In the early hours of Sunday morning, Omar Mateen walked into the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Florida and began shooting. After a 2-hour stand-off with at least 30 hostages, he was killed by a police SWAT team. When the carnage was done, 53 people were injured and another 50 people were dead. Media and the FBI are now calling Mateen’s actions the “deadliest mass shooting in American history,” surpassing the 27 adults and children killed in Newtown, Connecticut on December 12, 2012. As the investigation continues, many are asking how Mateen was able to commit his crime considering his past.
It is being revealed that Mateen displayed behavior that triggered many “red flags,” leading to FBI surveillance. In 2013, federal agents interviewed Mateen twice after co-workers stated that he made “inflammatory” comments to them about radical Islamic propaganda. Then, in 2014, the FBI investigated him again because of his affiliation with a US citizen who went to Syria to become a suicide bomber. According to some terrorism experts, Mateen fit the profile of a “lone wolf” terrorist, a person who becomes self-radicalized and attacks without warning. He was briefly placed on a government watch list but was later removed after the investigations were closed. Family members have also reported that he was physically abusive to his wife who later divorced him after four months of marriage. In addition, he was not accepted within the local Islamic community and became a solitary figure praying at the mosque. Despite these issues, Mateen was able to get a job with a security company that guarded government buildings as well as receive a security clearance. Even more shocking, Mateen was able to legally purchase a “.223 caliber AR type rifle and a 9mm semiautomatic pistol,” according to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosive. He purchased the weapons just 12 days before his attack. Just before Mateen attacked the club, it was reported that he called 911 and stated his allegiance to the terrorist group ISIS.
This is disturbing and has become a layered and complicated situation. Americans must now be ready to ask the tough questions of government officials who allowed Mateen to slip through the cracks. It becomes important that we look past excuses and hold accountable those who allowed Mateen to commit his crime. By all indications, Mateen should have been stopped before he was able to commit the “deadliest mass shooting in US history.”
