A US senator from Wisconsin revealed that Omar Mateen made several Facebook posts after carrying out Sunday’s massacre at a gay club in Orlando – and is now looking for Mark Zuckerberg’s help in the investigation.
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An official says the Orlando shooter’s threats that he had strapped explosives onto hostages and clubgoers’ belief that he had explosive vests caused a delay of “significant time” in sending paramedics into the nightclub. In his letter to Zuckerberg, Johnson said Mateen apparently posted sometime during the attack that he was pledging allegiance to the Islamic State group’s leader, and “America and Russian Federation stop bombing the Islamic state”.
A number of possible explanations and motives for the bloodbath have emerged, with Mateen professing allegiance to the Islamic State group in a 911 call during the attack, his ex-wife saying he was mentally ill, and his father suggesting he was driven by hatred of gays. He even searched for references to the massacre while he was carrying it out, a US senator said. Ron Johnson, R-Wisconsin, chairman of the Senate Homeland Security Committee.
The committee sent the letter to Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg, asking for help uncovering the trail of hate Mateen left behind in cyberspace.
Mateen then texted: “I love you, babe”.
Johnson clarified that Facebook isn’t a target of any inquiry, but asked for the information, and for Facebook officials to attend a briefing with committee staff, no later than June 29.
The FBI has declined to comment to about her knowledge of the shooting.
With a handgun and AR-15 semi-automatic rifle, Mateen stormed a packed gay nightclub in Orlando on Sunday, fatally shooting 49 people before police killed him.
The three-hour rampage began at 2 a.m. Sunday and ended with Mateen being killed by a police SWAT team.
“He appears to have been an angry, disturbed, unstable young man who became radicalized”, President Barack Obama told reporters. But there’s no signs he acted on orders from anyone overseas. Investigators also zeroed in what role his wife may have played in the attack at Pulse dance club.
He also condemned “the filthy ways of the west”, and USA airstrikes that kill “innocent women and children”.
America and Russian Federation stop bombing the Islamic state, the gunman wrote, according to the chairman of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs. But a person familiar with the situation who was not authorized to speak publicly said the Facebook posts came moments before the attack began.
Mateen also apparently used Facebook in May to look for information on the terrorists behind the 2015 San Bernardino attack. They also learned that Mateen frequently used Facebook to search for information on the Federal Bureau of Investigation and local law enforcement agencies. She told investigators Mateen spent thousands of dollars in the weeks leading up to the attacks, including purchasing guns.
“I can’t say what she knew, when they last talked or what they talked about”, he said.
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The excerpt from 2012’s “The Big Fix” shows Mateen telling a woman that everyone is “hoping for more oil to come out and more people to complain so they’ll have the jobs”. And she was with him when he bought a holster and ammunition but that she tried to talk him out of the attack.
