Gunman tried to buy body armor before attack

About five weeks before committing the deadliest shooting in modern US history at an Orlando nightclub, Omar Mateen visited a gun shop in this Florida city near his home and attempted to purchase body armor and bulk ammunition, the shop’s co-owner said Wednesday.

Employees eventually turned Mateen away.

Abell said the man asked about the body armor, and when he learned the store didn’t carry, made a phone call in a “foreign” language before asking about bulk ammunition.

Robert Abell said employees at his store considered Mateen’s behavior suspicious.

Orlando police claim they have not found any records the gun store contacted them. “At this time, he pulled away and got onto the cell phone”, Abell said.

Abell said the man was alone in the store at the time, and the questions he asked caused concern with the salesman.

Whilst in the store, staff mentioned that a “very suspicious” man had come in asking about high-end body armor.

Snyder says it is possible that when the complaint came in from Lotus Gunworks about the suspicious activity from Mateen, the Federal Bureau of Investigation may have considered him one of the two men already on their radar.

A Florida gun store owner says his employees refused to sell to the gunman before the attack.

They said the store first alerted authorities to a group of men who appeared to be of Middle Eastern descent buying police gear. That classmate, Susanne Coburn Laforest, said Mateen “flipped out”, told people not to laugh at him, and said “he was going to come back and shoot us”. Authorities are still trying to piece together the motives of a man who had previously been involved in two terrorism-related investigations. “He just seemed very odd”, said Abell.

One former cadet said Mateen referenced the 2007 shooting rampage at Virginia Tech, in which 32 people were killed, and said “something like that could happen here in the academy class”.

Salman apparently gave conflicting accounts about what she knew of Mateen’s intentions in the hours before the attack, authorities said.

Abell also says gun sales have spiked at his store since the attack in Orlando.

Abell says even if they had run a background check on Mateen, he likely could have still been sold a gun.