Families of some of the 49 people slain at an Orlando gay nightclub in the deadliest mass shooting in modern USA history hugged and wept at funerals on Friday, as Federal Bureau of Investigation agents questioned a member of the mosque where the gunman worshipped.
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Police have described Orlando gunman Omar Mateen as “cool and calm” in his conversations with police after he’d shot his way through Pulse, the gay nightclub where he staged his bloody attack.
“Time doesn’t change. But people change”, said Lynn Musich, 53, an office manager who has been a First Baptist member for more than 40 years.
“All indications were it was booby trapped”, Dyer said.
Hopper said agents had investigated Mateen in 2013 and again in 2014 regarding terror threats, but lacked sufficient evidence in both cases to pursue charges.
Families of some of the 49 people killed in a massacre at an Orlando gay nightclub will mourn and bury their dead on Friday, a day after President Barack Obama met survivors and said the United States must act to control gun violence.
Dyer said he would go to the funerals that families asked him to attend.
CNN reported that a US attorney plans to present evidence to a federal grand jury to determine if charges will be brought against Salman.
Ms. Salman has told F.B.I. investigators that she tried to talk her husband out of some kind of attack, according to senior law enforcement officials. He also appealed for the publics help in retracing Mr. Mateens movements, as investigators scour his past for motives or possible accomplices. Mr. Mateen had expressed hatred of gays and made contradictory claims of links to terrorist groups. “Maybe he was just talking to himself”, she said.
Mateen called 911 and pledged his allegiance to the Islamic State during the attack.
He called local cable news channel News 13, the station revealed Wednesday.
Her romance with Omar Mateen – security guard, bodybuilder and devout Muslim -began online, according to a neighbor, and they were married on September 29, 2011, near her hometown, according to public records. But Mr. Hopper said investigators believed that Pulse was the gunmans intended target. “It’s not like one is a plumber and one is a lawyer and one should get more”, Fernandez said.
But the most moving part of the evening came when Northland’s pastor, Joel Hunter, said he wanted to cede the microphone, and his speaking slot, to Victoria Kirby York, national campaigns director of the National LGBTQ Task Force.
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Authorities say suspect Omar Mateen emerged, carrying an AR-15 and fired relentlessly – 20 rounds, 40, then 50 and more.
