Orlando gunman worked for global security firm tainted by series of blunders
The security company that employed the shooter in the Orlando nightclub massacre has been tarred by a series of blunders and scandals that have raised questions about its competency and ethics.
London-based G4S acknowledged on Monday that Omar Mateen, whose rampage left 49 people dead and more than 50 wounded, worked for the firm at a residential community in south Florida.
The ties to the man behind the worst mass shooting in modern United States history is the latest dark cloud to loom over G4S. Concerns that the fallout from Mateen’s attacks might make it more difficult for G4S to get security contracts contributed to a 5 per cent decline in the company’s stock Monday.
They’re pretty desperate to hire people ... “They would just get records from their prior employers [without doing law enforcement checks]
Founded in Denmark more than 100 years ago, G4S entered the US market in a big way in 2002 with its purchase of The Wackenhut Corporation, the country’s second-largest security services firm at the time. The Wackenhut name was dropped a few years ago.
G4S is now the world’s largest security company, measured by employees. It has 610,000 workers, including about 50,000 in the US, according to its website. It earned £227 million (US$324 million) on revenue of £6.4 billion last year, excluding the businesses it trying to sell or close.
The company provides security for sports and rock stars in addition to 40 US embassies and 32 juvenile-justice detention facilities in the US, including 28 residential centres in Florida.
In recent years, though, G4S has had trouble protecting its own reputation.
