Probe focuses on Orlando shooter’s guns, wife

While lawmakers debate gun control and national terrorist concerns, authorities continue to probe the methods and motives of Orlando shooter Omar Mateen.

The investigation is now closely scrutinizing Mateen’s wife, Noor Salman, and her knowledge of or involvement in the attack. Authorities also are questioning how Mateen legally purchased semi-automatic weapons despite a questionable background.

Mateen and Salman exchanged text messages during Sunday’s terror rampage at the Orlando nightclub Pulse. Around 4 a.m., two hours after the attack started, Mateen texted Salman, asking if she saw the news. Salman responded saying she loved him.

Salman later tried to call Mateen, apparently after realizing that her husband might be responsible for the attacks. He didn’t answer. Officials do not yet know if Salman tried to report her husband.

A U.S. attorney will bring evidence before a grand jury to decide whether or not to press charges against Mateen’s widow.

Salman reportedly provided contradictory accounts about what she knew prior to the attacks. She told authorities Mateen had expressed interest in conducting a jihadist attack, but she denied knowledge of his Orlando plans. But in later statements, she acknowledged suspicion of Mateen’s intention to attack Pulse. She also informed authorities that her husband spent thousands of dollars on guns before the shooting.

Mateen used a semi-automatic rifle and pistol to commit the Orlando mass shooting, killing 49 victims and wounding 53. He had security and firearm licenses and legally purchased the guns about a week before the attack.

Twice in past years the FBI investigated Mateen: in 2013, for “inflammatory comments to co-workers alleging possible terrorist ties,” FBI agent Ronald Hopper told CNN, and in 2014 for connections with suicide bomber Moner Mohammad Abu-Salha.

One FBI official said Mateen’s personal electronic devices showed evidence he “consumed a … lot of jihadist propaganda.”

But both investigations ended after officials didn’t find enough evidence to keep him on a watch list. When purchasing the guns, he passed the full background check through the Florida Department of Law Enforcement. But before that, another gun store refused to sell to him.

The co-owner of Lotus Gunworks in south Florida, Robert Abell, said the store reported suspicious activity when Mateen visited the shop to buy body armor and 1,000 rounds of ammunition roughly five weeks before the shooting. The employees were suspicious and informed Mateen they didn’t carry the premium body armor, usually used by law enforcement.

Suspicion grew when Mateen took out his cell phone and began conversing in a foreign language. The shop alerted the FBI, but because there was no sale, employees did not check the man’s ID and provided no name to officials.

“Unfortunately nobody connected the dots and he slipped under the cracks,” Abell said.

Since the attack, officials have discovered Facebook posts Mateen made showing anti-Western sentiment: “America and Russia stop bombing the Islamic State … You kill innocent women and children by doing us airstrikes … now taste the Islamic State vengeance.” His final post included the foreboding words: “In the next few days you will see attacks from the Islamic State in the USA.”

Mateen also invoked ISIS during the shooting on Sunday. In the middle of the rampage, he called 911 to pledge his allegiance to Islamic State.

A letter from the Senate Homeland Security Committee said Mateen also posted on Facebook saying, “real muslims will never accept the filthy ways of the west.”