Florida killer was checking Facebook
Print Edition
WHILE his victims texted heartbreaking last words to loved ones from the blood-drenched bathrooms, Omar Mateen apparently went on Facebook to measure the shockwaves his attack on a gay nightclub was generating.
He searched for the terms “Pulse Orlando” and “Shooting,” according to a letter released by a US Senate committee.
The letter detailing Mateen’s Facebook posts and searches in the final hours of his life came to light as grief-stricken Orlando prepared to bury the first of the 49 dead and were awaiting a visit from President Barack Obama, who was planning to meet with victims’ families, doctors and paramedics and offer words of comfort.
Investigators, meanwhile, are trying to reconstruct Mateen’s movements before the rampage at the Pulse club and are taking a close look at his 30-year-old Palestinian-American wife, Noor Salman, and what she may have known about his plans for the attack.
“The real muslims will never accept the filthy ways of the west,” Mateen, a 29-year-old American-born Muslim, wrote on one of at least five Facebook accounts believed to be associated with him, according to the letter from Republican Senator Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, chairman of the Senate Homeland Security Committee.
The committee sent the letter to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, asking for help in uncovering the trail of hate Mateen left behind in cyberspace.
Johnson did not explain how the committee had obtained the information about Mateen’s activity on Facebook.
According to the letter, Mateen made his series of Facebook posts and searches before and during the attack. The letter did not specify what took place when. But an inside source said that the Facebook posts had come moments before the attack began.
“America and Russia stop bombing the Islamic State,” Mateen wrote, according to the letter.
As he did in his call to a 911 operator during the massacre, Mateen pledged his allegiance on Facebook to the leader of the Islamic State group and, in his final post, warned: “in the next few days you will see attacks from the Islamic state in the USA.”
The Obama administration has said it has seen no evidence that Mateen was directed by the Islamic State.
A spokesman for the FBI did not return a call for comment, and Facebook had no immediate comment on the latest developments.
Mateen’s three-hour rampage began at 2am and ended three hours later with the gunman being killed by a police SWAT team.
The FBI said it is still gathering evidence at Pulse and analyzing cellphone location data to piece together Mateen’s activities leading up to the massacre.
On Saturday night, hours before the rampage, Mateen visited Disney Springs, an outdoor restaurant, retail and entertainment complex at Walt Disney World, an official who had been briefed on the case but insisted on anonymity told reporters.
The official said it was not clear what Mateen was up to with regard to those visits.
Mateen’s wife, meanwhile, has gone into seclusion.
US Attorney Lee Bentley repeatedly refused to say whether charges might be brought against her or anyone else.
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