Despite rumors, federal investigators say there is no evidence to suggest Orlando massacre gunman Omar Mateen used gay dating apps, watched gay porn and had a secret boyfriend, Orlando Sentinel reports.
Related: Alleged Ex-Lover Of Orlando Shooter Speaks Out: He Loved To Cuddle; Did It For Revenge
Neither Mateen’s laptop, cell phone or the communications he left behind suggest he led a secret gay life, according to an anonymous official. Electronic devices belonging to men who say they had communicated with Mateen online were also reviewed with no links discovered.
Related: Orlando Shooter Was A Regular At Gay Club Before Attack, Witnesses Say
Investigators say they are still following leads about Mateen’s purported interest in gay clubs and gay men, but it’s looking like all that talk of him being a closet case may have been just that, talk.
Orlando Sentinel reports at least two men who claimed to have chatted with Mateen online are sticking to their stories, however. Investigators believe those men are either mistaken or not being truthful.
Related: The Moment An Orlando Survivor Reunited With The Cop Who Saved His Life
h/t:Orlando Sentinel
Baba Booey Fafa Fooey
This will upset a lot of gay and straight people who were desperate for this guy to be gay.
DCguy
One of the people interviewed I thought said Mateen asked him a lot about gay events like Gay Disney, and gay bars. If he was on there, he may have been trying to get information on picking targets.
Paco
The FBI also found no evidence that the guy was a threat. Twice.
Baba Booey Fafa Fooey
Also why can’t the gay people who are fighting with FBI about chatting with him on these apps, produce a chat history? If they can’t, that’s very convenient.
Masc Pride
@Paco: I get what you mean, but they really had no evidence because there was none at the time. They can’t find what’s not there. The guy was making comments and nothing more. All these gay people that claim to have had allllll these encounters with Mateen need to produce something. Text records? Guys from apps LOVE to text. E-mails? Something that proves the interaction they’re claiming. The FBI can’t just conclude things based on gossip.
tampaed
The FBI totally Fucked this up and Now they’re trying to cover their tracks!
Maybe he was in the closet maybe not WTF difference does it make? It was still a HATE crime against everyone in that club.
Baba Booey Fafa Fooey
@tampaed: Explain how the FBI effed up. Despite letting this guy go, twice, they were right about him not being gay.
Kangol
@Paco: Thank you!
It’s like two different, bizarre realities, though, with this dead terrorist monster’s life.
In the one, he’s a closet case who multiple people saw being carried drunk out of Pulse, were cruised by, etc.
In the other, he had zero contact with LGBTQ people and just happened to pick that Pulse bar, on Latin night, after casing it with his second wife.
Somewhere between these two poles lies the truth.
onthemark
“Federal investigators say they believe men making such claims are either confusing Mateen with someone else or are not credible.”
The FBI really seems to like the “all Muslims look alike” theory.
gayhope1990
This terrorist was a murderer.Why bother looking for explanations.
ShiroiOji
@Baba Booey Fafa Fooey: Let me just say that I am RELIEVED this is not the case. His being gay was my nightmare scenario, and while this is horrid, I feel it would have been so much worse had the rumors been true.
batesnight
Duh. The mass majority was already hip to the fact that he was not a closet case. This is not a closet case! A closet case doesn’t draw attention to himself and shoot up over 100 people. All of the victims that survived the Orlando shooting all plainly stated, “There was no doubt what his motive was. He did it in the name of ISIS.” There is a very tiny percentage of gay men that desperately want Omar Mateen to be a closet case so they can continue with the hate crime against gays theory. It was a hate crime, since all radical islamic terrorists commit hate crimes against all of humanity, but it was also a terrorist attack. Period.
Stilinski26
Why can’t people accept the fact that his mind was poisoned by religion and his father.
IcarusD
@DCguy: That’s exactly what I thought. The conversations sounded like scoping out targets. I haven’t heard of any credible claims of him actually hooking up with anyone through these apps.
@Paco: There’s only so much the FBI could do. He hadn’t actually DONE anything previously that they could act on. And thanks to the NRA, their suspicions weren’t enough to prevent him from buying semi-automatic weapons.
@onthemark: Your words, not theirs. The FBI checked the phones of the people making these allegations and couldn’t find any evidence that they actually chatted with him. Maybe it was mistaken identity. Maybe the FBI is too polite to publicly say that these people are gossip-mongers and publicity whores making shit up to get attention. Regardless, they are claiming to have chatted with him on apps but they can’t show it, and the apps companies can’t either. Don’t blame the FBI for that.
@batesnight: It can be a terrorist attack and a hate crime and a lone wolf and a mentally deranged individual all at the same time. And I think it was all o the above. I don’t think ISIS had any involvement in planning it, but he did claim allegiance to them ex post facto, and ISIS has posted videos encouraging lone wolf sympathizers to take advantage of the U.S.’s lax gun laws. He was clearly targeting a gay venue. I have not heard if he was also specifically targeting it because it was a Latin night; maybe it was simply the most popular event the night he planned to attack. And he clearly has had anger management and domestic abuse issues that should have also prohibited him from buying weapons. Prozac and therapy may have helped. I think it was terrorism and a hate crime and a lone wolf and untreated mental illnesses. And lax gun laws.
Danny
You’re criticizing people because they can’t produce a chat history? How many people would be able to do that. Most people delete, delete, delete, block. That’s the whole point.
Baba Booey Fafa Fooey
@Danny: I am, yes. And, no they don’t. But, criticize away.
zooby
Self-hating closeted cowards are the real enemy of the LGBT community. The guys like Brian who have sex with men but refuse to come out.
Mack
@tampaed: If he was in fact gay, that give the Right Wing ammunition against us. Instead of a hate crime it’s “just another fag having a bad day”. I agree if he had contacts by apps or chats or emails there would be a record. And if the FBI got a hold of his equipment-laptop or cell that information would be there. I didn’t trust the comment from the “former lover” in the first place. Sound too set up.
S.anderson
Listen, all we know is what the FBI is claiming “no evidence” (once they’ve hauled it away) -vs- what a dozen or so somewhat credible people from the gay community are saying. Bear in mind, the FBI NEEDS this to be an “international terrorist” event instead of a simple domestic mass-murder. This expands their powers.
Mateen’s father, ==== pay attention to this ===, is a big ole schmooze on Capitol Hill, and is running for president of Afganistan(!) The FBI would dearly love him to be ‘their man’ in the ‘stan, and that’s not going to happen if Seddique Mateen had a son who was a Westernized fagg0t. However, many Afganis will enthusiastically respect a candidate whose son died a martyr.
While working as a contractor for the Department of the Homeland, Omar Mateen obtained his status and training with weapons, and his boasts shocked his own co-workers enough that he was reported several times to the FBI. They let him off each time (“finding no evidence” again), in what looks like they were preserving him, a self-radicalized potential terrorist in their midst, for a future project.
It’s ever so possible that Omar was being groomed by the FBI to commit a terrorist act, which the FBI would “discover in time” and “save” the beloved citizens from triumphantly “proving” the fed’s effectiveness. It wouldn’t be the first, second, or tenth time they’ve done this.
Brian
Didn’t the FBI also find that Omar Mateen was not a threat before he committed the atrocity?
I’d believe in the tooth fairy before I believed the FBI, frankly.
curan
I don’t buy it. Why?
Mateen released at least one black person, saying “your kind has suffered enough.” He was targeting Latinos.
There have also been a stampeed of witnesses, whom the FBI have instructed to keep their silence.
There is truth in this, but we haven’t heard it.
Brian
Also, Mateen’s first wife said that he had homosexual tendencies. She would know him better than most.
The FBI needs to improve its game if it is going to retain the faith of the community.
Baba Booey Fafa Fooey
@Brian: Brian, have you ever been to a site called Breitbart? You would love that site!
ingyaom
I said this last week: Show us the dic-pics, then I’ll believe it.
GG
I have never joined grindr or jack’d, so someone correct me if I’m wrong, but when one signs up with one of these services, doesn’t one have to set up their account by inputting their cell phone number? And aren’t the apps in question American companies? Which means it would be a simple matter of getting a warrant for these companies to turn over to the requestor any account records that matched Mateen’s cell phone number? And those account records would have a recorded history of texts sent/received and to/from whom, right?
So even if Mateen deleted stuff from his own phone, the app companies would still have records of it.
Brian
I also read a report which said that Omar’s first wife had been instructed by American authorities to not discuss his homosexual tendencies. She reportedly confirmed this in an interview with Brazilian TV 5 days ago.
The plot gets thicker. If I find the report, I’ll post the link.
Baba Booey Fafa Fooey
@Brian: Oh, PLEASE let him be homosexual! PLEASE! PLEASE! PLEASE LET HIM VE HOMOSEXUAL! Brian, you are the king! My master! MILO FOREVER!
SumSay
@GG:
Those apps don’t require a mobile plan that has your name attached to it. It’s surprisingly easy to buy a prepaid phone and use it anonymously.
montydaman
I hope his Homosexuality is ALL lies! He’s not worthy to be on out team!!!!!! What a disgrace otherwise!! Yuk!
CaliKyle
@Stilinski26: You nailed it. Mateen’s inherently disturbed mind was further poisoned and inflamed by his father and Islamist rhetoric to the point of inciting uncontrollable rage and violence. ISIS regularly posts social media videos depicting the torture and murder of gay men thereby sanctioning violence against homosexuals in the name of Islam.
CarlIsle
@IcarusD: I agree with every point you have made. People coming out of the woodwork to claim their 15 minutes of fame with false stories is nothing new. We’ve seen it before and will see it again. It’s sad that they would undermine the gay rights movement for their own selfish needs but that’s just the way some people are.
gilmanr
This was pretty predictable. The “best” evidence we had was that his first wife, who hated him, declined to object much when asked if he might be gay. Oh, and let’s not forget the screwball in the Geraldo Rivera disguise. The worst part is that the damage has probably already been irrevocably done. The facts are not salacious, so they will be disregarded, and most of America will continue to believe this was a simple case of fags gone wild.
lee_21
The Ex-Lover said was a complete hoax, probably, by a homophobic activist who wanted to portray an angered lover seeking revenge. This would diminish the tragic events against the Gay Community.
Brian
It’s very easy to use homosexual sex apps anonymously.
There were also numerous people who had seen Mateen at Pulse and other venues over a 3 year period. He has very characteristic features which make him stand out.
There is no way that everybody could be wrong.
I suspect the FBI may not have done its homework.
gilmanr
I am genuinely curious about people like “Brian” who so desperately long for this monster to be gay, all serious evidence to the contrary. Is it self loathing? A call for attention? A psychosexual fascination with the roughest of rough trade? I doubt that he has much insight into his own compulsion here, but if anyone else has, I would be fascinated to hear your theory.
Brian
Well, one could say that people like gilmanr are almost obsessed with proving that Mateen had no homosexual tendencies at all.
Personally, I don’t believe that Mateen was gay-identifying at all. Not one bit. But a lot of people have come forward to say that he had homosexual tendencies. Even his wife said it. Having homosexual tendencies is not the same as identifying as gay.
Learn to think clearly about distinctions.
scott747
It is disturbing to me that so many folks want to ignore all the people who have stated that they saw Mateen at Pulse, used gay hookup apps, chatted with him, drank with him, one or two men saying that he’d been seen at Pulse for three years. Yes, the Geraldo guy with the wig and mustache who claimed he’d slept with Mateen was strange and not fully convincing Both his father and his wife alluded to Mateen’s having gay feelings. Frankly it seems to me that simply dismissing such statements as lies, some sort of fantasy concoctions, as folks merely seeking their 15 minutes of fame in the wake of a horrific tragedy is insulting to gay men and women, the LGBT community as a whole. What you are saying is that gay men are lying, untrustworthy, human beings who can’t even be serious in the face of the worst mass killing in our history. This dismissive stance reinforces the “acceptable” theme that Mateen was a self-radicalized jihadist Islamist terrorist despite – as of yet – the lack of any clear evidence that this was the case unlike in the San Bernardino shootings. All America and the media is rallying around the “easy motivation” that everyone can celebrate. But add another factor – that of someone at war with himself as opposed to simply at war with the West – and the popular motivation gets more complicated. But we in the LGBT community owe no apologies for Mateen’s murderous rampage what his motivations might have been but by ignoring that “difficult” part of Mateen’s humanity does exactly this.
Sluggo2007
I’m seeing a lot of extremely naive comments here. Just because the FBI can’t prove anything, means they are inept in this investigation. This guy was a classic closet case!
dean089
It’s all political. Left-wing elites want him to be a closeted gay because then they can say “See what oppression leads to?” ‘Forcing’ people to live in the closet causes them to become killers. It’s like in the old days if a young black man committed a crime they would say “It’s the environment he grew up in, it’s not his fault.” The point being that ‘we’ should do whatever we can to change that environment. No matter than 99% of the people from that environment never committed a crime, that’s irrelevant to our liberal white guilt.
If the focus is on him being a Muslim then apparently that confirms the Trump nonsense that all Muslims are killers. So it’s all or nothing. We can’t accept that within any group of people are individuals capable of bad things, that muddies things up too much. Of course, the majority of mass killers in the U.S. have been white men. Maybe we should deport all the white men.
Thank goodness we have liberal straighties to tell us what’s ‘really’ important.
scott747
@Sluggo2007: @dean089:
Thank you.
Baba Booey Fafa Fooey
@scott747: Oh THANK GOD he’s gay! THANK GOD!! This article made me shake with anger! I could not believe a straight male would do this! Straight men are light and bright and everything right!
Even though that 50 year old Pureto Rican and others, (who have their names interjected into this massacre), can’t produce any evidence at all that Mateen was interested in them, my mind is made up: HE’S GAY!
scott747
@Baba Booey Fafa Fooey:
My point is not that he is gay or not. My point is that by dismissing the statements of gay men about their knowledge of and interactions with Mateen as lies, or made up fantasies, it demeans the integrity of all gay men. It calls them liars. It calls them flakes. It supports the mainstream’s negative views of us. Is this so difficult to understand? Or do you still believe – s many Americans still do – that all gay men are pedophiles?
GG
@SumSay: Ah, I see. Thanks for the info.
Captain Obvious
Do not think for yourself. Do not listen to anyone who isn’t a government sponsored father figure.
The patrons of the club and others who say they knew Mateen prior to this incident are all idiots who just don’t know any better. Listen to Uncle Sam or else!
Make ‘Merica great again by giving up your weapons and supporting the bombing of other countries in the name of Freedumb! Baaah baaah!
scott747
@Captain Obvious:
A bit harsh perhaps, but right on target. Thank you.
Baba Booey Fafa Fooey
@Captain Obvious: OMG PLEASE LET HIM BE GAY!! Yes, all of these people that knew Mateen can’t produce any evidence of it and they wear disguises! I want him to be gay because I want the world to know how evil and vile gay men are – more than they already think, PLEASE GOD–LET HIM BE GAY!!!
o.codone
I love this guys look. I’d have to kill him first so he couldn’t hurt me then I’d stick my tongue up his fine ass. Yum.
gilmanr
@scott747: his father and wife did not refer to him having gay feelings. The wife reported that the father had on at least one occasion called him a derogatory term for gay. The father was very explicit about the fact that he does not believe his son was gay. What would motivate you to make something like this up?
Sluggo2007
@gilmanr: Oh, PLEASE!!!! Grow the fuck up already!!!!
Brian
@gilmanr: Have you seen the interviews? Or are you just making things up?
cdndmf
Boy, this is such a juicy one, I just HAVE to weigh in. But first, I have to say that I am one of those that need – positively need – Omar Mateen to have been a closet-case in order for me to make sense of this trajedy. In fact, nothing will ever convince me otherwise.
That being said, I find this headline to be of the regular fallacy, for the fact that Mateen shot up a gay club IS evidence that he was a closet case. It may not be proof, but it fits the profile of a person that would do something like this. Other evidence to support the theory that he was closetted may yet surface – and I really hope it does – but if it doesn’t, that to me just means he hid it well. Many have. Many do. If the ‘feds’ – or anyone else – thinks they can ever just rule it out, they are only doing so because the whole notion of ‘closet cases’ runs contrary to their world view. This, by the way, is one of my big takeaways from all this: Many people I know who didn’t seem to be bothered by the fact that I am gay do apparently struggle with the idea that I was in the closet. They don’t like to think about it, or talk about it, because the idea that someone you know is gay, but you don’t know it: that bothers people. And for the record, I take issue with the idea that we are looking for ‘evidence’ that Omar Mateen was gay, for the word ‘evidence’ is one that we associate with the word ‘crime’.