A man who said he had a sexual relationship with Orlando shooter Omar Mateen believes Mateen’s murderous rampage at the Pulse LGBT nightclub was prompted by struggles with his sexual identity.
The man, who went by the name “Miguel” to protect his identity, told Univision in an interview out Tuesday that Mateen harbored resentment towards Puerto Rican LGBT men over his sexual relationships with them.
Mateen fatally shot 49 people and wounded 53 others during “Latin night” at Pulse. Nearly half of those killed were of Puerto Rican descent.
Federal officials have labeled the attack both a hate crime and an act of terror, as Mateen pledged allegiance to the Islamic State terrorist group in a 911 call made during the shooting.
“Miguel,” who said he first met Mateen on gay dating app Grindr, told Univision that he thinks the attack was primarily an act of “revenge” rather than terrorism. He said he believed Mateen was upset by Puerto Rican men who had rejected him and outraged to learn that one Puerto Rican man he slept with was HIV positive.
“He hate gay Puerto Ricans for all the stuff he did to him,” he said. “I believe this crazy horrible thing he did was for revenge.”
He said his “friends with benefits” relationship with Mateen lasted two months and involved 15 to 20 meetings at an Orlando hotel.
A number of regular attendees at Pulse told the press that Mateen frequently stopped by the club and that they recognized him from gay dating sites. Though Mateen was married to his second wife, he reportedly had dating profiles on Grindr, Jack’d and Adam4Adam.
He seems nice.
Not that there’s anything wrong with that.
Were they trying to disguise this guy too? You know, to ‘protect his identity’?
IIRC, one of the people trapped in the bathroom said he was asked if he were black and told that the shooter had nothing against blacks. This struck me as odd at the time but makes sense given the context above.
Wow,
If I were that guy, I would protect my identity by keeping my mouth shut… I suppose this is information worth knowing, but wow. “Confused” is the wrong word, in this context.
Great, the FBI has to set up a department to track closeted gay Muslims with an anti-Latin bias and prone to domestic hetero violence, raised by a crazy father and suffering from foiled aspirations to be a policeman. There must only be like, oh, a million of THOSE guys running around. How did they miss him?