Omar Mateen killed and injured more than 100 people in one of the deadliest mass shootings in US history. The shooting took place at a gay club called Pulse in Orlando, Florida and it seems that Mateen was motivated by homophobia. His father admitted that he was enraged by seeing two men kiss. Mateen also pledged allegiance to ISIS and was previously probed by the FBI.

However, new evidence has come forward that Mateen was actually a regular at Pulse and even had a gay dating app. Mateen has been a regular at Pulse dating back to 2013. Ty Smith, another regular at Pulse, told the Orlando Sentinal:

“(He’d get) really, really drunk… 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. 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.”

Another club regular, Chris Callen, said that he stopped talking to Mateen after he threatened him with a knife when they make a joke about religion. Mateen was also abusive to his ex-wife and several people close to him have now said they believed he was gay.

Wow, this is certainly an interesting development in the story. Did self-hatred of his own sexuality cause Mateen to be so angry? If that is the case, it’s just another sad example of how homophobic messages end up causing so much harm.

[Featured image from BBC screengrab]