Arek Sarkissian II

Wires

Before Omar Mateen became the man responsible for the worst mass killing in U.S. history, he was a Fort Pierce security guard who had failed at every powerful position he pursued.

Mateen, 29, wanted to be a police officer, but he failed. He wanted to be a corrections officer, but he failed.

He wore a New York City Police Department T-shirt in photos on his Myspace account, and he drove a vehicle with a United States Marine Corps logo on the back, although he never actually served as a Marine.

“This was someone who wants to align himself with power, control and dominance, but he never quite made it,” former senior FBI profiler Mary Ellen O’Toole said.

O’Toole and another FBI profiler offered insights into Mateen, who killed 49 people and injured 53 others when he opened fire early Sunday morning at Pulse nightclub in downtown Orlando. Authorities have said Mateen claimed allegiance to the Islamic State in conversations with them before he was shot and killed, ending the three hour siege.

Retired FBI profiler and supervisor Joe Navarro said Mateen’s claim of allegiance with the Islamic State was a relationship out of convenience. Being a member of the terrorist group brought him the strength he craved as a narcissist.

“Did he have narcissistic qualities? You’re starting to see that with a lot of the photos he has taken of himself,” Navarro said. “People like him do things like join radical groups to make themselves bigger than they really are.”

Navarro said the way Mateen gunned down so many people was more evidence of his thirst for control.

“He looked down on those people,” Navarro said. “That’s the narcissism trait right there.”

Navarro also said Mateen may have had trouble letting things go. Known as a “wound collector,” he went through life collecting social slights, indignities and hung on to them. This also bred paranoia, Navarro said.

“Being a member of that terrorist group was a convenience that made him feel good about being who he was,” Navarro said. “But what it really does is draw his flaws of character, the narcissism, the paranoia.”

But Mateen was motivated by more than an interest in terrorism, O’Toole said.

She called the nightclub a sophisticated crime scene that required at least one walk-through before Mateen could carry out his attack. But investigators have said they are checking reports that Mateen may have visited the club frequently before Sunday. And if true, that would suggest he may have struggled with his identity.

“The amount of time he spent there, it may be indicative that this individual was struggling or was ambivalent about his sexuality, so much that he did this,” O’Toole said. “Being gay or Islamic were not mutually exclusive. Every crime has multiple motives to it.”

O’Toole said Mateen’s calm demeanor as described by the negotiators who talked to him during the siege suggested he had no regard for human life.

“That callousness is indicative of what we call psychopathy,” she said. “These are traits that developed over time.

“What we say among profilers, someone like him doesn’t go from zero to 90 in a second. It takes time.”