Former Classmate: Orlando Shooter was Gay, Asked Me Out ‘Romantically’


 

In a surprising turn of events, the Orlando terrorist attack that unfolded this week may have gone from an anti-LGBT hate crime to an attack from one within their community.

A former classmate of Omar Mateen’s 2006 police academy class said he believed Mateen was gay, saying Mateen once asked him out.

Officials say Mateen shot and killed 49 people and injured 53 others at an Orlando nightclub early Sunday morning.

Orlando shooter Omar Mateen was gay, former classmate says photo

The classmate said that he, Mateen and other classmates would hang out, sometimes going to gay nightclubs, after classes at the Indian River Community College police academy. He said Mateen asked him out romantically.

In Orlando, the Los Angeles Times reported that Mateen attended the Pulse nightclub possibly as many as a dozen times before the rampage. Kevin West said he had messaged Mateen back and forth over a year’s time on the gay dating app Jack’d but never met him until he saw Mateen crossing the street about 1 a.m. Sunday.

“He walked directly past me. I said, ‘Hey,’ and he turned and said, ‘Hey,’” and nodded his head, West said. “I could tell by the eyes.”

At least four regular customers of Pulse, the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender nightclub where the massacre took place, told the Orlando Sentinel on Monday that they believed they had seen Mateen there before.

“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,” said Ty Smith, who also uses the name Aries.

He saw Mateen at the club at least a dozen times, he told the Sentinel. “We didn’t really talk to him a lot, but I remember him saying things about his dad at times,” Smith said. “He told us he had a wife and child.”

This raises many questions. Was Mateen’s attack aimed specifically at gay men, or did he choose the nightclub due to his familiarity with the venue?

These questions will no doubt be answered as investigators delve deeper into Mateen’s background, but the circumstances will remain the same. Mateen represents the creep of homegrown Islamic extremism in the United States. With our country’s inability to face the issue head-on, it was only a matter of time.

Source: Palm Beach Post



Share

23 Comments

Leave a Reply

Pin It on Pinterest