Legacy and Memorializing the Victims

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Message and data rates may apply, see terms for details T fewo minutes before two AM on the twelfth of june twenty sixteen A van pulled up outside the Pulse Night Club in Orlando, Florida Driving It was twenty nine year old Omar Matin He'd made the two hour trip alone from his home in South Florida with an AR fifteen type rifle. and handgun on the back seat Pulse was one of Orlando's biggest clubs and it attracted a hell of a crowd at the weekend especially on its upscale Latin Saturdays A crowd of hundreds of mostly gay, mostly Latino men. gather together to dance to Salsa and Mareng until the small hours Most of them were regulars Anyone who's ever been to a gay club We'll know that it's much more than a place to buy expensive cocktails and let loose on the sticky dance floor If you're me, it's somewhere to make enemies of bouncers A gay cub is meant to be a haven of acceptance place to connect and be free, but sometimes finds a way in And on this night It walked in through the front door What followed was the deadliest mass shooting the US had ever seen until that day Matine walked in and fired hundreds of rounds into the unsuspecting crowd Bodies collapsed. And within minutes the floor was slick with blood those who could ran for the exits. but many were trapped in bathroom stools or behind bars or DJ tes. And they were stuck there for three long hours unimaginable terror Fty nine people were killed that night J just before he started this murderous rampage, Matine had made a statement He clearly pledged his allegiance to the Islamic state And afterwards IS itself claimed the attack in the aftermath of this nightmare. alongside the horror There was confusion On the face of it It looks like yet another nightmarish attack on Western liberal values from a man mired in medieval fundamentalist Islamist ideology And while that was certainly true There's another element to this story becausecause some of the pulse regulars actually recognizeed mine They remembered him. from the bar Some said he was there most weeks And some even said he'd flirted with them Dance with them Maybe even more Whatever the twenty sixteen pulse attack was Devastating, senseless, heartbreaking, profound It was not simple and the scars it left on a community will last for generations I'm Anna I'm Suri This is red handed and the truth behind the horrific pulse shooting on the ten year anniversary of the massacre. After the attack, a crowd gathered in the early morning hours to wait for any word about friends or relatives who had been inside. and as the most horrific night in Orlando's history gave way to a grim somber day Investigators got to work finding out everything they could. about the man with the gun And thankfully, they already had a name Oma Matin. But who was he had he slipped through their net Matine's parents Sadik and Charlm Matine had emigrated from Afghanistan to New York and that is where Omar was born. in nineteen eighty six When he was still young, he, his parents and his three sisters moved to Port St. Lucy A sunny city on the coast, halfway between Miami and Orlando And in a lot of ways Matine had a pretty regular nineties American childhood Obviously, as an Afghan immigrant family, The machines stood out of it. but outwardly at least They seemed pretty moderate For example Matine's mother and sisters Didn't I had scoffs And he never did his prayers during the school day Always saving it ind The Matinens and a handful of other local Muslim families would meet at Ramadan to break fast together Otherwise, from the outside at least It seems like It was all Malls, McDonalds and Mortal Combat Thy It does have to be said that his dad Sadki Matin wasas to the local character. He was always seen wearing dark suits, floral ties and colourful pocket squares. And he had some pretty extreme views which he was definitely not shy about sharing. He even hosted a YouTube series called The Duran Jerger Sh I feelel like your dad having a YouTube show In the late were we talking in the two thousands? Yeah, it must have been I don't know when his dad starts this, but yeah, like sometimes Maybe in the late nineties, early two thousands, possibly. When was YouTube started? I actually don't know. I mean I feel like there was a real section of history we've all forgotten where podcasts were for nerdy tech bros and nerdy tech. Oh no. That's how I heard about podcasts because my dad told me. like your dad My dad was like,ave you had a podcast? I was like what fuck love a gu? It's a podcast So yeah, his dad has got a YouTube channel. He he's very early adopter into this world And yeah, his show is called the Duran Jerger Show which basically is the Durand line is a land border between Pakistan and Afghanistan. That remains very much a source of extreme tension between the two nations say y us. immmediately you can tell It's a political show. That's what he's yelling about Matine Sr. also appeared on a satellite TV channel aimed at the Afghan community in the US Sometimes, he would even appear in military fatigues. And Sometimes he would even introduce himself as the Pident of Afghanistan which he most certainly was not He was just an Afghan man living Port St. Lucy Sadiki considered himself to be a pretty influential commentator on Afghan politics. A voice that was trusted throughout the Afghan community across the U S. and the Middle East True that is is hard to know In amongst his ramblings about the Pakistani and Afghani governments Batine Sr made one thing very clear He bloody loved the Afghan Taliban. calling them Warrior Bothers And that is the same Afghani Taliban that now runs the country and has forced women to be covered from head to toe, not to speak in public, and in latest news, as of last year, they also have to wear an eye patch over one eye because quote Why do women need more than one eye It's a bit confusing though because he seems to have a lot of like pretty strong ideas about this kind of stuff and he talks about it on his podcast sorry, not podcast, YouTube series. Close enough But it is interesting that Sadiki didn't enforce bailing on his own wife and daughters. Remember he's got three daughters and a wife who don't even wear headscarves So why that is? I don't know, but a lot of things about a lot of people in this story are quite confusing I was reading this the other day I can't remember the word for it but there's A word for like I suppose the Christian equivalent would be Sacrament, I guess I don't You're allowed to hide in order to like conceal the fact that you are a Muslim in a hostile environment, which is one of the places where Islam and Christianity U really opposed because Christians are encouraged never to li and always to be proud and never tide. And that's a very high value thing that a person can do. and it's never really encouraged to pretend to be something you're not But there are elements of Islam where you can. So I wonder whether that's what he would have argued. Maybe. I think maybe what we're talking about is teia. That's it, but my understanding of it is it's not necessarily that you hide, but that you and down your intensity, religious intensity and even It's permissible to lie or to do whatever in order to survive in a hostile environment or until, you know, that becomes part of the Great Caliphate. That's what I've understood of it. So yeah, that does make sense. Maybe he's like, it's better that we assimilate at least outwardly though how much that actually happens is a bit of a question mark But yeah lot of like A L lot of weird things going on, but I can see what you mean. Maybe he's just like, we don't need to draw more attention to ourselves here. So let's just not do that. possibly Anyway We'll come back to Sadig Matine and his influence over his son Omar later, but for now. Let's take a look at Omar Matine's school years. And you'll be unsurprised to hear They weren't great, not the best Matine was pretty overweight and he got a reputation as a bit of a pushover Sometimes the whole school bus would gang up on him So we wouldn't guess eat It was a lonely few years for young Witine. But then He started to push back And soon he reinvented himself totally prettyty serious school bully offtten targeting girls in particular. His father, who dropped Omar off every morning was dismissive regularly brushing off complaints about his son In fact Sidig Matine even drew a few complaints himself about his disrespectful attitude toward female teachers What a shocker Irma Matine was eventually expelled after a fight with another student whichich was so bad But he was actually also charged with battery He wasn't prosecuted Instead, Omamatine was sent to the Spectrum alternative school in Stewart, Florida an institution for students with behavioral issues It was only there for a few months He certainly left an impression Is it called spepectrum on Ppose I mean, I did think that as I read that out loud spectrum and alternative Good one And yeah, it's not going to get better for him here because Amama teeen's time a spectrum just so happened to coincide with the september eleventh attacks. And the morning of the attacks, the teacher at spepectrum actually wheeled a TV into the classroom so that the students could watch the horrifying news and a former classmate remembers looking over at Matine and having to do a double take Because I momber teine was smiling And this student remembers thinking It was almost surreal how happy he was about what had happened to us And he didn't stop there After the second plane hit, Omar stood up and said that Osama bin Laden and had taught him how to shoot AK forty seven. The cast didn't even know Bin Laden's name yet, but the implication was obvious Witnesses to this incident said that the whole room grew furious and they wanted to hurt him And just before they could, the teacher grabbed Matine and threw him out of class Ema's father came to pick him up Sadk Matine silently strode towards the school And when he got to Omar, he slapped him hard across the face in front of everyone Probably not his father was angry about what Matina said. It's much more likely he was just annoyed at his son for embarrassing him and getting kicked out of yet another school But what does this all tell us about Omar Matin himself this all like laughing when seeptember eleventh is happening and you know, all of that stuff. I think goes beyond a bit of like teenage edge lottery. Pleasure the september eleventh attack on innocent U S. civilians. and the trauma that that was obviously, even at that time in the immediate moment before anybody even realized exactly what was happening inflicted on the entire country, a country of which he is also a citizen, born and raised speaks deeply to a radicalized individual Matine clearly lacks any sense of loyalty to his own nation, any sense of belonging or integration not to mention basic human empathy. And we're seeing this already play out this like radicalization with Matine whilst he's still at school Long before He could have been pulled in by ISS online radicalization propaganda. I mean, maybe, maybe he was already on there, but At this point when he's here, he's in his like teens If he was born in nineteen eighty six, he's three years older than me I don't know, like how much Ax mayaybe he did because he was quite a lonely kid, Maybe he was on the internet a lot. mayaybe the radicalization started early It's hard to know exactly where it was all coming from. Was it online at this stage? Was it coming from his dad I don't know But what we do know is from the data whether his dad had some crazy views or not, he's definitely trying to at least like be chill in front of people in the US The data does show that second generation and third generation radicalization seems to be far more prevalent, so it would match with Omama Teen, potentially being even more radical than his father But who knows Again What we do know is that Omar's childhood. was defined by anger both inside and outside his home After high school, he moved into a two bed condo in Fort Pierce, Florida It was one of several owned by his family And so They are clearly doing very well for themselves. He did various service jobs, Chick Fill A, Walgreens, Hllister, Gold's Gym and he did not live a particularly pious Muslim life either partied, drinking and taking drugs often to excess Sometimes he get completely out of control, starting fights and blacking out. And I think this kind of sums up Omamaeen quite well He very much picks and chooses the parts that he wants to go along with And as we'll see, he's very confused about like which groups he wants to affiliate himself with whether it's ISIS or al Qaeda or the Taliban or Hezbollah like he's all over the place. Does that mean that It's not important the things he's taking from these groups? No But again here you're seeing that. he's not living a particularly religious life in terms of like abstaining from very, very harm things. He's like, yeah, sick But he still also feels very strongly and fervently the religion and about his lack of identity and integration into the US. So I don't know. He's just not a very he's just not a very deep thinking person But what he is thinking is still important to our story. Oh yeah, totally. I think it's all about feeling like an outsider. But he did pick and choose because he partied, he drank, he took drugs, often to excess And sometimes He would get completely out of control, starting fights and blacking out. And it was around this time that Matine started seriously hitting the gym Just like he had in the playground, he decided that throwing his weight around was the answer to all of his problems and to turn that considerable weight into muscle He had a little help from mystery powders and potions that he would order online He bckked up so dramatically in so little time that he had noticeable stretch marks on his biceps And then Matine made a slightly predictable next step He decided that he wanted to become a police officer. And we see this consistently enough with killers. they're drawn to positions of power and authority And if there's a uniform even better It screams of a man lacking any sort of power and control in his own life. I guess it's unsurprising given his seemingly domineering father who will slap him in the face even as a teenager in front of a classroom full of other kids. and also his struggles to make friends. And Also. Matine's likely issues around his own sexual identity First off, Matine got an associate's degree in criminal justice teechnology from Indian River State College in two thousand six And then he started police training. Socially, his time at the police Academy wasn't massively different to his school years He was jumpy, aggressive, and his behavior only got stranger and stranger. In spring two thousand seven The class got together for a barbecue Omar started to get huffy, saying they couldn't eat anything off the grill because he was allergic to pork They asked him if it was anything to do with being a Muslim Because that would be fine if that was the case. But Matine completely flew off the handle screamed at them and then stormed off And then a few weeks later, just before he was due to graduate, Matine went up to a classmate and asked whether they'd report him if he brought a gun to campus Obviously the classmate reported him for even suggesting that Amatine. was kicked out Again of the Academy Also again Omaaine was not charged He was, however, thankfully, judged to be far too volatile for the police And I'm sure the deep down This hit machine hard. It's just one more rejection, which likely fueled his rage. But soon, Matine went into private security And in two thousand seven, he joined G four S a huge private company providing hred muscle in one hundred and ten countries Matine became a licensed security guard and worked in all sorts of locations from prisons to golf courses And he worked at G fourS right up until He was shot down at pulse. on the twelfth of june twenty sixteen whichich is remarkable. It's another part of the story that does sort of sway or skew from the usual because When people are spiraling like that to the point that they are like I'm going to go carry out a mass killing, a terror attack They're usually not in employment anymore So it's very interesting that he was still working up until the day he did this. veryy unusual And Maybe things were starting to look up a little bit after he joined G four S because a few years after landing this job Matine married his first wife. Zatora Yusesefi Yusefi had moved to the US from her native Yzbekistan when she was eleven She grew up in New Jersey and became a real estate agent Shima Omama teeen online and very quickly moved to Florida to be with him Sadly, Yufi soon discovered that Roman Matine able Whirlwind of violence He would regularly slap Uf he and drag her around by her hair One day, after he strangled her, She finally called the police Omama T ten wasn't charged Useree later told The Washington Post this He was not a stable person He would just come home and start beating me up because the laundry wasn't finished or something like that and Unsurprisingly, and thankfully, the pair divorced after just nine months Matine's second wife's a bit more of a mystery And we'll return to her later on We're just gonna tell you a little bit. Her name was Nu Zahi Salman She was a Palestinian American, raised in California They met online in twenty eleven on a dating site. Terrible lounge I guess it's no different to J Date really. It just seems a bit weird. Sounds weird Machin' Afghani. They're he's not even an Arab, but he's like, I want an Arab lady, so I'm going to look in an Arab blouch first time a teine met Salmon was when he flew to California with his whole family in tow Presumably desperate to marry off the disaster of a son. And it worked Because before they even flew home ople were engaged. And they tied the knot just three months after his divorce to Satora Yusfy was finalised And a second wife Salmon was stricter and more reserved She wore a hitchuop And once she moved to Fort Pierce, she didn't venture outside the house much. And then a few years later She gave birth to their son Like we said, we'll come back to Nor Saoman later I I get to her own trial after the shooting is the point in Matine's life that we see a very sharp increase in his religious interest His first wife said that during their marriage, Matine's focus was a lot less on the Quran and a lot more on kettlebells The same goes for the mosque that he occasionally attended, the Islamic Center of Fort Piss When he did go, he allegedly kept to himself So if there was any radicalization going on in that mosque, they probably wouldn't mention it We do also have to say that just because people are like there was nothing going on Matine was growing up alongside his dad's very intense political rants And as we saw when september eleventh happened, And he would have still been Just a mid teenager at that point in his mid teens He certainly was very willing, very open about laughing at it about mocking it. It didn't seem like even at that point in his mid teens that he classified himself as American case it's not clear what sparked it One anonymous friend has said that Matine suddenly got a lot more intense after his divorce And it was also during this time that he made two separate pilgrimages to Meccca. And it wasn't long before his colleagues at G four S Noticed it in the way Machine spoke as well as much as he humanly could and was growing a lot more aggressive and confrontational by the day Whether there was any steroid abuse and maybe that accounts for his like increased aggression and whatnot, I wouldn't be surprised. I mean, it does seem quite likely H customers that met him as a security guard reported his creepy behaviour. like taking their IDs and then just Staring at them wide eyed and breathing heavily His colleagues reported him time and again for being violent and threatening But nothing happened And he just kept getting worse Matine's former coworker, Daniel Gilroy says this. It was always about violence He was always on the edge, always hyper and agitated He would never have more than three or four sentences without being derogatory about women or using slurs against black people, gay people and Jews So yeah, very open, very open, nothing being hidden here. notothing that screams of just like I'm not saying it doesn't scream at the fact that he knows it's wrong. I think he does know that other people don't like the way he's behaving But he doesn't give to fucks. It's like he enjoys making people feel uncomfortable The whole thing about taking the IDs off people and like staring them down and like breathing heavily and saying all of these like slurs to people If he doesn't not know that that is something people don't like. He's doing it on purpose. The question is why Is it something as fucked up as like he just gets rejected constantly by people? And this is not making excuses for him or in any way sympathizing with him because fuck this guy But is it this thing of like, oh, I get rejected all the time anyway, I'm just gonna be a fucking dickhead? then at least that's why they're rejecting me rather than because of me just being nice and then I'm still getting rejected. I don't know if I care that much about this guy to give a shit if that's what he was doing But I wonder if that explains because it's only one of two things. It's either there is some sort of personality disorder or psychiatric or mental health situation, and that is why He is so openly saying such heinous things that make me and doing such hinous things like saying, shall I you know, what if I brought a gun into the academy Are you serious? Like why would you say that? It seems like he's either nuts Oh It is some sort of deep seated way to just be like, yeah, fucking hate me then. And at least I know why you hate me I don't know I don't know No either But it carries on And then one day, Matine started telling coworkers that he was friendly with terrorists. Matine said that he knew the Sarnev brothers the ones who had carried out the Boston Marathon bombings He said that he had family connections to al Qaeda And he also said that he was a member of Hezbollam He once even told his colleagues that he'd like to quote Die a martyr's death. And yes, look, it is worth mentioning that Al Qaeda is Sunni and Hezbollah Ashia Oh People like make a big thing of this because Matine is claiming to be a member of both or being related to one side and being a member of the other. desespite, of course them being bitter enemies who are very much at war with each other, I don't know, peopleeople sort of use this to say that we shouldn't take what he's saying seriously I mean, he's doing exactly the same thing he did in high school just saying the most outrageous thing he can think of. I don't think it's actually anything to do with what he truly in his heart believes And I think it's an illustration of that rather than that we should' take him seriously or that he isn't terrifying, or he isn't. that he can just be ignored. I don't think it's that at all No, because I personally, I do think it is what he believes in his heart. I think he's very drawn to that ideology. I think he's very, very But you can't be Sunni and Shia at the same time. You can't No, but he doesn't know what he's talking about. He doesn't know what he's talking about. But I think it's like people use it as a way, like him talking about the Sunni and Shia as a way to. undermine his terrorism By saying, See, it's not really Islamist terror. He doesn't even know what he's talking about. One minute he's talking about Sunni. Next minute he's talking about Shia To me, I'm like, Wh cares cares to me, it's like, why would it matter if he wasn't coherent in his murderous Martyrdom beliefs I think the fact is that you see this pattern of behaviour with him that he is very drawn to radical Islamist ideologies, Jihad, death, talking about martyrdom, all that kind of stuff. And given the fact that we know what he went on to do, It's obviously more than him just trying to freak out his colleagues or like be a bit edgy Like I just think I think he doesn't know what he's talking about, but so what if he's not an Islamic scholar? He's just he's still drawn to it. He's still attracted to it. Just because he doesn't know what he's talking about doesn't mean he doesn't believe, that he doesn't believe in the things that he's saying And I'm not really that interested in people being like, oh, well, this comes from this type of Islam and this comes from that. He is jumbling it all together into whatever, but at the core of it. He believes in some fundamentalist, Islamist, Jihadist version of whatever he wants to justify the things that he wants to do And it's also in there. It's in there. It's telling him, you know, Die Aam Marta's death And so it's giving him the green light Thankfully, his colleagues did the right thing. and they reported Matine. And that report was sent straight to the FBI. And the FBI investigated Omaratine for ten months beginning in march twenty thirteen. In that year? They interviewed him twice at length But Matine brushed it all off, insisting that he'd only said those things because his coworkers teased him about being Muslim As well as those two interviews. The FBI also recorded Matine's calls and even sent confidential informants to gauge whether he had been radicalized He was followed. and records were scoured any connection to known terrorists And despite his big tour his many claims Those searches came up with absolutely And so, authorities clearly disregarded him as a real threat. Because as Hannah said, they couldn't find a connection between Omamaine and radical Islamist terrorism Honestly just shows And I'll like say, okay, fine, this was ten years ago. But it really does show that decision shows their total lack of understanding as to the evolving nature of terrorism. And maybe, you know this is all like, well and good to say in hindsight We have to look in hindsight, we have to look back and analyze what was happening becausecause that's exactly what was happening at this time. Just because Omar Martin had not been affiliated with the likes of IS or al Qaeda, so what Post nine eleven, the landscape of terrorism particularly in the West. totally changed People weren't running off in person to training camps in Pakistan anymore to learn how to build a bomb and blow themselves up It all went online We all saw What was happening when we did the episode on the Bethn Green Girls who ran away to Syria all turned into propaganda that was being pummeled online They weren't even necessarily like, hereere's a training video on how to make a bomb. They were like, We haven't got time for that shit. Grab a fucking car, grab a truck, grab a knife, just go fucking mental do some sort of crazy berserk attack And you go, Bingo and die and then you've died Amarta's death and you'll go straight toaradise. This was what was happening And it's at this point that we saw after nine eleven the rise of the leaderless jihad. And we'll come back to it later in this episode because I think it's a very important and interesting concept in how things changed after nine eleven why it's so shocking that the FBI were like, Oh, We can't find any connections between him and somebody, you know out in Afghanistan, therefore He's not a threat H I don't think that's how they would police the situation now But it is so heartbreaking So the FBI cleared matine But a year later, in twenty fourteen He was questioned again. for the third time This time It came after Manma Muhammed Abu Salah became the first American carry out a suicide bombing in Syria Abu Salah, like Matin. 've been based in Florida And they had both even attended the same college. And The FBI discovered that Abu Sala had lived less than a mile away from Mine But again The investigation found that Any contact had been minimal. So Again, FBI Bureau in Tampa, Florida concluded that Oma Matine pose no threat In fact Not only was there no terrorist link, there was very little evidence of criminal wrongdoing at all But You might be thinking, what about his big fight at school? and the time he strangled his wife. And what about when he was kicked out of the police academy? but who was never convicted For any event. Which is exactly why Matine was able to get himself a Florida license to carry concealed ens And in may twenty sixteen. Omarmatine legally bought a handgun an AR fifteen assault rifle and plenty of ammunition. Around the same time, Matine's father, Sadik Rememberers an incident as they were walking down the shoreline in downtown Miami Sadk says He saw two men kissing each other in front of his wife and kid and he got very angry. They were kissing each other and touching each other in Omar said Look at that. In front of my son they're doing that Tw weeks later Matine was dead And he taken almost fifty gay men with him So as much as I would certainly to not do this We do have to go back to pulse justust after two AM on Saturday the twelfth of june twenty sixteen. After getting into the building, most people step directly out onto the club's main dance floor At the center hung a huge giant glitterall scattering reflected light across the dancing crowd On one end of the room. were the doors out to the fenced inn patio And on the other side was a sepate dance fraw hel lounge known as the Adonis Room with a stage for Go dancers and drug performers. and at the back of the building through the Adonis room were the bathrooms On that Saturday night byy two AM The night was starting to wind down One eyewitness later said, Everyone was drinking their last sip B club And that last sip can be the longest of the night There were still three hundred people inside at that time Videos posted on social media show blissed out clubgers, chatting to friends and dancing away. And in the background Over the booming music There's a sort of crackling sound Some thought it was firecrackers. or just some heavy base from the next room they were wrong It was an assault rifle Dozens of people were already dead I'm Mine had entered through the front door of Pulse with his AR fifteen type rifle and a hanggun He opened fire with the rifle and sprayed bullets at the crowd for fifteen Uninterrupted seconds Ugh And I think you think fifteen seconds that's not long, but if you actually just counted fifteen seconds and thought of somebody firing a fucking rifle proud of people for that long My God Bullllets ripped through legs, arms and backs bodies slumped to the ground Before long, the music stopped leaving the building filled with sounds of panic. punctuated by more deafening gunfire Matine fired two hundred rounds in less than five minutes. Jackie Smith, a patron who saw two friends, shot in front of her said Nobody stood a chance An off duty police officer who was working at Pulse that night exchanged gunfire with Matine near the entrance While he was distracted, many rushed for the exits as well as the front door There was an emergency exit by the bathrooms, plus doors out to the patio The patio is enclosed by a tall fence after an employee kicked a hole through it poured out into the street. those in the bathrooms cramed themselves into stalls others hid in dressing rooms or DJ booths When officers arrived at two hundred four AM Another shootout ensued Matine was forced back into the bathrooms Social media was flooded with posts of people pleading for help At two hundred nine AM, the Pulse Nightclub's Facebook account posted the chilling words Everybody get out of pulse and keep running A man named Eddie started texting his mother at two hundred six AM And here are the text messages as reported by the Washington Post. Mummy, I love you club, they're shooting He's coming. I'm going to die His mother replied and asked whether people were hurt and he replied Yes After forty five minutes of increasingly terrified messages ddie's tes suddenly stopped His mother never saw him alive again In the bathrooms, Matine shot those he found in the stalls But he took six hostages captive. telling them not to try and run because he also had snipers outside And once everyone was still, Mat teeen's first call to nine hundred eleven was made at two thirty five AM He was calm He started off in Arabic saying a prayer to Allah then And he carried on in English I want to let you know I'm in Orlando. And I did the shooting Penty of imedians Aa Kaddy make If you couldn't make that out, He's Pedledging allegiance to the Islamic state and specifically its leader Abu Baka Albaghdadi He went on to say that the shooting was triggered by the US. killing of the last head IS in Iraq the previous month. a militant jihadist named Abu Wahib Machine hung up. but thirteen minutes later He called my moman again. And this call was answered by police negotiators M teine told them, You have to tell America to stop bombing Syria and Iraq They're killing a lot of innocent people What am I to do when my people are getting killed over there His tone in these calls is infuriating He's condescending, he's petulant. And absolutely clueless At one point he calls the police negotiator homeomeboy Obviously they had to take these threats seriously Eespecially because he told police that he had explosives primed in a vehicle nearby. which he would set off if they did anything stupid. He said that he had a vest on like the one they used in France presumably he's talking about the Batattercan there the world the year before He said that there would be more similar attacks over the next few days and he told the hostages that he would be putting explosive vests on four of them and sending them to the four corners of the club. None of it was true but no one could take any chances. Yeah And I think just The fact that he is calling the police, he is like saying all this stuff. He's not just gone in there, shot a bunch of people and then killed himself or blown himself up or anything He's demanding attention, he's demanding control. He's lying to them, telling them, I've got snipers, I've got an explosive vehicle outside, I've got an explosive vest on Like I said, none of that's true it's all bullhit. But he is getting off so much on controlling the police. I'm sure this also comes back to the fact that he was rejected from the police he's lik Fuck you, you're not the authority. I'm going to laord over you This is his moment and I'm sure he knows at the end of this he is going to die either by suicide by cop or he will kill himself He is like, I'm going to enjoy and milk every fucking moment of this night before that happens abbsolutely what it feels like. He's not just in and out, one and done No, and I think I'd take him pretty seriously So while he's speaking, while he's taking all this time out of his busy night to speak to nine one one police work to secure the building and get as many people out of there as they could they help some people escape through an air condition event in a dressing room Then the police started to prepare explosives of their own. to breach the external wall of the bathroom An armoud vehicle and more crisis negotiators arrived. and at five AM threeree long hours after Matine first burst through the door of pulse A SWT team stormed the building. Explosives were detonated on the rear wall between the bathrooms dozens more people flooded out, but at first, There was no sign of a gunman. They blew more holes in the real wall And suddenly at five fourteen AM An officer saw him. T feet away The sound of gunfire burst through the night one last time And within a minute Omomatine was dead forty nine people had been killed and fifty eight more had been wounded this leaves us with a few gaping holes in the centre of this story Firstly, the nature of Om Mammadin's relationship with the Islamic state What this really an attack on Western liberal values from a death cult on the other side of the world. W Guess a n US. officials denied the IS had had any involvement in the Pulse massacre As no official links were officially discovered between the twenty nine year old US citizen, and any foreign organizations So They labeled mine Alone wolf a term that I absolutely despise. Firstly, for the very obvious Glamorous maverick connotations to that phrase But also'll say Because when it comes to terror attacks like this, it's deeply misleading It suggests that Matine acted in some sort of silo. like he came up with his own ideology, pulled it out of nowhere and he just went on a rampage killing people He's directly referencing terrorist organizations. So why would he be a lone wolf? And yes, while they admitted that of course, he had been radicalized by IS propaganda and radical Islamist material, most likely online They held fast to the notion that IS hadn't orchestrated the whole thing. which I understand why They are so insistant to get this point across is to avoid scaring the public at large Nobody needs people thinking that they are potentially under siege from a foreign terror group And of course it's also so that intelligence services can reasonably explain how they didn't have omomatine on their radar But honestly The reality of the situation is actually much more terrifying than that A U.S born man was so capable of being seduced by radical Islamist propaganda. and was willing kill and die for this ideology. It doesn't matter whether you think that ideology is valid or not And what does it matter If a specific Islamic state recruiter spoke to Matin or not It wasasn't even, like we said, how IS even operated anymore by twenty sixteen. What we're seeing here is a phenomenon that has exploded across the world since september eleventh the rise of the leaderless Jihad A time coin by an author named Mark Sageman in his book, Leaderless Jhad So Does it matter that Matine had zero contacts in the Middle East Does it matter that while Matine was talking to his negotiators, he oscillated between wildly contradictory half remembered philosophies Does it matter that he claimed allegiance to Islamist groups that were literally at war with each other Does it make him any less of an Islamist terrorist I don't think so Before the night of the twelfth of june twenty sixteen Omamain posted the following message to Facebook America and Russia stopp bombing the Islamic state Pedge my allegiance to Abu Baka albughdadi May Allah accept me The real Muslims will never accept the filthy ways of the West You kill innocent women and children by doing U. S. airstrikes taste the Islamic state vengeance And like we said In his normal mon call, he directly cllaimed allegiance to IS too After the attack, IS claimed responsibility using an encrypted phone app IS later sent out a statement saying that the attack was cararried out by an Islamic state fighter, that's a quote Many IS sympathizers changed their profile pictures on Twitter to Matine's image IS even posted videos of children celebrating the attack Totally makes sense They don't have to call him and groom him and tellell him what to do What did he fucking do? He just bought a gun. he didn't even build a bomb. He just bought a gun and went into a club and shot bunch of people. Of course IS will claim it. Why would they not claim it This is it. It's basically like anyone, anyone, it's crowdsourcing terrorism. It's open source terrorism It's like, here's the crazy shit we fucking believe. Whoever wants to be a part of it can be a part of it Just you know, get whatever weapon you can Cate some fucking chaos, kill some fucking infidels And then you can become an Islamic state fighter. So when they call Matine an Islamic state fighter It is not incongruent because people are like, well, why are they calling him that when they never recruited him? They did fucking recruit him by just putting out their ideology into the world That's all it takes. That's all that matters So in any way that matters He was an Islamic state fighter, in his mind, in his heart, in any other part of his body, and in their minds, he is an Islamic state fighter. And so He is an Islamic state fighter and therefore this is Islamist terrorism I don't understand why there's so much back and forth about this on the internet about whether it really was I think the discourse has changed now now that we're in twenty twenty six, but at the time, most definitely I just don't know why people were talking themselves round and round in circles about this whole thing And look, I think we should talk about what he says about saying Russia and the US stopp bombing Syria and Iraq stopped bombing my people. Those are the words that he uses And you often see this as a reason trotted out by terrorists to justify their violence Or of course, also by terrorist sympathizers in the West making excuses for them saying, well these terrorist attacks wouldn't happen, wouldn't keep happening in the West if we didn't have, you know, certain foreign policies that were taking place in the Middle East and basically saying it's all as a result of that. And these people basically bottom line saying they bear no responsibility for their actions to wonder about that becausecause it is true that Muslims are actually worldwide, the biggest victims of radical Islamist violence becausecause terror attacks like this don't just happen in the West, they also happen in the Islamic world. And therefore, Muslims, we all have to agree because it's factually true They are the biggest victims, if you're talking by sheer numbers of radical Islamist violence. So if that's the case, then how can the Western death toll be to do purely with foreign intervention? becausecause the people who are dying and getting blown up in Muslim countries They're not partaking in aggressive foreign policy against other Muslims or against the Middle East or the Islamic world, so why are they being blown up? So why would it be to just to do with Western foreign policy? It doesn't make sense. It doesn't add up. You can't have both. I think the phrase that he says Real Muslims will never accept the filthy ways of the West. And obviously, do I even have to caveat it by saying not all Muslims think this? But he is saying that. he believes that. And he is saying they will never accept the wayay of the West. And I think that is far more telling as to his real motivation and even the phrase that he is Stop bombing my people in Iraq and Syria. He's not even Iraqi or Syrian But he's speaking to this sort of Global Muslim Brotherhood, sisterhood, the greatreat Umah. The great belief that only all other Muslims are connected to each other and wherever you live, it's not really your homeland. You're kind of just waiting for the whole world to become this sort of Islamic caliphate. Again, obviously not all Muslims, but that is what he believes. That is what he is saying And so he identifies much more of a man of Afghan heritage who was born and raised in New York. He identifies more with Syrians and Iraqis who are living on the other side of the world more than he does with his fellow Americans because he was laughing when september eleventh happened. It shows this total breakdown in his identity and his ability to integrate into the society in which he lived, or his desire to H allegiances were completely somewhere else. as were his ideologies And so I think what's actually going on here is a lot more poisonous and a lot more terrifying than if he had been contacted by an IS recruiter The reason that the FBI didn't find a direct connection between IS and Matine was because there was none to be found And this is very important. The holy mononth of Ramadan had started just the week before the Pulse attack. In a statement, AS spokesman, Abu Muhammed Alani had said the following, again on social media, again for everyone to see The smallest action you do in the heart of their land is dearer to us than the largest action by us. and more effective and more damaging to them. Obviously it's very clear who them are and who us are They're talking about the West. Anden This guy made it crystal clear IS supporters worldwide could and should carry out acts of terror in the group's name He said, Do not ask anyone's permission. So they're not waiting around For an IS recruiter to slip into the fucking DM's and be like heid Hey, bro, this is how you build a fucking' bump doesn't matter. even suggested But they didn't need to buy weapons, they could use rocks, knives, or cars to kill the infidels A leaderless jihad and This is absolutely a key part of IS prrotocol. Any angry would be terrorist anywhere in the world can carry out an act of terror the oath. and Bigo, you are an IS freedom fighter And your life finally has meaning And that's why it's so scary. Imagine it is so much less scary if we think there's just all these secret sleeper cells. like how many can there really be? the police could definitely track them. They just had to infiltrate a few gangs and they you know, I'm not saying it would be easy, but it would be easier than this situation Like if everyone was just sitting around waiting for instructions from like some leader out in the middle of nowhere This is so much worse. You can't read into people's minds. You don't know what they're thinking. Any person who just finds this narrative alluring can just get a car and carry out an attack And that's why we've seen the frequency of those kind of attacks plified. And that's why it's so much scarier than what they were trying to tell the public not to worry about. Don't worry, don't worry. There was no IS recruiter. I'm like than what is actually happening What you gain by being stammed an IS Freedom fighter is a promise of purpose. Lionisation, martyrdom, and a hero's death T comes with those seventy two virgins waiting to perform your every filthy desire in Paradise It catapults people like Oma Matine from Loner with axe to grind into crusader on the front lines of a global war And that's absolute definition of what terrorism is spreading the dark shadow of IS across the world IS spews out propaganda all over the internet, poisoning people against its enemies. And they do this. in the hope of catching a stray loser actually do their bidding This is an especially cushy deal for IS because it poses no risk to their actual organization They don't need to infiltrate anything or lose any actual members or like alert the FBI have a terrorist attack attributed to them pretty much win win Totally. It's so much lighter on the like lift. You're not having to like speak to loads of people, manage all these people. Just put it out there like this horrible mind virus and then wait for people to fall into it And then when they carry out an attack Claim it as your own It's so Genius in the most horrific way possible And the truly terrifying thing is that it's working In the few years before Pulse, there were three very similar instances Just seven months before the Pulse Nightclub shooting, two men killed fourteen people in San Bernardino, California Just before they pledged allegiance, too You guessed it, IS O again, you guessed it Facebook In twenty fifteen, a gunman opened fire on a cartoon exhibit in Texas, which featured images of everybody's favorite prophet Mr. Mohammad. And again, this shooter pledged allegiance to IS on Twitter. In twenty fourteen, a man opened fire at a cafe in Sydney all three cases, they were homegrown violent extremists who had been radicalized online And as far as anyone knows, they had no direct link to any terrorist cell or network The Sydney shooter, Haron Monis, was schizophrenic and before claiming allegiance to IS He also worked as a clairvoyant and was also a convicted sex offender. The Australian press wrote that the Islamic State had successfully sent one of its agents into the heart of Australia's biggest cities But he had no idea what he was fighting for In fact, when he jped up He brought the wrong flag And again might seem like of course that's hilarious. It's fucking so stupid. like what a stupid man. and what a mentally ill man, obviously he must have been dealing with what he was dealing with, but like It doesn't matter that these people don't know exactly what they're doing it for. The fact is they're being lured in by such despicable ideologies and then carrying out heinous attacks in their name. It's all fake anyway. so who cares? The fact is they believe it As for a teine He was an unremarkable man with a history of violence who wanted an outlet for his considerable anger And given his father's beliefs, Matine was absolutely primed. for online radicalization by fundamental Islamist doctrine just as the perpetrators in the other attacks we just listed were I grant you that Matine's motive may have added a personal element because it's possible that the real battle Matine was fighting was the one inside himself. becausecause june twelfth twenty sixteen was not the first time Omar Matine had stepped foot inside Pulse And on the face of it his targeting of a gay club does seem like it fits like the ISMO After all, the Islamic state believes homosexuality to be evil and deserving of punishment by death They have even posted videos in which men they have identified as being homosexuals are thrown off tall buildings But when it comes to large scale attacks IS have been clear that there are no specific targets Charlie Winter and Hararroo J. Ingram write in the Atlantic When it comes to waging war against the Crusader enemy It doesn't really matter to the organization if the victim is gay or straight. If anything That the majority of the dead were gay was for ISIS, a distraction And like maybe Maybe I don't know if I totally buy this. I get what they're saying because There's absolutely been The statements from IS saying it does not matter who the victims are. Even if you kill other Muslims, it doesn't matter. If you're killing infidels, that's the main thing If you accidentally kill a few Muslims and then that it doesn't matter because they'll go to paradise anyway if they were true believers, so don't worry. It doesn't really matter. Don't get hung up on who the victims are The main thing is that you are creating terror. You are just Going mental and scaring people and killing people. That is the end goal. The reason why I do think there is again an evolution away from just thinking it doesn't matter who the victims are If we look at the targets of terror attacks that we have seen across the West in recent years, For example take the Battle Clan. They went after people who were at a gig partying then look at something like the Manchester Arena bombing in the UK. They targeted little girls who were again dancing at an Ariana Grande concert And then look at all of the Christmas markets across Europe that have been attacked over the years to the point that now, Some places just don't even do it anymore because it's not worth it because they're scared a car is going ram into the people that are there It does feel like these killers are targeting events that symbolize Western freedoms Does it not? People drinking, partying, little girls going out, dancing. Christmas M markets I accept the premise that they don't really care who they kill But I don't think it's unsymbolic the situations that they're targeting? No, I don't think so There is one theory that we're going to spend a bit more time on that Matine himself was gay After the pulse attack, the nightclub's regular patrons were interviewed I metent him one time att the bar, he was talking to me about his ex wife He used to come in the bar about Well On the weekend, sometimes he would be there. sometometimes he would miss a couple of weeks and then be in again He was he was regular, we consider that regular. Everybody knew his name. Omar Yeah. He was trying to pick up people, men. He's a homosexual and he was trying to pick up men He would walk up to them and then he would Maybe put his arm around him or something and maybe try to get him to dance a little bit or something and then go over and buy a drink or something. That's what people do at Gay bars, you know, That's what we do. When you saw his picture, what went through your mind when you saw his picture? It was We just went, oh, like, yeah, that makes sense. That's Omar The Orlando Sentinel spoke to four different pulse regulars who said that they had personally seen Matine at the club up to a dozen times Go back years Several people have reported being contacted by m teine on gay dating apps jagged and grinder. One man has even come forward claiming that he had a sort of friends with benefits relationship with Omama Tin. The man who has chosen to stay anonymous calls himself Miguel Miguel said that over two months they met at a hotel in Orlando between fifteen and twenty times for sex And Miguel said I believe this is not terrorism saying that he thinks Matine intentionally targeted Latinos in retaliation for being rejected by them Looking at Matine's history, I think it's more than that But I don't think it's an unimportant part of his motivation. Tubberine's life personers after person comes up saying they either suspected or just assumed that he was gay. One classmate from his college days told the Washington Post that he would regularly visit gay bars with Matine and a group of friends. O one of these nights allegedly, Matine asked this friend if he was gay and then said Well, if you were gay be my time Even Satoria Y Sfi, Matine's first wife said that it's possible he had hidden feelings about being gay Matine's father denies any suggestion of his son's homosexuality saying Why if he were gay Would you do this B easy that one You give me that one for free, Mggga. Mattine spent his childhood being bullied for being different He spent his career violently firing back at any suggestion of discrimination or mockery and He was raised by a father who in public videos on YouTube said things like God Himself will punish those involved in homosexuality So it's not exactly a stretch to imagine that Matine absorbed that hatred of homosexuality. It's veryer possible. He started to see that in himself He would just push it on down. This self hatred Combined with the religious teachings he grew up with, seemingly coalesced into a man capable of murdering forty nine people We also read an interview with a young gay Muslim man called Sohil Ahmed in the BBC, which felt very relevant. Ahmed said this I would research all these Islamic verdicts on what you should do if you had homosexual feelings One thing would keep coming up again and again. was that you actually needed to be more religious, worship more It sounded really paradoxical. but I actually became more radical in an attempt to cure myself of homosexuality. Ahmed also remembers feeling that he himself was evil or that his homosexuality was a punishment from God for something he had done He said was an absolutely horrifying feeling Waking up every day with this voice in the back of your head saying you're disgusting, you're evil It just increased my hatred for myself and other gay people Ahmed says He even considered staging a terrorist attack himself I don't think it's paradoxical to become more religious because you believe you're evil. I think that makes perfect sense It does I guess maybe he means now in hindsight it feels paradoxical for him to feel like going closer to the thing that's telling you that What you're feeling is sick and wrong and evil They have. I think whether it's religion or whether it's just society telling you that what you're feeling is wrong and gross and sick I can absolutely understand why you would have that internalized homophobia It's the next step that comes with this particular ideology though, that is then Go blow some people up. or go kill some people because of that that seems to take it a step Bather than is ideal But Before we wrap this story up for good, Let's look at the potential involvement of his second wife. Nos his salmon In the weeks after the shooting, she started to become the focus of various probing news reports They painted her as a quiet, devout uncooperative figure Some allege that she accompanied him on his trips to buy ammunition and even to scope out the nightclub itself Many ask the question Could she have been Matine's secret accomplice And so could there still be some justice in court despite Matine's death A few months later, Salman was arrested in northern California. And she was indicted on two counts obstruction of justice and providing material support to a terrorist organization. She faced a maximum sentence of life in prison FBI questioned Salmon for more than fifteen hours. And they did these interviews before she was formally accused, so not a single second of those fifteen hours was actually recorded She also had no lawyer present Now when it came to the trial, the prosecution pointed to a written confession from the day of the shooting The confession was actually written by an FBI agent, but it was signed by Salman And the whole thing is written in the first person, so from Salman's point of view But again, it wasn't written by her. And it says the she and Matine. cased both the Pulse Nightclub and a local theme park in the weeks before the shooting. It also said that Matine had asked her How bad would it be if a club got attacked? And the statement went on to say, Again, from Salman's point of view I often worry that he was going to commit an act of violence or terrorism I wish I had done the right thing But my fear held me back. You probably know what we're going to say next. The defense's position was that this confession, written by an agent, in those pressurized few hours after the shooting occurred was coerced Salman says the authorities threatened that she'd never see her son again and that he would be raised by Christians if she didn't sign it Her defense collected GPS and phone data. and none of it indicated that Salmon was going anywhere near the nightclub And it might not totally stun you to find out that Matine was brutally abusive to Salmon during their very short marriage Just like with his first wife, he beat kited and strangled her She was threatened with death and constantly raped Salmon was not allowed to work Emmotine even monitored the food she ate. All bank accounts and credit cards were taken out in his name only He also regularly cheated on her with other women And if you believe the stories with men too But in march twenty eighteen, a jury found Nor Zahi Salman not guilty They concluded that she was the victim of an abusive marriage to a monster. And after two years in prison, she was finally reunited with her son and what Salmon's testimony really exposes probably a bit more systemic Researchers are well aware of the link between domestic violence and mass shootings That jump from domestic terrorists to public terrorists is not a big leap And there are some very clear laws related to domestic violence which are specifically meant to stop these men in their tracks. One law bans convicted abusers from owning guns A non fatal strangulation is a felony in Florida if these laws had been enforced properly. Mine. been in jail Long before he ever walked into pulse and murdered forty nine people And at worst, he definitely would not have had access to a semi automatic weapon And there's one last revelation that happened to come out of Nor Salman's trial this time to do with the shooter's father Sedic Matine. It turned out that he'd worked with the FBI as a confidential informant for more than a decade, leading right up to the shooting And the FBI had recently launched an investigation into him. after finding evidence that he made money transfers to Turkey and Afghanistan in the months leading up to the shooting Unfortunately, we don't have much more information about this So It's just another strange footnote in a story that keeps changing Niterally this information And because we don't know much about his father's FBI business plus the fact that large chunks of Matine's interviews that were publicly released have been heavily redacted has caused endless speculation with many wondering if he really did have IS links in the FBI was just lying. to cover up for its own mistakes Who knows As for the survivors, All of this fades into the background Terror of the night. It's never far away Patients's Carter, who escaped the shooting and lost friends that night has said that the guilt of being alive is heavy. For many nightmares still linger today. ones where they're transported back there in a hail of gunfire between their screaming friends They report still sensing the smell of blood Some struggled to leave their own houses for years after the attack first responders at the scene suffer extreme PTSD from the three and a half hours that they spent inside the club that night. And then There are of course the many survivors who are permanently disabled. and we'll never walk again Pulse Nightclub stood vacant and abandoned for nine years its walls and surrounding fences becoming a memorial to those lost in twenty sixteen. Banners were hung and forty nine dried white roses were braided into the fence On the bullet marked walls, messages of love and support were scrawled and spray painted. And just before it was knocked down last year Survivors, family members, and journalists were allowed inside for the first time since the shooting They were given the opportunity to walk around the space and take it in Most of the furniture had gone but that giant disco ball still hung from the ceiling There is only one way we can really end this story. Omamaine was an angry, scared man aggression was his only means of expression He thought that he would be seen as a brave freedom fighter in a holy war. But no one even the Islamic state directly ordered him to commit the deadliest mass shooting that the US had ever seen Omama Teen was a nobody