The Pulse Nightclub Shooting | #454

Summary

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RedHanded – The Pulse Nightclub Shooting | #454

Release Date: June 11, 2026
Hosts: Hannah & Sruti
Topic: Examining the truth and consequences of the 2016 Pulse nightclub mass shooting, its perpetrator Omar Mateen, online radicalization, and the scars left on the LGBTQ+ and Latino communities—released for the 10th anniversary of the massacre.

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Episode Overview

RedHanded hosts Hannah and Sruti revisit the horrific 2016 mass shooting at Pulse, a gay nightclub in Orlando, which left 49 people dead and many wounded. The episode presents a deep dive into the life and radicalization of shooter Omar Mateen, his upbringing, the question of motive (including his sexuality), the role of "leaderless jihad," the investigation, and the lasting trauma for survivors. The hosts grapple with the nuances of hate, self-hatred, terrorism, and societal responsibility, challenging easy narratives and calling for resilience in the face of violence.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Night of the Shooting and Immediate Chaos

• [00:09–02:04]
  • Mateen arrived at Pulse shortly before 2am, armed with an AR-15-type rifle and a handgun.
  • Pulse was “a haven of acceptance” for the LGBTQ+ community, particularly among Latino men on Latin Saturdays.
  • Shooting described as “the deadliest mass shooting the US had ever seen”—49 killed, dozens wounded.
  • Clubgoers fled, many trapped in bathroom stalls, enduring a three-hour siege.
  • “A gay club is meant to be a haven of acceptance…But sometimes hate finds a way in. And on this night, it walked in through the front door.” (Hannah, [00:59])

2. Omar Mateen’s Background & Family Influence

• [04:03–11:10]
  • Born in 1986 in New York to Afghan immigrant parents; moved to Florida as a child.
  • Outwardly, family appeared moderate, but his father Siddiq was outspokenly pro-Taliban, hosted a political YouTube show ("Durand Jirga Show"), and often made grandiose claims.
  • Siddiq’s stance was publicly fundamentalist while family practiced externally moderate behaviors.
  • "He bloody loved the Afghan Taliban, calling them warrior brothers." (Sruti, [06:11])
  • Tension and contradiction in family values, especially regarding women's rights and enforcement of traditional practices.

3. Early Signs of Alienation & Violent Behavior

• [09:39–12:58]
  • Mateen, bullied in school, became a bully himself, particularly toward girls.
  • Expelled after a violent altercation; sent to a behavioral school during 9/11, where he openly expressed delight at the attacks—“Omar Mateen was smiling.”
  • “His pleasure at the September 11th attack on innocent US civilians…speaks deeply to a radicalized individual. Mateen clearly lacks any sense of loyalty to his own nation, any sense of belonging or integration, not to mention basic human empathy.” (Sruti, [12:58])
  • The hosts examine whether Mateen’s radicalization took root early, possibly influenced by both family and the internet.

4. Floundering Adulthood, Anger, and Failed Authority

• [15:06–17:57]
  • After school, Mateen lived an unremarkable life—worked low-level jobs, partied, took drugs.
  • Developed obsession with body image and strength, resorting to steroids.
  • Sought power and belonging: studied criminal justice, tried and failed to become a police officer after erratic threatening behaviors.
  • “He very much picks and chooses the parts that he wants to go along with...he’s all over the place.” (Sruti, [15:36])

5. Security Work, Relationships, and Escalating Violence

• [19:07–22:31]
  • Became a licensed security guard at G4S; coworkers described him as openly violent, racist, homophobic, and obsessed with violence.
  • Marriage to first wife, Satora Yousefi, was abusive and short-lived.
  • Second wife, Noor Zahi Salman, lived more traditionally and became a focus after Mateen’s attack.
  • Post-divorce, Mateen’s religiosity sharply increased; made pilgrimages to Mecca, grew more aggressive.

6. Warning Signs & FBI Surveillance

• [23:52–33:20]
  • Mateen repeatedly made threats, boasted connections to various terrorist groups (both Sunni and Shia, despite their being enemies).
  • “He doesn’t know what he’s talking about. But at the core of it, he believes in some fundamentalist, Islamist, jihadist version…to justify the things that he wants to do.” (Sruti, [28:07])
  • Multiple coworkers reported his threats; the FBI launched investigations but found no solid terrorist links, clearing him as a threat.
  • The hosts highlight this as a tragic failure to account for "leaderless jihad," criticizing the idea that terrorist ties must be direct or hierarchical.

7. The Attack—Timeline and Trauma

• [34:51–44:01]
  • Mateen entered Pulse, firing for 15 seconds ([36:38])—“Bullets ripped through legs, arms and backs and bodies slumped to the ground.”
  • Barricaded himself in bathrooms, took hostages, called 911 pledging allegiance to ISIS and making various threats including bomb threats (“I want to let you know I’m in Orlando and I did the shootings. I pledge allegiance to Abu Bakr al Baghdadi of the Islamic State.” – Mateen, [38:59]).
  • Police breached by detonating explosives, ultimately killing Mateen three hours later.
  • Aftermath: 49 dead, 58 wounded; the trauma etched into Orlando’s survivors and first responders.

8. Motive, Lone Wolf, and Leaderless Jihad

• [44:01–56:05]
  • Authorities labeled Mateen a "lone wolf," but the hosts challenge this as misleading.
  • “Leaderless jihad” concept—radical ideology spread online, anyone can execute attacks in a group’s name without direct contact.
  • IS encouraged violence by anyone at any scale—"Do not ask anyone’s permission." (Abu Mohammad Al Adani, IS spokesman, quoted [52:57])
  • “It’s crowdsourcing terrorism. It’s open source terrorism.” (Sruti, [47:57])
  • Discusses parallels to other attacks (San Bernardino, Bataclan, Manchester) and the frightening randomness and accessibility of ideological violence.

9. Mateen’s Possible Sexuality and Internalized Homophobia

• [61:33–65:25]
  • Numerous eyewitnesses and acquaintances claimed Mateen frequented gay clubs, used dating apps, and may have had sexual relationships with men.
  • “One man…Miguel said…he thinks Mateen intentionally targeted Latinos in retaliation for being rejected by them.” (Sruti, [63:07])
  • Mateen’s history of bullying/hiding/discontent, his father’s extreme anti-gay religious views, and self-loathing are unpacked.
  • “He spent his career violently firing back at any suggestion of discrimination or mockery.” (Hannah, [64:04])
  • Reference to Sohail Ahmed's account of internalized homophobia and the pathway from shame to possible extremism.

10. Domestic Violence, System Failures, and Aftermath

• [67:02–71:16]
  • Focus on Noor Salman, interrogations, written confession, questionable evidence. Ultimately acquitted after proof of her victimization in her marriage.
  • Points out the strong connection between domestic violence and mass shootings, and the failure of laws meant to prevent abusers from owning guns.
  • Shooters’ access to weapons, criminal records, and lack of conviction facilitated the Pulse massacre.

11. Unanswered Questions and Community Healing

• [71:16–73:57]
  • Reveal: Mateen’s father, Siddiq, was an FBI informant, had suspicious overseas money transfers; details remain heavily redacted, fueling conspiracy theories.
  • Survivors grapple with lifelong trauma and survivor’s guilt.
  • Pulse stood as a memorial for years, finally dismantled—survivors and family members toured the space one last time, “but that giant disco ball still hung from the ceiling.” (Hannah, [73:57])

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Memorable Quotes & Moments

• On the meaning of gay clubs:
  “A gay club is meant to be a haven of acceptance, a place to connect and be free…But sometimes hate finds a way in.” – Hannah, [00:59]

• On Mateen’s radicalization:
  “His pleasure at the September 11th attack on innocent US civilians…speaks deeply to a radicalized individual…not to mention basic human empathy.” – Sruti, [12:58]

• On lone wolf terminology:
  “US officials denied that IS had had any involvement in the Pulse massacre…so they labeled Mateen a lone wolf, a term that I absolutely despise…It suggests that Mateen acted in some sort of silo…He is directly referencing terrorist organizations, so why would he be a lone wolf?” – Sruti, [44:01]

• On leaderless jihad:
  "It’s crowdsourcing terrorism. It’s open source terrorism…just, you know, get whatever weapon you can go create some fucking chaos..." – Sruti, [47:57]

• On the reality of “global Muslim brotherhood”:
  "He's speaking to this sort of global Muslim Brotherhood sisterhood, the great Ummah... His allegiances were completely somewhere else, as were his ideologies." – Sruti, [51:46]

• On the randomness of terror:
  "Any person who just finds this narrative alluring can just get a car and carry out an attack. And that’s why we’ve seen the frequency of those kind of attacks amplified." – Sruti, [54:02]

• On Mateen’s possible sexuality:
  “He was trying to pick up people, men. He’s a homosexual and he was trying to pick up men…We just went, oh, like, yeah, that makes sense there. That’s Omar.” – Pulse Regular, [61:50]

• On internalized homophobia:
  "I actually became more radical in an attempt to cure myself of homosexuality." – Sohail Ahmed (quoted by hosts), [65:25]

• On memorial and resilience:
  “Never stop dancing. So if you want to, in your own way, give a little fuck you to Omar Mateen tonight, why not go out to a gay bar near you and dance the night away.” – Hannah, [73:57]

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Important Timestamps

• [00:09]: Introduction to Pulse Nightclub and Omar Mateen’s arrival
• [01:28–02:04]: The beginning and immediate aftermath of the shooting
• [04:03–05:15]: Mateen's family background
• [11:10–12:58]: Mateen's response to 9/11, school suspicions
• [17:57–19:07]: Mateen's time at police academy, turbulent behavior
• [27:56–29:39]: Mateen brags about terrorist connections, coworkers take action
• [34:51–38:12]: Detailed timeline of the attack inside Pulse
• [39:42]: 911 call pledging allegiance to ISIS
• [44:01–47:25]: Debate on “lone wolf” vs. open-source terrorism
• [52:57]: IS statement encouraging decentralized attacks
• [61:50–64:04]: Testimonies about Mateen’s sexuality
• [67:02–70:14]: Noor Salman trial and domestic violence context
• [71:16]: Revelation about Mateen’s father and FBI involvement
• [73:57]: Final thoughts; the message of resilience: “Never stop dancing.”

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Tone and Delivery

The episode maintains RedHanded’s signature blend of dark humor, righteous anger, and empathy. The hosts are forthright in their critiques, both of individuals (Mateen, his father) and institutions (FBI, law enforcement), but maintain respect for survivors. Their language is frank, often explicit, and laced with incredulity, especially when addressing failures in prevention and policy.

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Conclusion

RedHanded’s investigation into the Pulse massacre is a sobering reminder of the complexities behind acts of terror—how hate, radicalization, fragile masculinity, and unresolved trauma converge. The hosts resist oversimplification, instead exposing the stew of personal and ideological motives, the failure of systemic safeguards, and the resilience of marginalized communities. Their final message urges listeners not to surrender to fear, but instead, to “never stop dancing.”

Transcript

[Hannah]

A few minutes before 2am on 12 June 2016, a van pulled up outside the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Florida. Driving was 29 year old Omar Mateen. He'd made the two hour trip alone from his home in South Florida with an AR50 type rifle and handgun on the back seat.

[Sruti]

Pulse was one of Orlando's biggest clubs and it attracted a hell of a crowd at the weekend, especially on its upscale Latin Saturdays, a crowd of hundreds of mostly gay, mostly Latino men gathered together to dance to salsa and merengue. Until the small hours, most of them were regulars.

[Hannah]

Anyone who's ever been to a gay club will know that it's much more than a place to buy expensive cocktails and let loose on the sticky dance floor. If you're me, it's somewhere to make enemies of bouncers. A gay club is meant to be a haven of acceptance, a place to connect and be free. But sometimes hate finds a way in. And on this night, it walked in through the front door.

[Sruti]

What followed was the deadliest mass shooting the US had ever seen. Until that day. Mateen walked in and fired hundreds of rounds into the unsuspecting crowd. Bodies collapsed, and within minutes the floor was slick with blood. Those who could ran for the exits, but many were trapped in bathroom stalls or behind bars or DJ decks. And they were stuck there for three long hours of unimaginable terror. 49 people were killed that night.

[Hannah]

Just before he started this murderous rampage, Mateen had made a statement. He had clearly pledged his allegiance to the Islamic State, and afterwards, is itself claimed the attack.

[Sruti]

In the aftermath of this nightmare, alongside the horror, there was confusion. On the face of it, it looks like yet another nightmarish attack on Western liberal values from a man mired in medieval fundamentalist Islamist ideology.

[Hannah]

And while that was certainly true, there's another element to this story. Because some of the Pulse regulars actually recognized Mateen. They remembered him from the bar. Some said he was there most weeks. And some even said he'd flirted with them, danced with them, maybe even more. Whatever. The 2016 Pulse attack was devastating, senseless, heartbreaking, profound. It was not simple. And the scars it left on a community will last for generations. I'm Hannah.

[Sruti]

I'm Sruti.

[Hannah]

This is red handed. And the truth behind the horrific Pulse shooting on the 10 year anniversary of the massacre.

[Sruti]

After the attack, a crowd gathered in the early morning hours to wait for any word about friends or relatives who had been inside. And as the most horrific night in Orlando's history gave way to a grim, sombre Day investigators got to work finding out everything they could about the man with the gun. And thankfully, they already had a name. Omar Mateen. But who was he? And how had he slipped through their net?

[Hannah]

Mateen's parents, Siddiq and Sharla Mateen, had emigrated from Afghanistan to New York, and that is where Omar was born. In 1986, when he was still young, he, his parents and his three sisters moved to Port St Lucie, a sunny city on the coast halfway between Miami and Orlando. And in a lot of ways, Mateen had a pretty regular 90s American childhood. Obviously, as an Afghan immigrant family, the Mateens stood out a bit, but outwardly at least, they seemed pretty moderate. For example, Mateen's mother and sisters didn't wear headscarves. And he never did his prayers during the school day, always saving it for home. The Mateens and a handful of other local Muslim families would meet at Ramadan to break fast together. Otherwise, from the outside at least, it seems like it was all Maul's, McDonald's and Mortal Kombat.

[Sruti]

Though it does have to be said that his dad, Siddiqui Mateen, was quite the local character. He was always seen wearing dark suits, floral ties and colourful pocket squares. And he had some pretty extreme views, which he was definitely not shy about sharing. He even hosted a YouTube series called the Duran Jirga Show.

[Hannah]

I feel like your dad having a YouTube show in the late. What are we talking, the 2000s?

[Sruti]

Yeah, must have been. I don't know when his dad starts this, but, yeah, like sometime Maybe in the late 90s, early 2000s, possibly. When was YouTube started? I actually don't know.

[Hannah]

I mean, I feel like there was a real section of history. We've all forgotten where podcasts were for nerdy tech bros and nerdy tech bros only.

[Sruti]

Oh, yeah, that's how I heard about podcasts. Cause my dad told me, like, your dad. My dad was like, have you heard a podcast? I was like, what the fuck?

[Hannah]

Love the guy.

[Sruti]

It's a podcast. So, yeah, his dad has got a YouTube channel. He's a very early adopter into this world. And yeah, his show is called the Duran Jirga show, which basically is. The Durand Line is a land border between Pakistan and Afghanistan that remains very much a source of extreme tension between the two nations. So, yes, immediately you can tell it's a political show. That's what he's yelling about. And Mateen Sr. Also appeared on a satellite TV channel aimed at the Afghan community in the us. Sometimes he would even appear in military fatigues. And sometimes he would even introduce himself as the President of Afghanistan, which he most certainly was not. He was just an Afghan man living in Port St. Lucie. Siddiqui considered himself to be a pretty influential commentator on Afghan politics, a voice that was trusted throughout the Afghan community across the US and the Middle East. How true that is is hard to know. But in amongst his ramblings about the Pakistani and Afghani governments, Mateen Sr. Made one thing very clear. He bloody loved the Afghan Taliban, calling them warrior brothers. And that is the same Afghani Taliban that now runs the country and has forced women to be covered from head to toe, not to speak in public. And in latest news, as of last year, they also have to wear an eye patch over one eye because, quote, why do women need more than one eye? It's a bit confusing, though, because he seems to have a lot of, like, pretty strong ideas about this kind of stuff. And he talks about it on his podcast. Sorry, not podcast, YouTube series.

[Hannah]

Close enough.

[Sruti]

But it is interesting that Siddiqui didn't enforce veiling on his own wife and daughters. Remember, he's got three daughters and a wife who don't even wear headscarves. So why that is, I don't know. But a lot of things about a lot of people in this story are quite confusing.

[Hannah]

I was reading this the other day. I can't remember the word for it, but there's a word like. I suppose the Christian equivalent would be sacrament, I guess. I don't know. You're allowed to hide in order to, like, conceal the fact that you are Muslim in a hostile environment, which is one of the places where Islam and Christianity are really opposed, because Christians are encouraged never to lie and always to be proud, never to hide. And that's a very high value thing that a person can do. And it's never really encouraged to pretend to be something you're not. But there are elements of Islam where you can. So I wonder whether that's what he would have argued.

[Sruti]

Maybe. I think maybe what you're talking about is Takiya.

[Hannah]

That's it.

[Sruti]

But my understanding of it is it's not necessarily that you hide, but that you dampen down your intensity, religious intensity, and even it's permissible to lie or to do whatever in order to survive in a hostile environment or until, you know, that becomes part of the great caliphate. That's what I've understood of it. So, yeah, that does make sense. Maybe he's like, it's better that we assimilate, at least outwardly, though how much that actually Happens is a bit of a question mark. But, yeah, lot of, like, lot of weird things going on, but I can see what you mean. Maybe he's just like, we don't need to draw more attention to ourselves here, so let's just not do that. Possibly.

[Hannah]

Anyway, we'll come back to Siddiq Mateen and his influence over his son Omar later. But for now, let's take a look at Omar Mateen's school years, and you'll be unsurprised to hear that they weren't great. Not the best. Mateen was pretty overweight, and he got a reputation as a bit of a pushover. Sometimes the whole school bus would gang up on him so he wouldn't get a seat. It was a lonely few years for young Witteen, but then he started to push back, and soon he reinvented himself totally as a pretty serious school bully, often targeting girls in particular. His father, who dropped Omar off every morning, was dismissive, regularly brushing off complaints about his son. In fact, Siddiq Mateen even drew a few complaints himself about his disrespectful attitude toward female teachers. What a shocker.

[Sruti]

Omar Mateen was eventually expelled after a fight with another student, which was so bad that he was actually also charged with battery, but he wasn't prosecuted. Instead, Omar Mateen was sent to the Spectrum Alternative School in Stuart, Florida, an institution for students with behavioral issues. He was only there for a few months, but he certainly left an impression.

[Hannah]

Is it called Spectrum on purpose?

[Sruti]

I mean, I did think that, as I read that out loud, Spectrum and Alternative. Good one. And, yeah, it's not gonna get better for him here because Omar Mateen's time as Spectrum just so happened to coincide with the September 11 attacks. And the morning of the attacks, the teacher at Spectrum actually wheeled a TV into the classroom so that the students could watch the horrifying news. And a former classmate remembers looking over at Mateen and having to do a double take because Omar Mateen was smiling. And this student remembers thinking it was almost surreal how happy he was about what had happened to us.

[Hannah]

And he didn't stop there. After the second plane hit, Omar stood up and said that Osama bin Laden was his uncle and had taught him how to shoot AK47s. The class didn't even know bin Laden's name yet, but the implication was obvious. Witnesses to this incident said that the whole room grew furious and they wanted to hurt him. And just before they could, the teacher grabbed Mateen and threw him out of class. Omar's father came to pick him up. Siddiq Mateen silently strode towards the school and when he got to Omar, he slapped him hard across the face in front of everyone. Probably not that his father was angry about what Mateen has said. It's much more likely he was just annoyed at his son for embarrassing him and getting kicked out of yet another school.

[Sruti]

But what does this all tell us about Omar Mateen himself? I think this whole, like, laughing when September 11th is happening and, you know, all of that stuff, I think goes beyond a bit of like, teenage edge. Laudery. His pleasure at the September 11th attack on innocent US civilians and the trauma that that was obviously even at that time, in the immediate moment, before anybody even realized exactly what was happening, had inflicted on the entire country, a country of which he is also a citizen born and raised, speaks deeply to a radicalized individual. Mateen clearly lacks any sense of loyalty to his own nation, any sense of belonging or integration, not to mention basic human empathy. And we're seeing this already play out, this like, radicalization with Mateen whilst he's still at school, long before he could have been pulled in by IS's online radicalization propaganda. I mean, maybe, maybe he was already on there, but you know, at this point when he's here, he's in his, like, teens. If he was born in 1986, he's three years older than me. I don't know, like how much ax, maybe he did because he was quite a lonely kid. Maybe he was on the Internet a lot. Maybe the radicalization started early. Maybe. It's hard to know exactly where it was all coming from. Was it online at this stage? Was it coming from his dad? I don't know. But what we do know is from the data that whether his dad had some crazy views or not, he's definitely trying to at least like, be chill in front of people in the U.S. the data does show that second generation and third generation radicalization seems to be far more prevalent. So it would match with Omar Mateen potentially being even more radical than his father. But who knows? Again, what we do know is that Omar's childhood was defined by anger both inside and outside his home.

[Hannah]

After high school, he moved into a two bed condo in Fort Pierce, Florida. It was one of several owned by his family, and so they are clearly doing very well for themselves. He did various service jobs, Chick Fil, a Walgreens, Hollister, Goldstrim. And he did not live a particularly pious Muslim life either. He partied, drinking and taking drugs, often to excess. Sometimes he'd get completely out of control, starting fights and blacking out.

[Sruti]

And I think this kind of sums up Omar Mateen quite well. He very much picks and chooses the parts that he wants to go along with. And as we'll see, he's very confused about, like, which groups he wants to affiliate himself with, whether it's ISIS or Al Qaeda or the Taliban or, you know, Hezbollah. Like, he's all over the place. Does that mean that it's not important the things he's taking from these groups? No, but again, here you're seeing that he's not living a particularly religious life in terms of, like, abstaining from very, very haram things. He's like, yes, sick. But he still also feels very strongly and fervently about the religion and about his lack of identity and integration into the us. So I don't know, he's just not a very. He's just not a very deep thinking person. But what he is thinking is still important to our story.

[Hannah]

Oh, yeah, totally. I think it's all about feeling like an outsider. But he did pick and choose because he partied, he drank, he took drugs, often to excess, and sometimes he would get completely out of control, starting fights and blacking out. And it was around this time that Mateen started seriously hitting the gym, just like he had in the playground. He decided that throwing his weight around was the answer to all of his problems. And to turn that considerable weight into muscle, he had a little help from mystery powders and potions that he would order online. He bulked up so dramatically in so little time that he had noticeable stretch marks on his biceps.

[Sruti]

And then Mateen made a slightly predictable next step. He decided that he wanted to become a police officer. And we see this consistently enough with killers. They're drawn to positions of power and authority. And if there's a uniform, even better. It screams of a man lacking any sort of power and control in his own life. And I guess it's unsurprising, given his seemingly domineering father, who will slap him in the face even as a teenager in front of a classroom full of other kids. And also his struggles to make friends. And also Mateen's likely issues around his own sexual identity.

[Hannah]

First off, Mateen got an associate's degree in criminal justice technology from Indian River State College in 2006. And then he started police training. Socially, his time at the police academy wasn't massively different to his school years. He was jumpy, aggressive, and his behaviour only got stranger and stranger. In spring 2007, the class got together for a barbecue. Omar started to get huffy, saying they couldn't eat anything off the grill because he was allergic to pork. They asked him if it was anything to do with being a Muslim, because that would be fine if that was the case. But Mateen completely flew off the handle, screamed at them, and then stormed off. And then a few weeks later, just before he was due to graduate, Mateen went up to a classmate and asked whether they'd report him him if he brought a gun to campus. Obviously, the classmate reported him for even suggesting that. And Mateen was kicked out again of the academy. But also, again, Omar Mateen was not charged.

[Sruti]

He was, however, thankfully judged to be far too volatile for the police. And I'm sure that deep down, this hit Mateen hard. It's just one more rejection, which likely fueled his rage. But soon Mateen went into private security, and in 2007, he joined G4S, a huge private company providing hired muscle in 110 countries. Mateen became a licensed security guard and worked in all sorts of locations, from prisons to golf courses. And he worked at G4S right up until he was shot down at pulse on 12 June, 2016, which is remarkable. It's another part of this story that does sort of sway or skew from the usual. Because when people are spiraling like that to the point that they are like, I'm going to go carry out a mass killing, a terror attack, they're usually not in employment anymore. So it's very interesting that he was still working up until the day he did this. Very unusual. And maybe things were starting to look up a little bit after he joins G4S, because a few years after landing this job, Mateen married his first wife, Zatora Yousefi. Yousefi had moved to the US from her native Uzbekistan when she was 11. She grew up in New Jersey and became a real estate agent. She met Omar Mateen online and very quickly moved to Florida to be with him. But sadly, Yousefi soon discovered that Omar Mateen was an unpredictable whirlwind of violence. He would regularly slap Yousefi and drag her around by her hair. One day after he strangled her, she finally called the police. But Omar Mateen wasn't charged. Yousefi later told the Washington Post this. He was not a stable person. He would just come home and start beating me up because the laundry wasn't finished or something like that. And unsurprisingly, and thankfully, the pair divorced after just nine months.

[Hannah]

Mateen's second wife is a bit more of a mystery and we'll return to her later on. For now, we're just going to tell you a little bit. Her name was Noor Zahi Salman. She was a Palestinian American, raised in California. They met online in 2011 on a dating site called Arab Lounge. I guess it's no different to J Date, really. It just seems a bit weird. Sounds weird.

[Sruti]

Also, Mateen's Afghani. They're not. He's not even an Arab, but he's like, I want an Arab lady, so I'm going to look in on Arab Lounge.

[Hannah]

The first time Mateen met Salman was when he flew to California with his whole family in tow. Presumably they were desperate to marry off their disaster of a son. And it worked, because before they even flew home, the couple were engaged and they tied the knot. Just three months after his divorce to Satora Yousefi was finalized. And his second wife, Salman, was stricter and more reserved. She wore a hijab and once she moved to Fort Pierce, she didn't venture outside the house much. And then a few years later, she gave birth to their son.

[Sruti]

Like we said, we'll come back to North Salman later when we get to her own trial after the shooting. But this is the point in Mateen's life that we see a very sharp increase in his religious interest. His first wife said that during their marriage, Mateen's focus was a lot less on the Quran and a lot more on kettlebells. The same goes for the mosque that he occasionally attended, the Islamic Centre of Fort Pierce. When he did go, he allegedly kept to himself, though if there was any radicalisation going on in that mosque, they probably wouldn't mention it. But we do also have to say that just because people are like, there was nothing going on. Mateen was growing up alongside his dad's very intense political rants and as we saw when September 11 happened, and he would have still been just a mid teenager at that point. In his mid teens, he certainly was very willing, very open about laughing at it, about mocking it. It didn't seem like even at that point in his mid teens, that he classified himself as American. In any case, it's not clear what sparked it, but one anonymous friend has said that Mateen suddenly got a lot more intense after his divorce. And it was also during this time that he made two separate pilgrimages to Mecca.

[Hannah]

And it wasn't long before his colleagues at G4S noticed it, in the way Mateen spoke as well. He'd bulked up as much as he Humanly could and was growing a lot more aggressive and confrontational by the day.

[Sruti]

Whether there was any steroid abuse and maybe that accounts for his like increased aggression and whatnot, I wouldn't be surprised.

[Hannah]

I mean it does seem quite likely.

[Sruti]

Hmm.

[Hannah]

Customers that met him as a security guard reported his creepy behavior, like taking their IDs and then just staring at them wide eyed and breathing heavily. His colleagues reported him time and again for being violent and threatening. But nothing happened and he just kept getting worse. Mateen's former co worker Daniel Gilroy says this. It was always about violence. He was always on the edge, always hyper and agitated. He would never have more than three or four sentences without being derogatory about women or using slurs against black people, gay people and Jews.

[Sruti]

So yeah, very open, very open. Nothing being hidden here. Nothing that screams of just like, I'm not saying it doesn't scream of the fact that he knows it's wrong. I think he does know that other people don't like the way he's behaving, but he doesn't give two fucks. It's like he enjoys making people feel uncomfortable. The whole thing about taking the IDs off people and like staring them down and like breathing heavily and saying all of these like slurs to people. He doesn't not know that that is something people don't like. He's doing it on purpose. The question is why is it something as fucked up as like he just gets rejected constantly by people and this is not making excuses for him or in any way sympathizing with him because fuck this guy. But is it this thing of like, oh, I get rejected all the time anyway, I'm just going to be a fucking dickhead then. At least that's why they're rejecting me rather than because of me just being nice and then I'm still getting rejected. I don't know if I care that much about this guy to give a shit if that's what he was doing. But I wonder if that explains because it's only one of two things. It's either there is some sort of personality disorder or psychiatric or mental health situation. And that is why he is so openly saying such heinous things that make people and doing such heinous things like saying, shall I, you know what if I brought a gun into the academy? Are you serious? Like, why would you say that? It seems like he's either nuts or it is some sort of deep seated way to just be like, yeah, fucking hate me then. And at least I know why you hate me. I don't know. I don't know.

[Hannah]

No, me either.

[Sruti]

But it carries on. And then one day, Mateen started telling co workers that he was friendly with terrorists. Mateen said that he knew the Tsarnev brothers, the ones who had carried out the Boston Marathon bombings. He said that he had family connections to Al Qaeda, and he also said that he was a member of Hezbollah. He once even told his colleagues that he'd like to, quote, die a martyr's death. And, yes, look, it is worth mentioning that Al Qaeda is Sunni and Hezbollah as Shia.

[Hannah]

Ugh.

[Sruti]

People, like, make a big thing of this because Mateen is claiming to be a member of both or being related to one side and being a member of the other, despite, of course, them being bitter enemies who are very much at war with each other. And, I don't know, people sort of use this to say that we shouldn't take what he's saying seriously.

[Hannah]

I mean, he's doing exactly the same thing he did in high school.

[Pulse Regular]

Yeah.

[Hannah]

Just saying the most outrageous thing he can think of. I don't think it's actually anything to do with what he truly, in his heart, believes. And I think it's an illustration of that, rather than that we shouldn't take him seriously or that he isn't terrifying or he isn't. That he can just be ignored. I don't think it's that at all.

[Sruti]

No. Because I. I personally, I. I do think it is what he believes in his heart. I think he's very drawn to that ideology. I think he's very, very.

[Hannah]

But you can't be Sunni and Shia at the same time. You can't.

[Sruti]

No. But he doesn't know what he's talking about. He doesn't know what he's talking about. But I think it's like people use it as a way. Like him talking about the Sunni and Shia as a way to undermine his terrorism by saying, see, it's not really Islamist terror. He doesn't even know what he's talking about. One minute he's talking about Sunni, next minute he's talking about Shia. To me, I'm like, who cares? Who cares? To me, it's like, why would it matter if he wasn't coherent in his murderous martyrdom beliefs? I think the fact is that you see this pattern of behavior with him, that he is very drawn to radical Islamist ideologies. Jihad, death, talking about martyrdom, all that kind of stuff. And given the fact that we know what he went on to do, it's obviously more than him just trying to freak out his colleagues or, like, be a bit edgy. Like, I just think. I think he doesn't know what he's talking about. But so what if he's not an Islamic scholar? He's just. He's still drawn to it. He's still attracted to it. Just because he doesn't know what he's talking about doesn't mean that he doesn't believe that he doesn't believe in the things that he's saying. And I'm not really that interested in people being like, oh, well, this comes from this type of Islam, and this comes from that. He is jumbling it all together into whatever. But at the core of it, he believes in some fundamentalist, Islamist, jihadist version of whatever he wants to justify the things that he wants to do. And it's also in there. It's in there. It's telling him, you know, Diamant's death. And so it's giving him the green light.

[Hannah]

Thankfully, his colleagues did the right thing and they reported Mateen. And that report was sent straight to the FBI. And the FBI investigated Omar Mateen for 10 months beginning in March 2013. In that year, they interviewed him twice at length. But Mateen brushed it all off, insisting that he'd only said those things because his co workers teased him about being Muslim. As well as those two interviews, the FBI also recorded Mateen's calls and even sent confidential informants to gauge whether he had been radicalized. He was followed, and records were scoured for any connection to known terrorists. And despite his big talk, his many claims, those searches came up with absolutely zilch.

[Sruti]

And so authorities clearly disregarded him as a real threat because, as Hannah said, they couldn't find a connection between Omar Mateen and radical Islamist terrorism. Which honestly just shows. And I'll. I'll, like, say, okay, fine, this was 10 years ago. But it really does show that decision shows their total lack of understanding as to the evolving nature of terrorism. And maybe, you know, this is all like, well and good to say in hindsight, but we have to look, in hindsight, we have to look back and analyze what was happening, because that's exactly what was happening at this time. Just because Omar Mateen had not been affiliated with the likes of IS or Al Qaeda. So what? Post 9 11, the landscape of terrorism, particularly in the west, totally changed. People weren't running off in person to training camps in Pakistan anymore to learn how to build a bomb and blow themselves up. It all went online. We all saw what was happening when we did the episode on the Bethnal Green girls who ran away to Syria, it all turned into propaganda that was being pummeled online. They weren't even necessarily like, here's a training video on how to make a bomb. They were like, we haven't got time for that shit. Grab a fucking car, grab a truck, grab a knife. Just go fucking mental. Do some sort of crazy berserk attack. And there you go, bingo, and die. And then you've died a martyr's death, and you'll go straight to paradise. This was what was happening. And it's at this point that we saw after 9 11, the rise of the leaderless jihad. And we'll come back to it later in this episode because I think it's a very important and interesting concept in how things changed after 9 11, and why it's so shocking that the FBI were like, oh, we can't find any connections between him and somebody, you know, out in Afghanistan, therefore he's not a threat. But I don't think that's how they would police the situation now. But it is so heartbreaking. So the FBI cleared Mateen. But a year later, in 2014, he was questioned again for the third time. This time, it came after Monmouth Muhammad Abu Saleh became the first American to carry out a suicide bombing in Syria. Abu Saleh, like Mateen, had been based in Florida, and they had both even attended the same college. And the FBI discovered that Abu Saleh had lived less than a mile away from Mateen.

[Hannah]

But again, the investigation found that any contact had been minimal. So again, the FBI bureau in Tampa, Florida, concluded that Omar Mateen posed no threat. In fact, not only was there no terrorist link, there was very little evidence of criminal wrongdoing at all. But you might be thinking, what about his big fight at school and the time he strangled his wife? And what about when he was kicked out of the police academy? But he was never convicted for any of it, which is exactly why Mateen was able to get himself a Florida license to carry concealed weapons. And in May 2016, Omar Mateen legally bought a handgun, an AR15 assault rifle and plenty of ammunition. Around the same time, Mateen's father, Sadiq, remembers an incident. As they were walking down the shoreline in downtown Miami. Siddiq says he saw two men kissing each other in front of his wife and kid, and he got very angry. They were kissing each other and touching each other, and Omar said, look at that in front of my son. They're doing that. Two weeks later, Mateen was dead and he'd taken almost 50 gay men with him.

[Sruti]

So as much as I would certainly like to not do this, we do have to go back to Pulse. Just after 2am on Saturday 12 June 2016, after getting into the building, most people stepped directly out onto the club's main dance floor. At the centre hung a huge giant glitter ball, scattering reflected light across the dancing crowd. On one end of the room were the doors out to the fenced in patio and on the other side was a separate dance floor, a cocktail lounge known as the Adonis Room, with a stage for go go dancers and drag performers. And at the back of the building, through the Adonis Room, were the bathrooms on that Saturday night. By 2am the night was starting to wind down. One eyewitness later said everyone was drinking their last sip. But it's a big club and that last sip can be the longest of the night. There were still 300 people inside at that time. Videos posted on social media show blissed out club goers chatting to friends and dancing away. And in the background over the booming music, there's a sort of crackling sound. Some thought it was firecrackers or just some heavy bass from the next room, but they were wrong. It was an assault rifle and dozens of people were already dead.

[Hannah]

Omar Mateen had entered through the front door of pulse with his AR15 type rifle and a handgun. He opened fire with the rifle and sprayed bullets at the crowd for 15 uninterrupted seconds.

[Sruti]

Ugh. And I think you think 15 seconds, that's not long. But if you actually just counted 15 seconds and thought of somebody firing a fucking rifle into a crowd of people for that long, my God. Yeah.

[Hannah]

Bullets ripped through legs, arms and backs and bodies slumped to the ground. Before long, the music stopped, leaving the building filled with sounds of panic punctuated by more deafening gunfire. Mateen fired 200 rounds in less than five minutes. Jackie Smith, a patron who saw two friends shot in front of her, said nobody stood a chance. An off duty police officer who was working at Pulse that night exchanged gunfire with Mateen near the entrance. While he was distracted, many rushed for the exits as well as the front door. There was an emergency exit by the bathrooms, plus doors out to the patio. The patio was enclosed by a tall fence, but after an employee kicked a hole through it, people poured out into the street. Those in the bathrooms crammed themselves into stalls. Others hid in dressing rooms or DJ booths. When officers arrived at 2:04am, another shootout ensued. Mateen was forced back into the Bathrooms.

[Sruti]

Social media was flooded with posts of people pleading for help. At 2:09am, the Pulse nightclub's Facebook account posted the chilling words, everybody get out of Pulse and keep running. A man named Eddie started texting his mother at 2:06am and here are the text messages as reported by the Washington Post. Mummy, I love you in club. They're shooting. He's coming. I'm going to die. His mother replied and asked whether people were hurt. And he replied, lots, yes. After 45 minutes of increasingly terrified messages, Eddy's texts suddenly stopped. His mother never saw him alive again.

[Hannah]

In the bathrooms, Mateen shot those he found in the stalls. But he took six hostages captive, telling them not to try and run because he also had snipers outside. And once everyone was still. Mateen's first call to 911 was made at 2:35am he was calm. He started off in Arabic, saying a prayer to Allah. Then he carried on in English. I want to let you know I'm in Orlando and I did the shootings. I pledge of allegiance to Abu Bakr al Baghdadi of the Islamic State.

[Sruti]

If he couldn't make that out, he's pledging allegiance to the Islamic State and specifically its leader, Abu Bakr al Baghdadi. He went on to say that the shooting was triggered by the US killing of the last head of IS in Iraq the previous month. A militant jihadist named Abu Wahib. Then Mateen hung up. But 13 minutes later, he called 911 again. And this call was answered by police negotiators. Mateen told them, you have to tell America to stop bombing Syria and Iraq. They're killing a lot of innocent people. What am I to do when my people are getting killed over there?

[Hannah]

His tone in these calls is infuriating. He's condescending, he's petulant and absolutely clueless. At one point, he calls the police negotiator, homeboy. But obviously they had to take these threats seriously, especially because he told police that he had explosives primed in a vehicle nearby, which he would set off if they did anything stupid. He said that he had a vest on, like the one they used in France. Presumably he's talking about the batter clan there that had rocked the world the year before. He said that there would be more similar attacks over the next few days. And he told the hostages that he would be putting explosive vests on four of them and sending them to the four corners of the club. None of it was true, but no one could take any chances.

[Sruti]

Yeah, and I think Again, just the fact that he is calling the police, he is like saying all this stuff. He's not just gone in there, shot a bunch of people and then killed himself or blown himself up or anything. He's demanding attention, he's demanding control. He's lying to them, telling them, I've got snipers, I've got an explosive vehicle outside, I've got a explosive vest on. Like you said. None of that's true, it's all bullshit. But he is getting off so much on controlling the police. I'm sure this also comes back to the fact that he was rejected from the police. He's like, fuck you, you're not the authority. I'm going to lord it over you. This is his moment and I'm sure he knows at the end of this he is going to die. Either by suicide by cop or he will kill himself. But he is like, I'm going to enjoy and milk every fucking moment of this night before that happens. Absolutely. What it feels like. He's not just in and out, one and done.

[Hannah]

No. And I think I'd take him pretty seriously.

[Sruti]

Yeah. So while he's speaking, while he's taking all this time out of his busy night to speak to 911 police work to secure the building and get as many people out of there as they could. They help some people escape through an air conditioned event in a dressing room. Then the police started to prepare explosives of their own to breach the external wall of the bathroom. An armored vehicle and more crisis negotiators arrived. And at 5am, three long hours after Mateen first burst through the door of Pulse, a SWAT team stormed the building.

[Hannah]

Explosives were detonated on the rear wall between the bathrooms. Dozens more people flooded out, but at first there was no sign of a gunman. They blew more holes in the rear wall and suddenly at 5:14am, an officer saw him just 10ft away. The sound of gunfire burst through the night one last time and within a minute, omar Mateen was dead. 49 people had been killed and 58 more had been wounded. All of this leaves us with a few gaping holes in the centre of this story. Firstly, the nature of Omar Mateen's relationship with the Islamic State. Was this really an attack on Western liberal values from a death cult on the other side of the world? Well, yes and no.

[Sruti]

US officials denied the IS had had any involvement in the Pulse massacre as no official links were officially discovered between the 29 year old US citizen and any foreign organisations. So they labelled Mateen a lone wolf, a term that I absolutely despise, firstly for the very obvious glamorous, maverick connotations to that phrase, but also because when it comes to terror attacks like this, it's deeply misleading. It suggests that Mateen acted in some sort of silo. Like he came up with his own ideology, pulled it out of nowhere and he just went on a rampage killing people. He is directly referencing terrorist organisations, so why would he be a lone wolf? And yes, while they admitted that of course he had been radicalized by IS propaganda and radical Islamist material, most likely online, they held fast to the notion that IS hadn't orchestrated the whole thing,

[Pulse Regular]

which.

[Hannah]

Okay, I understand why they are so insistent to get this point across. It's to avoid scaring the public at large. Nobody needs people thinking that they are potentially under siege from a foreign terror group. And of course, it's also so that intelligence services can reasonably explain how they didn't have Omar Mateen on their radar. But honestly, the reality of the situation is actually much more terrifying than that a US born man was so capable of being seduced by radical Islamist propaganda and was willing to kill and die for this ideology. It doesn't matter whether you think that ideology is valid or not.

[Sruti]

No. And what does it matter if a specific Islamic State recruiter spoke to Mateen or not? Wasn't even, like we said, how is even operated anymore by 2016? What we're seeing here is a phenomenon that has exploded across the world since September 11. The rise of the leaderless jihad. A term coined by an author named Mark Sageman in his book Leaderless Jihad.

[Hannah]

So does it matter that Mateen had zero contacts in the Middle East? Does it matter that while Mateen was talking to his negotiators, he oscillated between wildly contradictory and half remembered philosophies. Does it matter that he claimed allegiance to Islamist groups that were literally at war with each other? Does it make him any less of an Islamist terrorist? I don't think so, no.

[Sruti]

Before the night of 12 June 2016, Omar Mateen posted the following message to America and Russia. Stop bombing the Islamic State. I pledge my allegiance to Abu Bakr Al Baghdadi. May Allah accept me. The real Muslims will never accept the filthy ways of the West. You kill innocent women and children by doing U.S. airstrikes. Now taste the Islamic State vengeance.

[Hannah]

And like we said in his 911 call, he directly claimed allegiance to IS too. After the attack, IS claimed responsibility using an encrypted phone app. IS later sent out a statement saying that the attack was carried out by an Islamic State fighter. That's a quote. Many is sympathisers changed their profile pictures on Twitter to Mateen's image. Is even posted videos of children celebrating the attack.

[Sruti]

Yeah, it totally makes sense. They didn't have to call him and groom him and tell him what to do. What did he fucking do? He just bought a gun. He didn't even build a bomb. He just bought a gun and went into a club and shot a bunch of people. Of course is will claim it. Why would they not claim it? This is it. It's basically like, anyone, anyone. It's crowdsourcing terrorism. It's open source terrorism. It's like, here's the crazy shit we fucking believe whoever wants to be a part of it can be a part of it. Just, you know, get whatever weapon you can go create some fucking chaos, kill some fucking infidels, and then you can become an Islamic State fighter. So when they call Mateen an Islamic State fighter, it is not incongruent because people are like, well, why are they calling him that when they never recruited him? They did fucking recruit him by just putting out their ideology into the world. That's all it takes. That's all that matters. So in any way that matters, he was an Islamic State fighter in his mind, in his heart, in any other part of his body. And in their minds, he is an Islamic State fighter. And so he is an Islamic State fighter. And therefore this is Islamist terrorism. Like, I don't understand why there's so much back and forth about this on the Internet, about whether it really was. I think the discourse has changed now, now that we're in 2026, but at the time, most definitely. I just don't know why people were talking themselves round and round in circles about this whole thing. And look, I think we should talk about what he says about saying Russia and the US Stop bombing Syria and Iraq, stop bombing my people. Those are the words that he uses. And you often see this as a reason trotted out by terrorists to justify their violence. Or of course also by terrorist sympathisers in the west making excuses for them, saying, well, these terrorist attacks wouldn't happen, wouldn't keep happening in the west if we didn't have, you know, certain foreign policies that were taking place in the Middle east and basically saying it's all as a result of that. And these people basically bottom line, saying they bear no responsibility for their actions. But I do have to wonder about that because it is true that Muslims are actually worldwide the biggest victims of radical Islamist violence. Because terror attacks like this don't just happen in the West. They also happen in the Islamic world. And therefore Muslims, we all have to agree, because it's factually true, they are the biggest victims, if you're talking by sheer numbers, of radical Islamist violence. So if that's the case, then how can the Western death toll be to do purely with foreign intervention? Because the people who are dying and getting blown up in Muslim countries, they're not partaking in aggressive foreign policy against other Muslims or against the Middle east or the Islamic world. So why are they being blown up? So why would it be to just to do with Western foreign policy? It doesn't make sense. It doesn't add up. You can't have both. I think the phrase that he says, quote, real Muslims will never accept the filthy ways of the west. And obviously, do I even have to caveat it by saying not all Muslims think this, but he is saying that he believes that, and he is saying they will never accept the way of the West. And I think that is far more telling as to his real motivation. And even the phrase that he uses, stop bombing my people in Iraq and Syria. He's not even Iraqi or Syrian, but he's speaking to this sort of global Muslim Brotherhood sisterhood, the great Ummah, the great belief that only all other Muslims are connected to each other. And wherever you live, it's not really your homeland. You're kind of just waiting for the whole world to become this sort of Islamic caliphate. Again, obviously not all Muslims, but that is what he believes. That is what he is saying. And so he identifies much more of a man of Afghani heritage who was born and raised in New York. He identifies more with Syrians and Iraqis who are living on the other side of the world, more than he does with his fellow Americans, because he was laughing when September 11 happened. It shows this total breakdown in his identity and his ability to integrate into the society in which he lived, or his desire to. His allegiances were completely somewhere else, as were his ideologies. And so I think what's actually going on here is a lot more poisonous and a lot more terrifying than if he had been contacted by an IS recruiter. The reason that the FBI didn't find a direct connection between IS and Mateen was because there was none to be found. But, and this is very important, the holy month of Ramadan had started just the week before the Pulse attack. And in a statement, IS spokesman Abu Mohammad Al Adani had said the following again on social media. Again for everyone to see the smallest action you do in the heart of their land is dearer to us than the largest action by us and more effective and more damaging to them. Obviously, it's very clear who them are and who us are. They're talking about the West. And then this guy made it crystal clear. The IS supporters worldwide could and should carry out acts of terror in the group's name. He said, quote, do not ask anyone's permission. So they're not waiting around for an IS recruiter to slip into the fucking DMs and be like, here, hey, bro, this is how you build a fucking bomb. It doesn't matter. He even suggested that they didn't need to buy weapons. They could use rocks, knives or cars to kill the infidels. A leaderless jihad,

[Hannah]

and this is absolutely a key part of IS protocol. Any angry would be terrorist anywhere in the world can carry out an act of terror. State the oath and bingo, you are an IS freedom fighter and your life finally has meaning.

[Sruti]

And that's why it's so scary. Imagine it is so much less scary if we think there's just all these secret sleeper cells, like, how many can there really be? The police could definitely track them. They just had to infiltrate a few gangs and they. You know, I'm not saying it'd be easy, but it would be easier than this situation, like, if everyone was just sitting around waiting for instructions from, like, some leader out in the middle of nowhere. This is so much worse. You can't read into people's minds. You don't know what they're thinking. Any person who just finds this narrative alluring can just get a car and carry out an attack. And that's why we've seen the frequency of those kind of attacks amplified. And that's why it's so much scarier than what they were trying to tell the public not to worry about. Don't worry, don't worry. There was no IS recruiter. I'm like, that would be better than what is actually happening.

[Hannah]

What you gain by being stamped an IS freedom fighter is a promise of purpose, lionisation, martyrdom. And a hero's death, of course, comes with those 72 virgins waiting to perform your every filthy desire in paradise. It catapults people like Omar Mateen from LONA with Axe to grind into crusader on the front lines of a global war. And that's the absolute definition of what terrorism is spreading. The dark shadow of IS across the world is spews out propaganda all over the Internet, poisoning people against its enemies. And they do this in the hope of catching a stray loser who might actually do their bidding. This is an especially cushy deal for IAS because it poses no risk to the actual organization. They don't need to infiltrate anything or lose any actual members or, like, alert the FBI to have a terrorist attack attributed to them. It's pretty much a win win.

[Sruti]

Yeah, totally, totally. It's so much lighter on the, like, Lyft. You're not having to, like, speak to loads of people, manage all these people, just put it out there, like this horrible mind virus, and then wait for people to fall into it. And then when they carry out an attack, claim it as your own. It's so genius in the most horrific way possible. And the truly terrifying thing is that it's working. In the few years before Pulse, there were three very similar instances. Just seven months before the Pulse nightclub shooting, two men killed 14 people in San Bernardino, California. Just before they pledged allegiance to, you guessed it, is on again. You guessed it, Facebook. In 2015, a gunman opened fire on a cartoon exhibit in Texas, which featured images of Everybody's favourite prophet, Mr. Muhammad. And again, this shooter pledged allegiance to IS on Twitter. In 2014, a man opened fire at a cafe in Sydney. In all three cases, they were homegrown, violent extremists who had been radicalised online. And as far as anyone knows, they had no direct link to any terrorist cell or network. The Sydney shooter, Haron Monis, was schizophrenic. And before claiming allegiance to is, he also worked as a clairvoyant and was also a convicted sex offender. The Australian press wrote that the Islamic State had successfully sent one of its agents into the heart of Australia's biggest cities. But he had no idea what he was fighting for. In fact, when he turned up, he brought the wrong flag. And again, might seem like, of course, that's hilarious. It's fucking so stupid. Like, what a stupid man and what a mentally ill man. Obviously, he must have been dealing with what he was dealing with. But, like, it doesn't matter that these people don't know exactly what they're doing it for. The fact is, they're being lured in by such despicable ideologies and then carrying out heinous attacks in their name. It's all fake anyway, so who cares? The fact is, they believe it.

[Hannah]

And as for Mateen, he was an unremarkable man with a history of violence who wanted an outlet for his considerable anger. And given his father's beliefs, Mateen was Absolutely primed for online radicalisation by fundamental Islamist doctrine, just as the perpetrators in the other attacks we just listed were. But I grant you that Mateen's motive may have added a personal element, because it's possible that the real battle Mateen was fighting was the one inside himself. Because June 12, 2016 was not the first time Omar Mateen had stepped foot inside Pulse. And on the face of it, his targeting of a gay club does seem like it fits like the ismo. After all, the Islamic State believes homosexuality to be evil and deserving of punishment by death. They have even posted videos in which men they have identified as being homosexuals or thrown off tall buildings. But when it comes to large scale attacks, is have been clear that there are no specific targets. Charlie Winter and Herraro J. Ingram write in the Atlantic, when it comes to waging war against the crusader enemy, it doesn't really matter to the organisation if the victim is gay or straight. If anything, that the majority of the dead were gay was for Isis a distraction.

[Sruti]

And like, maybe, maybe. I don't know if I totally buy this. I get what they're saying because there's absolutely been statements from IS saying it does not matter who the victims are. Even if you kill other Muslims, it doesn't matter if you're killing infidels, that's the main thing. If you accidentally kill a few Muslims in that, it doesn't matter because they'll go to paradise anyway if they were true believers. So don't worry, it doesn't really matter. Don't get hung up on who the victims are. The main thing is that you are creating terror. You are just going mental and scaring people and killing people. That is the end goal. But the reason why I do think there is again an evolution away from just thinking it doesn't matter who the victims are. Because if we look at the targets of terror attacks that we have seen across the west, in recent years, for example, take the Bataclan. They went after people who were at a gig partying. Then look at something like the Manchester arena bombing in the uk, they targeted little girls who were again dancing at an Ariana Grande concert. And then look at all of the Christmas markets across Europe that have been attacked over the years, to the point that now some places just don't even do it anymore because it's not worth it, because they're scared a car is going to ram into the people that are there. It does feel like these killers are targeting events that symbolize Western freedoms, does it not? People drinking, partying, Little girls going out dancing, Christmas markets. I accept the premise that they don't really care who they kill, but I don't think it's unsymbolic like the situations that they're targeting.

[Hannah]

No, I don't think so. There is one theory that we're going to spend a bit more time on, that Mateen himself was gay. After the pulse attack, the nightclub's regular patrons were interviewed.

[Pulse Regular]

I met him one time at the bar. He was talking to me about his ex wife. He used to come in the bar about on the weekends. Sometimes he would be there, sometimes he would miss a couple weeks and then be in again. He was regular. We consider that regular. Everybody knew his name. Omar. Yeah. He was trying to pick up people, men. He's a homosexual and he was trying to pick up men. He would walk up to them and then he would maybe put his arm around him or something and maybe try to get him to dance a little bit or something and then go over and buy a drink or something. That's what people do at gay bars, you know, that's what we do. When you saw his picture, what went through your mind when you saw his picture? It was nor. We just went, oh, like, yeah, that makes sense there. That's Omar.

[Hannah]

The Orlando Sentinel spoke to four different Pulse regulars who said that they had personally seen Mateen at the club up to a dozen times. Going back years, several people have reported being contacted by Mateen on gay dating apps like Jacked and Grindr.

[Sruti]

One man has even come forward claiming that he had a sort of friends with benefits relationship with Omar Mateen. The man who has chosen to stay anonymous calls himself Miguel. Miguel said that over two months they met at a hotel in Orlando between 15 and 20 times for the sex. And Miguel said, I believe this is not terrorism, saying that he thinks Mateen intentionally targeted Latinos in retaliation for being rejected by them. Looking at Mateen's history, I think it's more than that, but I don't think it's an unimportant part of his motivation.

[Hannah]

Through Mateen's life, person after person comes up saying they either suspected or just assumed that he was gay. One classmate from his college days told the Washington Post that he would regularly visit gay bars with Mateen and a group of friends. On one of these nights, allegedly, Mateen asked this friend if he was gay and then said, well, if you were gay, you'd be my type. Even Satoru Yousufi, Mateen's first wife, said that it's possible he had hidden feelings about being gay. Mateen's father denies any suggestion of his son's homosexuality, saying, why, if he were gay, would he do this? Bit easy. That one. You give me that one for free. Mugger. Mateen spent his childhood being bullied for being different. He spent his career violently firing back at any suggestion of discrimination or mockery. And he was raised by a father who in public videos on YouTube said things like, God himself will punish those involved in homosexuality. So it's not exactly a stretch to imagine that Mateen absorbed that hatred of homosexuality. And it's very possible that if he started to see that in himself, he, he would just push it on down. This self hatred, combined with the religious teachings he grew up with, seemingly coalesced into a man capable of murdering 49 people.

[Sruti]

We also read an interview with a young gay Muslim man called Sohail Ahmed in the BBC which felt very relevant. Ahmed said this. I would research all these Islamic verdicts on what you should do if you had homosexual feelings. One thing would keep coming up again and again was that you actually needed to be more religious, worship more. It sounded really paradoxical, but I actually became more radical in an attempt to cure myself of homosexuality. Ahmed also remembers feeling that he himself was evil or that his homosexuality was a punishment from God for something he had done. He said it was an absolutely horrifying feeling, waking up every day with this voice in the back of your head saying, you're disgusting, you're evil. It just increased my hatred for myself and other gay people. Ahmed says he even considered staging a terrorist attack himself.

[Hannah]

I don't think it's paradoxical to become more religious because you believe you're evil. I think that makes perfect sense.

[Sruti]

Yeah, it does. I guess maybe he means now, in hindsight, if it was paradoxical for him to feel like going closer to the thing that's telling you that what you're feeling is sick and wrong and evil. But yeah, I think whether it's religion or whether it's just society telling you that what you're feeling is wrong and gross and sick, I can absolutely understand why you would have that internalized homophobia. It's the next step that comes with this particular ideology though, that is then go blow some people up or go kill some people because of that, that seems to take it a step rather than is ideal.

[Hannah]

But before we wrap this story up for good, let's look at the potential involvement of his second wife, Noor Zahi Salman. In the weeks after the shooting, she started to become the focus of various probing News reports, they painted her as a quiet, devout, uncooperative figure. Some alleged that she accompanied him on his trips to buy ammunition and even to scope out the nightclub itself. Many asked the question, could she have been Mateen's secret accomplice? And so could there still be some justice in court despite Mateen's death, a few months later, Salman was arrested in Northern California and she was indicted on two counts. Obstruction of justice and providing material support to a terrorist organization. She faced a maximum sentence of life in prison.

[Sruti]

The FBI questioned Salman for more than 15 hours and they did these interviews before she was formally accused. So not a single second of those 15 hours was actually recorded. She also had no lawyer present. Now, when it came to the trial, the prosecution pointed to a written confession from the day of the shooting. The confession was actually written by an FBI agent, but it was signed by Salman. And the whole thing is written in the first person. So from Salman's point of view. But again, it wasn't written by her. And it says that she and Mateen cased both the Pulse nightclub and a local theme park in the weeks before the shooting. It also said that Mateen had asked her, how bad would it be if a club got attacked? And the statement went on to say, again, from Salman's point of view, I often worry that he was going to commit an act of violence or terrorism. I wish I had done the right thing, but my fear held me back.

[Hannah]

You probably know what we're going to say next. The defence's position was that this confession, written by an agent in those pressurised few hours after the shooting occurred, was coerced. Salman says the authorities threatened that she'd never see her son again and that he would be raised by Christians if she didn't sign it. Her defense collected GPS and phone data and none of it indicated that Salmon was going anywhere near the nightclub. And it might not totally stun you to find out that Mateen was brutally abusive to Salmon during their very short marriage. Just like with his first wife, he beat, kicked and strangled her. She was threatened with death and constantly raped. Salmon was not allowed to work and Mateen even monitored the food she ate. All bank accounts and credit cards were taken out in his name only. He also regularly cheated on her with other women and, if you believe the stories, with men too.

[Sruti]

But in March 2018, a jury found Noor Zahi Salman not guilty. They concluded that she was the victim of an abusive marriage to a monster. And after two years in prison, she was finally reunited with her son. And what Salman's testimony really exposes is probably a bit more systemic. Researchers are well aware of the link between domestic violence and mass shootings. That jump from domestic terrorist to public terrorist is not a big leap. And there are some very clear laws related to domestic violence which are specifically meant to stop these men in their tracks. One law bans convicted abusers from owning guns. A non fatal strangulation is a felony in Florida. If these laws had been enforced properly, Mateen would have been in jail long before he ever walked into Pulse and murdered 49 people. And at worst, he definitely would not have had access to a semi automatic weapon.

[Hannah]

And there's one last revelation that happened to come out of Noor Salman's trial, this time to do with the shooter's father, Sadiq Mateen. It turned out that he'd worked with the FBI as a confidential informant for more than a decade, leading right up to the shooting. And the FBI had recently launched an investigation into him after finding evidence that he made money transfers to Turkey and Afghanistan in the months leading up to the shooting. Unfortunately, we don't have much more information about this. So it's just another strange footnote in a story that keeps changing.

[Sruti]

And naturally this information, and because we don't know much about his father's FBI business, plus the fact that large chunks of Mateen's interviews that were publicly released have been heavily redacted has caused endless speculation, with many wondering if he really did have is links and the FBI was just lying to cover up for its own mistakes. Who knows?

[Hannah]

As for the survivors, all of this fades into the background. The terror of the night is never far away. Patience Carter, who escaped the shooting and lost friends that night, has said that the guilt of being alive is heavy. For many nightmares still linger today, ones where they're transported back there in a hail of gunfire between their screaming friends. They report still sensing the smell of blood. Some struggled to leave their own houses for years after the attack. The first responders at the scene suffer extreme PTSD from the three and a half hours that they spent inside the club that night. And then there are of course, the many survivors who are permanently disabled and will never walk again.

[Sruti]

The Pulse nightclub stood vacant and abandoned for nine years, its walls and surrounding fences becoming a memorial to Those lost in 2016. Banners were hung and 49 dried white roses were braided into the fence. On the bullet marked walls, messages of love and support were scrawled and spray painted. And just before it was knocked down last year, survivors, family members and journalists were Allowed inside for the first time since the shooting, they were given the opportunity to walk around the space and take it in. Most of the furniture had gone, but that giant disco ball still hung from the ceiling.

[Hannah]

There is only one way we can really end this story. Omar Mateen was an angry, scared man. Aggression was his only means of expression. He thought that he would be seen as a brave freedom fighter in a holy war. But no one, not even the Islamic State, directly ordered him to commit the deadliest mass shooting that the US had ever seen. Omar Mateen was a nobody. And despite gouging his name into the history books, he will always be a nobody. He wanted to scare people into thinking that they couldn't live the life they wanted to live. An inscription on a parking lot barrier next to the memorial that now stands on the site reads, never stop dancing. So if you want to, in your own way, give a little fuck you to Omar Mateen tonight, why not go out to a gay bar near you and dance the night away.

[Sruti]

Because, yeah, the day after this comes out on the 12th of June, 2026, as we said at the start, will be the 10 year anniversary. I can't believe it's been 10 years. I remember when it happened and it was in the news. It just felt unbelievable. And at the time, like we said, it was the deadliest mass shooting in a very dubious record. It was overtaken, I believe, the following year. But, yeah, bad, bad stuff. And that's it, guys. That's everything we've got for you on the Pulse. Yeah, nightclub massacre.

[Hannah]

Yeah, go out, drink 17 margaritas, have a great time. That's what I'm gonna do.

[Sruti]

That's it, Absolutely. And yes, we will see you next time for maybe something a little bit less depressing.

[Hannah]

I hope so. But I have a horrible feeling.

[Sruti]

Who knows? I can't remember. Goodbye.