Omar Mateen’s father speaks out and says this shooting has nothing to do with religion.
An MSNBC staff writer spoke with the father of Omar Mateen, the gunman who shot and killed at least 50 people at a night club in Orlando on Sunday.
“We are apologizing for the whole incident. We weren’t aware of any action he is taking, we are in shock like the whole country. This had nothing to do with religion,” the gunman’s father said. However, he pointed out and argued that his son got very upset after he saw two men kissing in downtown Miami recently.
However, the FBI is treating this incident as a form of domestic terrorism and looking to see if Mateen had connections to terrorist organizations. According to reports, the suspect is being identified as Omar Mateen from Port St. Lucie, Florida according to CBS News. He has ties to radical Islamic ideology, CBS reports. Both of Mateen’s parents are originally from Afghanistan, according to CBS News. He was married in 2009, public records show. It is not clear if he was still married at the time of the attack. Mateen is a registered Democrat who has also lived in Fort Pierce, Florida, according to online records.
