The wife of Orlando shooter Omar Mateen admitted that she missed the warning signs before the brutal massacre at Pulse nightclub on June 11. Could Noor Salman have stopped Omar Mateen before he murdered 49 people?
The #Orlando shooter Omar Mateen worked for global security firm G4S https://t.co/nfEOlzsYyh pic.twitter.com/lcJOmZ7bDS
— CNN (@CNN) June 13, 2016
Noor Salman, the wife of shooter Omar Mateen, has finally broken her silence for an interview with the New York Times. Salman described the weeks and the months leading up to the shooting on June 11 at the Orlando night club saying that if anything, she thought he was on his best behavior.
“I was unaware of everything.”
However now, looking back, Salman confessed that she may have missed a few major red flags.
The wife of the Orlando nightclub shooter admitted that she knew Mateen had been watching jihadist videos and that he was under investigation by the FBI.
Noor Salman said that once the FBI “let him go,” she assumed there wasn’t anything to worry about.
Shockingly, Salman was even with Omar Mateen when he purchased the ammunition at Walmart in the months before the shooting. The same ammunition that would eventually leave 49 innocent people dead in a nightclub.
Omar’s wife insisted that she had thought her husband was buying the guns for his job as a security guard.
Omar Mateen had been accepted into a police training program. Mateen and Salman’s marriage was in a good place; Omar was showering her with jewelry and he had stopped hitting her.
He had even allowed her to visit her family in California and gave her money for the trip.
Mateen’s wife described her husband as a man who angered easily, beat her often, and lived his life in secret.
Noor Salman even recalled Omar Mateen taking them on a random trip to Orlando, but she did not know he was scouting locations for the brutal massacre.
“I don’t condone what he has done.
I am very sorry for what has happened. He has hurt a lot of people.”
Salman’s New York Times interview gave a new perspective on the horrifying Pulse night club shooting. Salman went into hiding after the massacre because a lot of people blamed her for not warning anyone.
Salman’s parents immigrated from the West Bank in 1985, which also made her an immediate person of interest to the FBI.
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Several #PulseNightclub regulars say they saw shooter Omar Mateen there multiple times https://t.co/s6wpe6iGAo pic.twitter.com/rsfOeN33c3
— Orlando Sentinel (@orlandosentinel) June 13, 2016
On the night of June 11, 2016, Omar Mateen told Salman that he would not be home for dinner, kissed her and hugged their 3-year old son before he left.
Mateen never returned. Instead, he drove the two hours from the family’s home in Fort Pierce to Orlando. He entered Pulse nightclub, killed 49 people, and wounded many more. Police arrived on scene and fatally shot Mateen.
Salman was at home with their son while Mateen was off committing one of the worst terrorist attacks in the United States since 2001.
Since the Orlando shooting, Salman has been left shattered and afraid. She often cannot get herself out of bed and relies on family members to take care of her son.
“I just want people to know that I am human. I am a mother.”
Noor Salman has had to move three times since the attack to avoid the media. She is living in legal limbo, awaiting potential charges including lying to the FBI.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_di-NSVLU4A
[Featured Image by Joe Raedle/Getty Images]