A former coworker of the jihadi responsible for the death of at least 49 people in a mass shooting at Orlando’s Pulse LGBT night club says “angry, sweating” Omar Mateen was regularly talking about committing a massacre, but the security firm they both worked for did nothing about it because Mateen was Muslim.
Daniel Gilroy, a former Fort Pierce police officer, worked alongside Matteen at the security firm G4S and told USA Today he had to leave his job because he was uncomfortable with Mateen’s routine hatred and threats of violence. “I quit because everything he said was toxic and the company wouldn’t do anything,” he said. “This guy was unhinged and unstable. He talked of killing people.” Gilroy described Matteen as “homophobic” and racist and an overt concern for the company.
Gilroy also said he complained multiple times to his superiors and was ignored because Mateen “was Muslim.”
Gilroy eventually quit when Mateen became fixated with him, sending up to 30 text messages and 15 voicemails a day.
“I complained multiple times that he was dangerous, that he didn’t like blacks, women, lesbians and Jews,” Gilroy told The Los Angeles Times in a separate interview. “He was always angry, sweating, just angry at the world.” Gilroy added an anecdote that Mateen had once openly wished “he could kill all black people” upon seeing a black man drive past him.
Mateen’s father, a known Taliban sympathizer named Seddique Mateen, confirmed to authorities that Mateen hated LGBT people. He told reporters that, years ago, he recalled Mateen becoming infuriated at the site of a male same-sex couple kissing.
Mateen’s ex-wife Sitora Yusifiy, also told reporters he was an extremely violent person, and she filed for divorce after becoming a victim of routine domestic violence. “He beat me. He would just come home and start beating me up because the laundry wasn’t finished or something like that,” she told the Washington Post.
Despite multiple complaints and an FBI investigation against him, authorities cleared Mateen for a concealed weapons permit in Florida and he continued to work as a security guard for G4S up until this weekend. G4S employs over 600,000 people worldwide and is known to provide security to sensitive venues like oil and gas industrial sites and airports. Mateen cleared the G4S background check twice.
G4S regional chief executive for North America John Kenning issued a statement following the attack: “We are cooperating fully with all law enforcement authorities, including the FBI, as they conduct their investigation. Our thoughts and prayers are with all of the friends, families and people affected by this unspeakable tragedy.”