard had often said “We have to be careful Omar may send us a bomb and he will get his 72 virgins,” Mateen wrote.

According to Mateen, in a different incident, a deputy teased Mateen that his fingers had pork oil and that he would enjoy rubbing them on Mateen’s shirt. Muslims are not meant to eat pork as it is considered unclean.

Mateen had confessed to his bosses that in response to the taunting, he had told co-workers that he had relations to the Boston Marathon bombing suspects and Nidal Hasan, a former US Army major who was convicted and executed for the 2009 shooting at Fort Hood in Texas, leaving 13 people dead and 31 wounded.

Another investigation into Mateen was launched by the FBI again in 2014 due to his connections to a Syrian suicide bomber who attended the same mosque; however, that case was closed without the any action being taken by the agency.

Amy Pittman, FBI spokeswoman on Monday referred questions to FBI’s Miami office. Michael D. Leverock, Miami office spokesman maintained that he was unable to give any comments as the investigation was still underway.

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Posted by modousarr on Jul 20 2016. Filed under Latest News, Pakistan. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.