GUNMAN MONITORED FACEBOOK.
ORLANDO, FLA.• Whilehis victims texted heartbreaking last words to loved ones from the blood-drenched bathrooms, Omar Mateen apparently went on Facebook to measure the shock waves his attack on a gay nightclub was generating.
He searched for the terms “Pulse Orlando” and “Shooting,” according to a letter released by a Senate committee.
The letter detailing Mateen’s Facebook posts and searches in the final hours of his life came to light as grief-stricken Orlando prepared to bury the first of the 49 dead and awaited a visit Thursday from President Barack Obama, who met with victims’ families and first responders at the Amway Center in downtown Orlando for several hours.
Investigators, meanwhile, are trying to reconstruct Mateen’s movements before the rampage at the Pulse dance club and are taking a close look at his 30-year-old Palestinian-American wife, Noor Salman, and what she may have known about the attack.
“The real muslims will never accept the filthy ways of the west,” Mateen, a 29-year-old American-born Muslim, wrote on one of at least five Facebook accounts believed to be associated with him, according to the letter from Republican Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, chairman of the Senate Homeland Security Committee.
The committee sent the letter to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, asking for help uncovering the trail of hate Mateen left behind in cyberspace.
According to the letter, Mateen made his series of Facebook posts and searches before and during the attack. The letter did not specify what took place when. But a source said the Facebook posts came moments before the attack began.
“America and Russia stop bombing the Islamic state,” Mateen wrote, according to the letter.
As he did in his call to a 911 operator during the massacre, Mateen pledged his allegiance on Facebook to the leader of ISIL and, in his final post, warned: “in the next few days you will see attacks from the Islamic state in the usa.”
Facebook had no immediate comment on the Senate request for help.