FBI looks into financial records; psychologist says shooter had ‘internalized homophobia'

ORLANDO, Fla. — A complicated picture has emerged of 29-year-old Omar Mateen, who opened fire in a gay Orlando nightclub. The attack left 49 dead and dozens more wounded in the worst mass shooting in modern U.S. history.

LATEST UPDATE: 

READ:  Wife of Orlando gunman could be charged for knowledge of mass shooting plan

Agents said they were pulling records from friends and family members who might have helped Mateen financially.

For federal agents, the motive is part of the investigation, as are Omar Mateen's finances, including how he paid for one of his two trips to Mecca.

The FBI became aware of Mateen in 2013 when co-workers reported that he claimed to have family connections to Al-Qaida and to be a member of Hezbollah, too, FBI Director James Comey said.

The agency conducted a 10-month preliminary investigation, following Mateen, reviewing his communications and questioning him, Comey said. Mateen claimed he made the remarks in anger because co-workers were teasing him and discriminating against him as a Muslim.

The FBI eventually closed the case, Comey said.

The FBI said radical Islamic views were driven home for Mateen over the Internet, but he may have been driven by repressed feelings as well.

"(He had) what we call internalized homophobia,” said clinical psychologist Dr. Judi Addelston.

Addelston said religious views and personal feelings might have created internal conflict.

The FBI is also investigating if Mateen was really gay, and if he lashed out at a life he couldn't bring himself to be a part of.

"They hate themselves for their own feelings because they think this is a sin against God," said Addelston.

7:53 p.m.

Orlando police have begun to reopen more blocks of South Orange Avenue near Pulse nightclub.

5 p.m.

The Orlando gunman who professed allegiance during the attack on a gay nightclub to the leader of the Islamic State militants also claimed ties to groups that have nothing to do with that organization, or are even at odds with it.

FBI Direction James Comey said those statements add to the confusion about why Omar Mateen opened fire inside Pulse nightclub Sunday, killing 49 people and injuring 53 others.

But such conflicting, jumbled loyalties aren't uncommon among terror suspects in the United States.

In the last year, several men who committed violence or attempted to under the purported mantle of the Islamic State militants were also found to have derived inspiration from other sources and had often been absorbing extremist ideologies well before IS emerged as a brand-name terror organization with its self-declared caliphate in 2014.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

3 p.m.

CONFLICT WITH SEXUALITY?

While many have condemned the attack as a hate crime against the gay community, and his own father suggested Mateen may have acted out of anti-gay hatred, reports have surfaced that Mateen himself was a regular there.

Related Story: Orlando shooter Omar Mateen was gay, former classmate says

"He was trying to pick up people. Men," Jim Van Horn, 71, told The Associated Press. "He would walk up to them and then he would maybe put his arm around them or something and maybe try to get them to dance and buy a drink. That's what people do at gay bars." %

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The FBI is investigating reports that Mateen was a Pulse regular and had used gay dating apps, according to a U.S. official who had been briefed on the investigation but wasn't authorized to discuss it publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.

When asked Tuesday whether his son was gay, Mateen's father, Seddique Mateen, replied: “No. No"

BORN IN AMERICA

The son of Afghan immigrants, Mateen spent most of his childhood on Florida's Atlantic coast and lived there as an adult, not far from his parents. Born in the New York City borough of Queens in 1986, he moved with his family to the Long Island town of Westbury two years later and then in 1991 to Port Saint Lucie, Florida, about 125 miles southeast of Orlando. %

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JOBS

Like many young men, Mateen worked a series of unremarkable jobs after high school. He eventually found stability as a security guard in South Florida. He still held the job when he attacked the nightclub and was killed.

CO-WORKER TENSION?

A one-time co-worker with security company G4S remembered Mateen as an angry man who used slurs for gay people, blacks, Jews and women, and threatened violence.

Daniel Gilroy said Mateen badgered him and sending him dozens of text messages daily, and that he reported Mateen's behavior to his bosses.

"I kind of feel a little guilty that I didn't fight harder," Gilroy said. "If I didn't walk away and I fought, then maybe 50 people would still be alive today."

Gilroy told The New York Times that Mateen "talked about killing people all the time." Of the massacre, Gilroy said, "I saw it coming."

UNSUCCESSFUL MARRIAGE

An early marriage faltered. Mateen's ex-wife, Sitora Yusufiy, told reporters she believed he suffered from mental illness. Yusiufiy said she was with Mateen for only four months because he was abusive. They divorced two years after their 2009 marriage.

Asked during a CNN interview whether she thinks her ex-husband was gay, Yusufiy said: "I don't know. He never personally or physically made any indications while we were together of that. But he did feel very strongly about homosexuality." She said he acknowledged enjoying clubs and nightlife and that it's possible he hid feelings about being gay.

MARRIED AGAIN

It's unclear when Mateen married his second wife, Noor Salman, but an Aug. 30, 2013, property deed in Saint Lucie County identified them as a married couple. Family members said the pair had a young son about 3 years old. %

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FBI Director James Comey said the agency was trying to determine whether Mateen had recently scouted Disney World as a potential target, as reported by People.com, which cited an unidentified federal law enforcement source. The report said he visited with his wife.

HIS GUNS

Mateen bought at least two firearms legally within a week or so before the attack, according to Trevor Velinor of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms.

He bought them at the St. Lucie Shooting Center. Store owner Ed Henson said Mateen passed a full background check and that if he hadn't bought the guns there, he would've gone somewhere else. Henson said he's sorry this "evil person" bought the guns from his business.

HIS APARTMENT

Univision News reported that it entered the unlocked home of Mateen and his wife in Fort Pierce after the FBI swept for evidence. Family photos, drawings, blackboard messages, a Quran and books on Islam decorate the apartment.  On the living room table was a document listing items investigators removed: 9 mm cartridges, an iPad mini, a Samsung phone, a Dell computer, a CD labeled with Mateen's name. %

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The Associated Press contributed to this report.

1:30 P.M.

A survivor who hid in the handicapped stall as a gunman attacked a gay Florida nightclub says he had to drag himself out to safety and is just grateful to be alive.

From a bed Tuesday at the hospital that treated him, Angel Santiago Jr. described to reporters how he survived the massacre. He says he got to club Pulse in Orlando about 12:30 a.m. Sunday. About 2 a.m., as the last drinks were served, he and the two friends he was with heard gunshots.

They made their way to the bathroom area and hid in the large stall. Santiago says about 15 people total were in there. He was shot in the left foot and right knee. The group tried to be quiet. He eventually dragged himself, unable to walk, out of the bathroom and toward police. He used his cellphone light to indicate his presence to officers, who soon grabbed him and got him outside.

He says he could see the bullet hole on one of his friends, who also is recovering. He says he never saw the shooter or heard him speak.

He says: "I don't even know how I'm alive today."

UPDATE: 12:30 p.m. 

President Barack Obama says anti-Muslim rhetoric from presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump is "not the America we want."

Obama is arguing that treating Muslim-Americans differently won't make the U.S. safer. He says it will make the country less safe by fueling the notion among followers of the Islamic State group that the West hates Muslims.

Watch the whole news conference:

UPDATE: 11:53 a.m.

UPDATE: 11:40 a.m.

A city-owned cemetery is donating free plots to the victims of the Pulse nightclub shooting.

Don Price is the sexton at Greenwood Cemetery in Orlando. He said Tuesday that the city is donating space to any of the victims' families. The cemetery was founded in 1880.

He says two families are already interested and have set up appointments to meet with the cemetery Tuesday.

Price says the county's medical examiner started releasing the first of the bodies Monday night.

UPDATE:  11:20 a.m.

A doctor who has been treating the wounded from the Orlando nightclub shooting says he would be surprised if the death toll doesn't rise.

Dr. Michael Cheatham said at a news conference Tuesday that six people are still critically ill at the hospital. He says they are doing everything they can for them and he asked people to pray for them. %

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Forty-nine people were killed when a gunman attacked a gay nightclub on early Sunday. More than 50 people were wounded in the attack. The gunman died in a shootout with police.

UPDATE 11:15 a.m.

A doctor who treated nightclub shooting victims says the massacre was "the largest disaster that we probably could have imagined."

Dr. Michael Cheatham of Orlando Regional Medical Center says hospital and trauma centers prepare for disasters, but "you can never prepare adequately."

Doctors praised the work of staff at the hospital, where six people remain "critically ill."

Of the 44 patients brought to the hospital, 27 remain hospitalized, six are in critical condition, and five are in guarded condition. Sixteen are stable.

Cheatham says described great support at the hospital, saying there was "never a time we were without anything we needed." He also says the facility escalated rom two operating rooms to six within 30 to 60 minutes to care for the flood of patients.

UPDATE 10:44

A man who survived the nightclub shooting in Orlando says he thought "I'm next, I'm dead" as the gunman fired toward his head.

Angel Colon described the horrific night he survived during a news conference on Tuesday at the hospital.

WATCH: Listen to what Colon said about the shooter

"I got trampled over," he said. "I shattered and broke my bones in my left leg, and everyone was running on top of me trying to get where they had to be."

Appearing in a wheelchair with the doctors and nurses who treated him nearby, Colon talked about what happened early Sunday at the Pulse nightclub.

He says the gunman shot a girl next to him and then shot his hand and his hip. He says he pretended to be dead and the gunman kept firing his gun.

Colon says at times the gunman was shooting people who appeared that they had already been killed.

He thanked the hospital staff and said "I will love you guys forever."

UPDATE: 10:33 a.m. 

Doctors at the Orlando hospital that treated nightclub massacre victims are describing a chaotic night of patient after patient arriving for trauma treatment.

At a news conference Tuesday at Orlando Regional Medical Center, doctors described "truckloads" and "ambulance-loads" of patients.

Dr. Kathryn Bondani says the first patient that arrived was relatively stable, and the staff hoped that others would be in a similar condition. But the doctors soon got about five patients in much worse shape.

Dr. Chadwick Smith choked up a bit talking about the night. He described calling in additional staff and telling them, "This is not a drill, this is not a joke."

He says everyone answered "I'll be right there," and dozens of doctors and nurses showed up to help.

UPDATE: 9:40 a.m.

Source: FBI and IRS meeting to review financial records of Pulse nightclub shooter, Omar Mateen. Watch Eyewitness News at 10 a.m. for live updates.

UPDATE 8:55 a.m.

The hospital treating those wounded in the shooting spree at an Orlando gay nightclub that left 49 victims dead plans to hold a news conference where doctors and patients will speak.

WATCH: See the press conference live 

According to a news release from Orlando Regional Medical Center, eight surgeons will share their stories from the hours after the shooting began. Two patients will also recount their stories from that night.%

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The news conference is scheduled for 10:30 a.m. Tuesday.

Related story: How club-goers helped victims get to safety

In addition to the 49 deaths, dozens more were wounded when Omar Mateen opened fire at a gay nightclub early Sunday. He was eventually killed in a shootout with police.

UPDATE: 8:46 a.m.

More about the shooter: The son of Afghan immigrants, Mateen spent most of his childhood on Florida's Atlantic coast and lived there as an adult, not far from his parents. Born in the New York City borough of Queens in 1986, he moved with his family to the Long Island town of Westbury two years later and then in 1991 to Port Saint Lucie, Florida, about 125 miles southeast of Orlando.

String of Jobs

Like many young men, Mateen worked a series of unremarkable jobs after high school. He eventually found stability with a security guard job in South Florida. He still held that when he attacked the nightclub and was killed by police.

UPDATE: 7:40 a.m.

Homeland Security Secretary Jeh (jay) Johnson says Republican Donald Trump's proposal for a ban on immigration from countries with terrorist histories is impractical.

While declining to name Trump, Johnson condemned "overly simplistic suggestions" for dealing with the violence.

Appearing on ABC's "Good Morning America," Johnson defended President Barack Obama against Trump's charge that Obama has been too passive on the issue.

More: What we know about the victims of the Orlando mass shooting

Johnson said that "I know from working with him for seven years that the president's No. 1 priority is the protection of Americans."

He added that authorities throughout the government continually reassess whether their strategy to combat this violence needs to be changed.

Johnson told ABC that protecting U.S. from attack is increasingly complicated in an era of "self-radicalization."  He said "there's no indication" the Orlando attack was "terrorist-directed."

UPDATE: 7:25 a.m.

Officials with an agency that collects blood donations across much of Florida continue to urge people to give blood in the wake of the Orlando nightclub massacre.

Potential donors are asked to make appointments at their local blood banks.

OneBlood officials posted videos on Facebook showing snacks and beverages donated for people waiting in long lines to give blood. Spokeswoman Stephanie Zaurin says donors are coming "in record numbers."

U.S. Food and Drug Administration spokeswoman Tara Goodin said in an email to The Associated Press that the Interorganizational Disaster Task Force met Sunday and ensured that all immediate needs for blood were met.

Goodwin said the agency appreciated the widespread desire to donate blood after the shooting at Pulse. She said scheduling appointments to donate blood "will help replenish the blood supply in an organized manner, without overwhelming the system."

UPDATE: 7:10 a.m.

As they got back to work after the Sunday nightclub massacre, TV's late-night hosts faced the challenge of how to acknowledge it.

As in past tragedies, the jokesters shifted gears. Several opened their shows with apologies for departing from their customary monologues, instead voicing shock and sorrow.

Video: Inside the home of Pulse nightclub shooter Omar Mateen

"The Daily Show" host Trevor Noah pointed out that President Barack Obama has hosted 12 state dinners but 16 mass-shooting addresses. Noah raised the possibility that, without reasonable gun control, Obama should begin preparing Speech No. 17.

"The Late Show" host Stephen Colbert bemoaned "a national script" that seems to guide a nonproductive response to shootings. He declared that love could help Americans change that script.

Conan O'Brien, while noting that he had made a career-long policy of keeping political opinions to himself, expressed bewilderment that anyone is allowed to buy a semi-automatic assault rifle. He said, "These are weapons of war and they have no place in civilian life."

UPDATE: 6:50 a.m. 

The office of the U.N. human rights chief is decrying "insufficient gun control" in the United States and urging its leaders "to live up to its obligations to protect its citizens."

In the wake of a gunman's deadly attack on a Florida nightclub, Zeid Ra'ad al-Hussein criticized "irresponsible pro-gun propaganda" in the U.S. claiming that firearms make society safer, "when all evidence points to the contrary." He questioned the ease with which people in the U.S. can obtain firearms and assault weapons like one used in Sunday's attack.

More: On the FBI's radar: Pulse nightclub shooter had been investigated before

Citing a U.N. report on firearms in April, Zeid pointed to examples of how control of firearms in many countries led to a "dramatic reduction in violent crime."

Office spokesman Rupert Colville told reporters Tuesday in Geneva: "The problem is the guns."

UPDATE 5:30 a.m.

An Orlando Regional Medical Center doctor’s Facebook post about the night victims of the mass shooting at Pulse nightclub were rushed into the hospital is going viral.

Dr. Joshua Corsa’s blood-stained shoes tell a story, and is giving people a look into what it’s like to be an ER doctor and first responder in the wake of a tragedy.

MORE: See the entire post

“These are brand new, not even a week old,” the post said, accompanied by a picture of the shoes. “On these shoes, soaked between its fibers, is the blood of 54 innocent human beings…they came to us in wave upon wave of suffering, screaming, and death. And somehow, in that chaos, doctors, nurses, technicians, police, paramedics, and others, performed super human feats of compassion and care.”

The post has been shared more than 270,000 times.

UPDATE 4 a.m.

After police ended its search of Pulse nightclub shooter Omar Mateen’s Fort Pierce condo, a reporter from Univision found an open sliding door, and surreptitiously walked in with a camera crew.

MORE: Dirty laundry, Marvel toys: Inside mass shooter Omar Mateen's home

What he found was a home not much different than what you might find in any neighborhood, in any state across the country.

Video: Inside the home of Pulse nightclub shooter Omar Mateen

There was a TV in the living room, exercise equipment in the corner next to the couch, potted plants and laundry on the floor.

UPDATE: 3:30 a.m.

Candles are still burning at the Dr. Phillips Center for the Performing Arts, more than eight hours after Monday night's vigil.

MORE: Channel 9's Janai Norman is at the center and speaking to mourners 

Hundreds of people gathered outside the Dr. Phillips Center for the Performing Arts Monday night to honor the 49 lives lost.

One speaker said, "Hate, bigotry and intolerance are our common enemies."

Photos: Vigil held for Pulse mass shooting victims

Thousands gathered holding signs and candles as the names of the victims were read aloud.

The owners of Pulse nightclub said, “We are not leaving. We are here to stay. We will be bigger and better than you can imagine.”

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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