Multiple sources are coming forward to say that Omar Mateen, the gunman responsible for massacring 49 people* at a gay nightclub in Orlando on Sunday morning, was a regular at the very same club.
The Orlando Sentinel reports that at least four regular customers at the nightclub Pulse believe they’d seen Mateen there before.
“It’s the same guy,” he said. “He’s been going to this bar for at least three years.”
Callen’s partner Ty Smith, who goes by the name Aries, expressed incredulity about Mateen’s father’s statement that his son had recently been disgusted by the sight of two men kissing.
“That’s bullcrap, right there,” he said. “No offence. That’s straight-up crap. He’s been around us. Some of those people did a little more than [kiss] outside the bar… He was partying with the people who supposedly drove him to do this?”
They both said that Mateen had regularly gotten absolutely wasted while at Pulse.
“[He’d get] really, really drunk,” said Smith. “He couldn’t drink when he was at home – around his wife, or family. His father was really strict… he used to bitch about it.”“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,” Smith told the Orlando Sentinel. “We didn’t really talk to him a lot, but I remember him saying things about his dad at times… He told us he had a wife and child.”
Canadian Press also reports the pair as saying that Mateen had been escorted drunk from Pulse multiple times – once for pulling a knife on a friend after he joked about religion.
“[Mateen] said if he ever messed with him again, you know how it’ll turn out,” said Callen.
MSNBC host Chris Hayes has tweeted that he’s spoken to a Pulse regular who’d not only reported seeing Mateen in the club, but had also messaged him on a gay dating app.
I talked to regular today who said the same. And that his friends recognized him as well. https://t.co/HOCEq1q4C9
— Christopher Hayes (@chrislhayes) June 13, 2016
The man I spoke with today also said the shooter has messaged him on a gay dating app. His friend as well. We’ll run the interview tonight.
— Christopher Hayes (@chrislhayes) June 13, 2016
And ABC7NY is now reporting that Mateen had contacted a man called Kevin West three months ago via the gay dating app Jack’d.
“When he first contacted me, he was saying things like, ‘What clubs are popping and things of that sort, what are good places to go?’” said West. “And I remember telling him, ‘Oh, you can just look it up online because I don’t go out that much.’”
West says he’s since met with the FBI and shown them his communication with Mateen.
