Omar Mir Seddique Mateen

Omar Mir Seddique Mateen  was a Muslim American mass shooter. He killed at least 49 people and wounded 53 others in a mass shooting at the Pulse gay bar in Orlando, Florida, before being killed himself in a gunfight with the police.

Prior to the shooting, he had been investigated by the FBI in 2013 and 2014. Mateen reportedly pledged his allegiance to the jihadist group Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) before the shooting

Mateen was born as Omar Mir Seddique in New York City to Afghan parents, with his father being a supporter of the Mujahideen.

He attended Martin County High School for one year and also St. Lucie West Centennial High School, where a schoolmate said he was bullied. He reportedly held two degrees in science from Indian River State College, received in 2006 and 2007.

In 2006, he filed a petition for a name change, adding Mateen as his surname.

He had worked for the security firm G4S Secure Solutions in Jupiter, Florida, since 2007.

He held an active firearms license and a security guard license.

A former coworker who worked with Mateen in a gated community in western Port St. Lucie described him as "unhinged and unstable". He also said that he frequently made homophobic, racist, and sexist comments, and talked about killing people.

 The coworker stated he complained to G4S about Omar Mateen "several times."

Mateen married an Uzbekistan-born woman in April 2009. They were married for four months, after which they separated; they eventually divorced in July 2011.

 Following the nightclub attack, Mateen's ex-wife told media outlets that during their marriage, Mateen was mentally unstable, and would beat her and keep her completely separated from her family.

 He reportedly remarried and had a three-year-old son. His first wife also claimed that he was bipolar and had a history with steroids.

At the time of the shooting, he lived about 100 miles (160 kilometers) from Orlando, Florida. According to Florida Department of Law Enforcement records, he had no criminal record in Florida. Mateen lived in Fort Pierce, Florida, but received mail at his parents' home in nearby Port St. Lucie.

Characterization

Mateen's father is Seddique Mir Mateen, who hosted a TV show called Durand Jirga Show on satellite television Payam-e-Afghan in 2015 representing himself as a candidate for the President of Afghanistan. 

The Washington Post reported that Seddique Mateen advocated

"support for the Afghan Taliban",

which is known for terrorist acts against civilians and for the oppression of women. Seddique said of his son's actions,

"This had nothing to do with religion."

He was quoted as saying that he had seen his son get angry after witnessing a gay couple kiss in front of his family at a festival marketplace in Miami months prior to the attack, which he suggested might have been a motivating factor.

Imam Shafiq Rahman at the Fort Pierce Islamic Center told reporters that Mateen would come to the mosque "three or four times a week" with his father and his three-year-old son as recently as two days before the shooting, and said of him,

"He was the most quiet guy. He would come and pray and leave. There was no indication at all of violence."

Rahman added that he did not preach violence toward homosexuals.

 A former high school friend and co-worker said that despite reports of Mateen's homophobia, a number of his co-workers at Treasure Coast Square were gay and Mateen had no obvious conflicts with them.

Alleged links to terror groups

Mateen became a person of interest to the FBI in 2013 and 2014. The 2013 investigation was opened after Mateen made "inflammatory" comments to co-workers and the 2014 investigation was opened after Mateen was linked to Moner Mohammad Abu Salha, an American radical who traveled to Syria and committed a suicide bombing there. Mateen was interviewed three times in connection with the investigations, which were both closed after producing nothing that appeared to warrant further investigation.

U.S. Representative Adam Schiff, the ranking Democratic member of the House Intelligence Committee, said that according to the Department of Homeland Security, Mateen had pledged allegiance to the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), though analysts noted that "at this point, it's anyone's guess as to how involved Omar Mateen was with either Al Qaeda or ISIS." 

Shooting and death

Main article: 2016 Orlando nightclub shooting

At approximately 2:00 a.m. on June 12, 2016, Mateen entered the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Florida, and began shooting. At 2:22 a.m., he made a 9-1-1 call in which he pledged allegiance to ISIL and also referenced Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the Boston Marathon bombers.

 Mateen took hostages after police arrived and engaged in a shootout with him. At approximately 5:00 a.m. police shot and killed Mateen, ending the attack. In the end, Mateen had killed at least 49 people and injured 53 more. The attack was the deadliest mass shooting in United States history,[a] the deadliest incident of violence against LGBT people in U.S. history, and the deadliest terrorist attack on U.S. soil since September 11, 2001