Orlando Shooter Frequented Gay Nightclub Pulse, Messaged Guys on a Gay Dating App: REPORTS

RELATED: Get Out. Keep Running. — Susie Bright on Orlando

According to The Orlando Sentinel, Mateen visited the gay nightclub at least 12 times, a fact corroborated by 4 witnesses.

Reports of Mateen’s visits to Pulse were also reported in the Canadian Press, as Gawker points out:

“It’s the same guy,” Chris Callen, who performs under the name Kristina McLaughlin, told the Canadian Press. “He’s been going to this bar for at least three years.”

Ty Smith, who also goes by the name Aries, also said he’d seen Mateen being escorted drunk from the club, Pulse, on multiple occasions.

“(He’d get) really, really drunk… He couldn’t drink when he was at home—around his wife, or family. His father was really strict… He used to bitch about it,” Smith told the Canadian Press.

“Sometimes he would go over in the corner and sit and drink by himself, and other times he would get so drunk he was loud and belligerent,” Smith also explained to the Orlando Sentinel, which spoke with at least four clubgoers who remembered seeing Mateen at Pulse at least a dozen times. “We didn’t really talk to him a lot, but I remember him saying things about his dad at times… He told us he had a wife and child.”

Both Callen and Smith, who are married, tell the Canadian Press they stopped speaking to Mateen after he threatened them with a knife, apparently after someone made a joke about religion.

Callen and Smith are married and told the Canadian Press Mateen threatened them with a knife. The incident occurred after someone allegedly made a joke about religion to Mateen. Callen recalled, “[Mateen] said if he ever messed with him again, you know how it’ll turn out.”

Chris Hayes will be interviewing one of the men who reportedly knew Mateen after meeting him on a gay dating app. That individual says he was a regular at Pulse.

The man I spoke with today also said the shooter has messaged him on a gay dating app. His friend as well. We’ll run the interview tonight.

— Christopher Hayes (@chrislhayes) June 13, 2016

I talked to regular today who said the same. And that his friends recognized him as well. t.co/HOCEq1q4C9

— Christopher Hayes (@chrislhayes) June 13, 2016

“At least four regular customers at the nightclub…believe they had seen the killer, Omar Mateen, there before.” t.co/5XM5DoMQpt

— Murtaza Hussain (@MazMHussain) June 13, 2016

Developing…

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