Following up on the news that Omar Mateen was a regular at the gay night club where he later massacred 49 people, The Palm Beach Post reports that fellow students who attended police academy with Mateen in 2006 thought he was gay.

One former male classmate tells the Post that he believed Mateen was gay and that Mateen once asked him out.

“We went to a few gay bars with him, and I was not out at the time, so I declined his offer,” the former classmate said. He asked that his name not be used. He believed Mateen was gay, but not open about it. Mateen was awkward, and for a while the classmate and the rest in the group of friends felt sorry for him. “He just wanted to fit in and no one liked him,” he said. “He was always socially awkward.”

Mateen’s father, Seddique who has made numerous anti-gay statements, dismissed suggestions that his son was gay. “If he was gay, why would he do something like this?”