The FBI’s story: how Orlando shooter Mateen slipped off its watch list
FBI chief Comey said the FBI opened a preliminary investigation into Mateen that lasted 10 months but was removed shortly after the inquiry yielded noting conclusive
The FBI investigated Orlando shooter Omar Mateen on multiple fronts and even put him on a government watch list for a time but eventually closed the inquiries because there was not enough evidence to connect him to terrorism, FBI Director James Comey said.
That was why no alarms went off earlier this month, when Mateen bought the guns that he used to kill 49 people in Sunday’s shooting spree at a gay dance club in Orlando, Florida, the FBI chief said Monday at a news conference in Washington.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation will “look at our own work, to see if there is something we should have done differently”, Comey said. “So far, I think the honest answer is I don’t think so. We will continue to look forward in this investigation and backward.”
While the FBI is treating the massacre in Orlando as a terrorist act, a central point of contention is whether investigators missed vital clues about Mateen in the past. It was also raising pressure on US officials as they struggle to detect lone terrorists without violating civil liberties.
“I don’t see anything in reviewing our work that our agents should have done” differently, Comey told reporters.
