Hiring club shooter not first blunder for security company

The OTMs were from Honduras, Colombia, El Salvador and Guatemala and Border Patrol officials told Judicial Watch they were in custody for a couple of days and ordered to call family members in the U.S.so they could purchase a bus ticket.

Meanwhile, thousands gathered Monday night in downtown Orlando for a vigil to support victims and survivors of the Pulse nightclub shooting on the lawn of Orlando’s main performing arts venue.

A complicated picture has emerged of 29-year-old Omar Mateen, who opened fire in a gay Orlando nightclub.

An employee of the security company G4S, Mateen was stationed at a beach in Pensacola, Florida at the time of the BP oil spill in 2010. He is the gunman behind the deadliest shooting in US history, which claimed 50 lives. Concerns that the fallout from Mateen’s attacks might make it more hard for G4S to get security contracts contributed to a 5 percent decline in the company’s stock Monday.

The company described itself as “the largest security solutions provider in the world”.

Counterterrorism experts have been warning in the past few years about the danger of so-called lone wolf attackers who act in sympathy with extremist groups but aren’t directed by them.

G4S has previously been accused of improperly vetting its employees. It earned $324 million previous year, excluding the businesses it is trying to sell or close.

A woman who said she was once a neighbor of Mateen’s said the security company assigned him to guard the back entrance of PGA Village, a golf resort in Port St. Lucie.

In recent years, though, G4S has had trouble protecting its own reputation.

The firm’s chief executive resigned in 2013 after it failed to provide enough security personnel to fulfill a massive contract for the London Olympics. Again, the footage in question can be found at about the 36 minute mark. The scandal cost G4S 116 million pounds in settlement charges and 45 million pounds in lost profits.

G4S is a British security firm that has contracted with the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Defense. He was also able to keep his Florida armed security guard license.

In Florida, G4S has faced allegations of inadequate training and screening of workers in some of its juvenile residential centers. “Like, everybody’s just out to get paid”. Because G4S doesn’t want to lose potential employees, it didn’t do extensive background checks on those involved in the lawsuits, he said. But Van Horn said his friends soon “told me they didn’t want me talking to him, because they thought he was a unusual person”.

Mayor Byron W. Brown said the city is satisfied with the contract it has negotiated with G4S and that city police also will conduct background checks and interview personnel the firm assigns to City Hall.

G4S defended its handling of Mateen.

“He was also subject to checks by a USA law enforcement agency with no findings reported to G4S”, the company said in a statement.

G4S also added in its statement that Mateen had undergone detailed screening when recruited in 2007 and he was later re-screened in 2013 “with no adverse findings”.

A St. Lucie County clerk of court spokesman, Joseph Abreu, reported that Mateen had been assigned to the clerk’s premises and was given a credential.

A scene in the film “The Big Fix” shows Orlando nightclub gunman Omar Mateen speaking with a reporter while employed as a security guard.

Mateen received a firearms license issued by the state of Florida and a security officers’ license when he was hired in 2007.

A multitude of media reports have confirmed that Mateen worked for G4S for almost a decade even though he had been investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) for terrorist ties.

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“If someone seriously thinks we don’t know who we’re fighting, if there’s anyone out there who thinks we’re confused about who our enemies are”, Obama said, “that would come as a surprise to the thousands of terrorists we’ve taken off the battlefield”.