Mass Murder: Omar Mateen

The Orlando nightclub shooter Omar Mateen committed mass murder in 2016 when he attacked a gay nightclub in the state of Florida. Although the club was known as a gay club, the attack was motivated not out of hatred for homosexuals but rather in protest of the death of Abu Waheeb, an Islamic militant. Mateen had become a radicalized Muslim and viewed his attack on the club as a righteous act of killingan act of vengeance against an unjust nation that he believed was persecuting the people of Islam in the Middle East (Doornbos, 2016). Up to that point, Mateen had no criminal background, although he did have behavioral issues in school and a history of engaging in physical altercations (Jacobo, 2016). He had become radicalized to embrace militant Islam over the Internet and he viewed the War on Terror as a war on innocent Muslims in the Middle East. The attack on the nightclub was his revenge (Greenwald & Hussein, 2018). It was somewhat of a random attack, as Mateen had not plotted his murder very carefully but was simply looking for a populated target at the time he decided to take action. A security guard by day, Mateen became a cold-blooded killer that night in 2016. In fact, in the 911 call he made after the shooting, he stated plainly, You have to tell America to stop bombing Syria and Iraq. They are killing a lot of innocent people (Doornbos, 2016). Mateen himself killed 49 and wounded dozens more before pledging his allegiance to the Islamic State as police reported (Elmasry & el-Nawawy, 2019).

Mateen had become socially withdrawn from friends and family leading up to the attack. His wife did not know what he was going to do, however, and in reference to the night of the attack she testified that he only spent some time driving from one club to another trying to decide which to open fire on (Greenwald & Hussein, 2018). In tenure was not without incident. He accused coworkers of making racist comments to him and he countered that he would have al-Qaeda kill the family of a sheriffs deputy (McRoberts, 2016). Thus, aggression and hostility in Mateen continued into adulthood and coincided with what he believed were personal attacks on his ethnicity and religious beliefs. For these threats, Mateen was transferred to a different work location. He was not fired or condemned, and the community that used...

…warning in and of itself, which is why his wife was later charged with aiding and abetting his attack on the nightclub, as she knew of his leanings and beliefs.

The mass murder committed by Mateen was, therefore, the result of a troubled personality with a history of personal conflicts at school and at workbut no criminal recordhaving reached a point in his beliefs where he saw no other way forward but to engage in physical violence. He had a lot of aggression and hostility and viewed himself and his people as victims of racism and political hatred. He wanted to stick up for himself and the innocent Muslims in the Middle East who were dying as a result of the US War on Terror. However, he chose a violent, terroristic method of defending himself and his people. His history of violence shows that he had behavioral issues, and the comments he made at his workplace showed that he aligned with a terrorist organization in the Middle Eastbut there is no record that the FBI was ever alerted. His workplace downplayed threats of violence and kept him on payroll, choosing to transfer him to a new station rather than release him after he threatened the family of a coworker. His own wife never alerted authorities about his tendencies. It seems no one around him really anticipated that he would become a…