‘HE WAS UNSTABLE’: Massacre gunman’s disturbing history

The 29-year-old US citizen who opened fire on the Pulse gay nightclub on Sunday morning, killing 49 people and injuring 53, had previously said America deserved the 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center.

Several former classmates came forward after Mateen was named as the gunman. One said he was in the same room with the then-teenager during the 9/11 attacks and said he started “cheering on the terrorists” as the second hijacked plane hit the World Trade Center’s south tower.

“Omar was saying some really rude stuff. Stuff like, ‘That’s what America deserves’. That kind of thing. It wasn’t right,” the former classmate said, according to theWashington Post.

Robert Zirkle, then a freshman at Martin County High School whe-re Mateen attended, said: “He was making plane noises on the bus, acting like he was running into a building.

“I don’t really know if he was doing it because he was being taught some of that stuff at home or just doing it for attention because he didn’t have a lot of friends.”

Mr Zirkle, among other former classmates who chose to remain anonymous, said Mateen also claimed that Osama bin Laden was his uncle. The students recalled Mateen being suspended or expelled f-rom the school shortly after 9/11.

This comes as it was revealed Mateen referred to the Boston Marathon bombers Dzhokhar and Tamerlan Tsarnaev as his “homeboys” during a 911 call made f-rom inside the club on Sunday morning.

And it has also been reported that Manteen had previously been inside the club, spotted by regular customers at least 12 times.
“Sometimes he would go over in the corner and sit and drink by himself, and other times he would get so drunk he was loud and belligerent,” Ty Smith, who also uses the name Aries, told the Orlando Sentinel.

 

Orlando nightclub attacker Omar Mateen, 29. Picture: MySpaceSource:Supplied

Omar Mateen’s father, Seddique Mir Mateen. Picture: APTNSource:AP

Meanwhile a former co-worker said Mateen was always “dangerous”.

Daniel Gilroy, who worked with Mateen for about a year as a security guard at PGA Village South in Port St. Lucie, Florida, said he made several complaints against him during that time.

“I complained multiple times that he was dangerous, that he didn’t like blacks, women, lesbians and Jews,” Mr Gilroy, 44, told The Times.

Mateen threatened violence in front of him, Mr Gilroy said, recalling one instance whe-re he saw an African American man driving past and said he wished he could kill all black people.

“You meet bigots,” Mr Gilroy said, “but he was above and beyond. He was always angry, sweating, just angry at the world.”

Mr Gilroy, a former Fort Pierce police officer, described Mateen as “unhinged and unstable” and said he “talked of killing people”. Mr Gilroy said he quit his security job after Mateen began harassing him, texting him as many as 20 or 30 times a day. “I saw this coming,” he said, referring to Sunday’s unspeakable attack.

Mateen had been employed since 2007 as a security guard with G4S, a large multinational security company that provides services to more than two dozen juvenile detention facilities in Florida.

John Kenning, chief regional executive for GS4, released a statement on behalf of the company: “We are shocked and saddened,” he said.

Hijacked United Airlines Flight 175, which departed f-rom Boston en route for Los Angeles, is shown in a flight path for the South Tower of the World Trade Center towers, September 11, 2001.Source:AP

The gunman, who pledged allegiance to the Islamic State during a 911 call made f-rom inside the club on Sunday morning, made frightening statements to co-workers three years ago about being tied to terrorism, it has been revealed.

Mateen made “inflammatory and contradictory” remarks about having relatives in al-Qaeda while working as a courthouse guard in 2013, FBI director James Comey said during a press conference on Monday.

But Mr Comey defended his agency’s 2013 and 2014 investigations of Mateen, saying there is nothing they “should have done differently”.

Mateen also claimed to be a member of Hezbollah, Lebanon’s Shiite militia. His remarks drew a lengthy 11-month FBI investigation, Mr Comey said.

“He said he hoped that law enforcement would raid his apartment and assault his wife and child so that he could martyr himself.”

Harold Shaw, special agent in c-harge of the FBI’s Boston division, said during a press conference on Monday that Mateen also referred to the Boston Marathon bombers Dzhokhar and Tamerlan Tsarnaev as his “homeboys” during the 911 call on Sunday morning.

At this point in time, all evidence collected to date shows no connection between Mateen and the Tsarnaev brothers who bombed the marathon, killing three and injuring 264.

FBI Boston will assist FBI Tampa in the ongoing investigation, if requested, Mr Shaw said.

“As is standard practice in Boston, we are sharing real-time information and intelligence with our federal, state, local and community partners. Currently, we have no specific, credible threats to our area as a result of the Orlando attack.”

Omar Mateen’s ex-wife Sitora Yusufiy.Source:Facebook

Sitora Yusufiy said she was beaten by Mateen.Source:Facebook

Mateen’s ex-wife, Sitora Yusufiy, spoke out about what it was like to be married to him and said he hit her and was mentally ill.

“He was not a stable person,” she said. “He beat me. He would just come home and start beating me up because the laundry wasn’t finished or something like that.”

Mateen’s parents are f-rom Afghanistan but he was not very religious, she said, adding that he “seemed like a normal human being.”

Mourners gather at a candlelight vigil at Lake Eola Park in downtown Orlando, Florida to honour the victims of the mass shooting. Picture: Loren Elliott/Tampa Bay TimesSource:AP