Orlando shooter texted wife during attack

CNN reported Thursday that he also called a friend to say goodbye and at about 4 a.m., while holed up in a bathroom with hostages, exchanged text messages with his wife. She responded: “I love you”, the report said.

Law enforcement sources said Salman purchased ammunition with her husband, and they believe she drove with him as he cased the Pulse nightclub prior to the shooting.

The Post reported that Robert Abell, co-owner of Lotus Gunworks, said Mateen came to his shop wanting body armor, and placed a call in a foreign language after being told the shop didn’t carry the equipment. His first wife, Sitora Yusifiy, who he was married to in 2009, said that Mateen had beat her. He also communicated with News 13 television and asked a producer if he knew anything about the shooting, and when the man said he did, Mateen said, “I am the shooter”.

CNN military analyst Lt. Gen. Mark Hertling said the gunman’s complex background makes the investigation challenging. The father of the shooter has claimed Mateen was upset after seeing men kissing in public, but there have also been reports that Mateen was seen at the Pulse nightclub several times before the shooting.

Meanwhile in Orlando, News 6 has learned Mateen did not drive directly from home to Pulse. She told investigators that Mateen had spent thousands of dollars in the weeks leading up to the attacks, including the purchase of the guns used in the massacre. Afterward, she repeatedly tried to call him on his cell phone, the official said.

According to one official, she knew “for a while” Mateen had thoughts of wanting to do something violent.

Mateen also applied to be a trooper for the Florida Highway Patrol in September of 2011. They have a 3-year-old son and lived in Fort Pierce, about two hours from the massacre.

Even if it was an administrative or policy violation, had the agency made note of it, another law enforcement agency or security firm would have been privy to it and could have made a different call on whether to hire Mateen, he said.

And thousands of people spanning an array of backgrounds gathered to remember the victims.

“If he really did something bad and they let him go instead of charging him, it would have meant the DOC failed to bring forth that info that would have prevented him from becoming an armed guard, ” McAndrew said.

Members of the SWAT team underwent a stress-management debriefing Wednesday, as hundreds of others involved in the response to the shooting have done, Orlando Police Chief John Mina said.