'Omar Mateen was gay': Orlando terrorist pursued a relationship with male classmate, was a regular at gay bars including Pulse for the past decade, and used hookup apps like Grindr to meet men

dailymail.co.uk

Omar Mateen, the gunman who murdered 49 people in an Orlando gay club early Sunday morning, was a gay man himself according to multiple people who knew and had met the man.

A gay man who attended the police academy in 2006 with Mateen said that the pair went out to gay bars and that at one point Mateen told the man he wanted to pursue a relationship.

Meanwhile, multiple people are now coming forward to say that they had spoken with Mateen on gay hookup apps including Grindr and Jack'd.   

The attack, which many assumed was an act of Islamic extremism, now appears to possibly be tied to Mateen's own shame over his sexuality and investigators are now looking into this internal conflict as a possibly motive...

'He's a homosexual and he was trying to pick up men,' said Jim Van Horn, who called Mateen a Pulse 'regular' and described his approach to chatting with people in the club.

'He would walk up to them and put his arm around them or something and maybe try to get them to dance a little bit or something and go over and buy them a drink.'