Wow, that really is naïve. Giuliani is close on Trump's heels and I am sure he
will be the next to ascend to the throne.
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Miriam Vieni
Sent: Tuesday, August 2, 2016 12:51 PM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: New Documents Reveal Orlando Shooter Omar
Mateen's Allegations of Disturbing Racial Harrassment by Police Co-Workers
Interestingly, one of the more naïve, snippets in The Nation, August 1 to 8,
that I read today from BARD, from a Bernie Sandrs delegation leader, says that
if we just beat Trump in this election, we won't have to worry about other
similar candidates popping up in the future. Nonsense!
Miriam
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of S. Kashdan
Sent: Tuesday, August 02, 2016 10:50 AM
To: Blind Democracy List
Subject: [blind-democracy] New Documents Reveal Orlando Shooter Omar Mateen's
Allegations of Disturbing Racial Harrassment by Police Co-Workers
New Documents Reveal Orlando Shooter Omar Mateen's Allegations of Disturbing
Racial Harrassment by Police Co-Workers
By Max Blumenthal [1]
AlterNet [2], August 1, 2016
http://www.alternet.org/print/grayzone-project/new-documents-shocking-accoun
ts-orlando-shooter-omar-mateen-alleging-racial
The intrigue surrounding Omar Mateen and his massacre of 47 patrons of the
Pulse Nightclub in Orlando, Florida has been drowned out by the political
circus of two party conventions this month. The personal details about Mateen,
from his vicious abuse of his first and second wives to credible accounts of a
secret gay life to the reports of his mental instability and the autopsy
results confirming him as a heavy abuser of steroids, have been forgotten or
suppressed by the FBI. All of these elements of Mateen's profile, which
directly contradicted the portrayal of the mass killer in mainstream American
media and by politicians from both parties as an Islamic
extremist acting in the name of ISIS, have conveniently fallen down the
Orwellian memory hole.
As the facts that could have interrupted the official narrative fell by the
wayside, Congress and state legislatures exploited the tragedy to push for
an expansion of undemocratic databases of "terror" suspects and the
discriminatory no-fly list. As Sarah Lazare reported for AlterNet, police
departments across the country have been leveraging the attack to lobby for
expanded arsenals [3] of military gear. At both Republican and Democratic
conventions, Orlando has been invoked to summon fears of Islamic extremism
at home and to gin up support for military action abroad.
On July 18, the St. Lucie County Sheriff's Department where Mateen once
interned and which later oversaw his security clearance as a private
security guard working at the county courthouse released a series of records
[4] detailing its interactions with Mateen. Publicized over a month after
the Orlando massacre and while Republicans were gathering for their national
convention, the documents were buried by the national media, receiving only
scant coverage and generating negligible public discussion. Yet they
revealed explosive new details about the killer that may shed light on his
motives and further expose the destructive culture of racism infecting
police departments across the country.
The documents feature complaints Mateen filed with the St. Lucie County
Sheriff's Department in which he recounted vicious and sustained racial
harassment by deputies serving at the courthouse where he worked.
Here are just a few of the incidents Mateen alleged:
* Mateen said a sheriff's deputy named John Roleau taunted him, asking,
"Don't
you Arabs sleep with goats?" Mateen was of Afghan descent, not an Arab, and
he was born in the United States.
* Robert MacNamara, a deputy and Gulf War veteran said to have a reputation
for right-wing views, praised former Republican Rep. Alan West for his
anti-Arab posturing, according to Mateen, and declared, "we need to kill all
the fucking Muslims." In another instance, Mateen claimed MacNamara would
stand behind him outside the courthouse and "clip and unclip" his gun
holster to menace him.
* Mateen stated that someone put Rep. Alan West campaign stickers on his car
and deflated his front two tires while he was parked at the courthouse.
* Deputy Rusty Wright allegedly met Mateen in a courthouse hallway, pointed
at a dirty mat on the floor and said, "Isn't it your prayer time? Take your
magic carpet and pray to your Allah and make sure it's in the east."
* Several deputies badgered Mateen with questions about Muslim infiltration
of American society and taunted him with accusations about the Islamophobic
concept of creeping Shariah. "I did economics investigations for a few years
and Italian mobs get caught and drug cartels get caught, but you Muslim
Arabs are sneaky and know how to do it without getting into trouble. You
guys do a lot of Western Union," Sgt. Jeff Buchanan said, according to
Mateen.
* Deputy Bobby Dimarco casually referred to Mateen as "Aladdin" over the
police radio, Mateen said. "You guys had your Arab spring, now it's time for
our redneck spring," said another deputy, Michael Robinson, according to
Mateen. Mateen said other deputies mocked him as a backward primitive, spoke
openly about slaughtering Muslims, offered him bacon, and relentlessly
taunted him about praying while on lunch break.
* Mateen claimed his colleague from the private security firm G4S, Lt. David
Torres, was one of his main antagonists, urging the sheriff's deputies to
view him with suspicion and once remarked, "Muslims are similar to
Jews...they rape the system and monopolize." Another G4S employee, Hunter
Dennis, said, "Omar, you look like a Haji I killed in Iraq," Mateen said.
"Omar, I had rifle training in the military and I can shoot up to 200 yards
away," Torres declared, according to Mateen. "And if I hear you say, 'Allahu
Akbar," I will shoot you in the head."
* Mateen complained: "After every terrorist event that would occur on the
news, I would get confronted by Deputies throughout the day [asking what I
thought] about it and if I knew more about it. From the time I would come in
until the time I would leave."
As the storm of alleged racial harassment intensified, Mateen erupted at the
deputies and his co-workers, triggering an interview by the FBI. According
to notes by Michael Hogsten, the deputy general counsel for G4S, Mateen said
he made outrageous claims of loyalty to Islamic extremist groups to get the
deputies off his back: "After Boston bombing occurred--everyone got really
nasty--I said--know what I'm related to Boston bomber is my first cousin and
matter of [fact]--related to ft hood [sic] shooter--I know Kenya mall
shooters--said so they would leave me alone."
Judicial Watch, the right-wing outfit that obtained the police documents on
Mateen through a Freedom of Information request, cited Mateen's obviously
absurd claims of a relationship to the Boston bombers as evidence that the
FBI "blew it." However, Judicial Watch omitted from its press release any
reference to the extensive documentation of racial harassment Mateen
allegedly endured at the hands of sheriff's deputies, thus obscuring the
context in which his claims occurred.
After his interview with FBI agents, who described Mateen as polite and
cooperative, Mateen pleaded for understanding and respect. "I love the
United States," he wrote. "The boasting [of terrorist ties] I did it just to
satisfy the gang of coworkers who ganged up against me. There is no fact to
it. I'm 1000% American. I'm ready to give up my life defending the United
States."
Mateen continued: "Again I want to emphasize that I'm a honest American and
that I'm 1000% anti terrorist organizations and their ideas. That's why I
chose to have a future in Law Enforcement. Maybe to become a ATF, Customs or
FBI agent."
On Oct. 2, 2013, Mateen was removed from his job as a private security guard
at St. Lucie County courthouse, shattering his hopes of becoming a real cop
like those who had bullied him for so long. In an email, Lt. Troy Church of
G4S justified Mateen's termination on the basis of his "aggressive
posturing, raising his voice, and seeming attempting to incite his
co-worker[s]."
It may be Mateen's former co-workers were right to view him with suspicion
and that he was lying or exaggerating about their racism. If so, he would
have needed an unusually active imagination to conjure up such detailed
accounts of their anti-Muslim behavior.
Islamophobic workplace harassment has factored into at least two other mass
shootings popularly chalked up as terror attacks. In the days leading up to
the San Bernadino mass killing, the shooter, Syed Farook, was repeatedly
confronted by a right-wing evangelical co-worker, Nicholas Thalasinos, who
reportedly berated [5] him about the inherent violence of Islam and preached
to him the righteousness of Israel's cause. "Thalasinos was also a hate
filled bigot," wrote [6] New York Daily News columnist Linda Stasi, pointing
to his Facebook posts trashing feminists and liberals, calling for Muslims
to be exterminated and proposing that far-right pundit Ann Coulter be
appointed head of the Department of Homeland Security. When Farook opened
fire on his co-workers, Thalasinos was among the first he killed.
The story of Ft. Hood shooter, Army Major Nidal Hassan, is also filled with
reports of workplace harassment. Hassan had hired a lawyer to get him a
discharge or exemption from deploying to Iraq or Afghanistan, two wars he
fervently opposed. Rep. Michael McCaul, a Republican who now heads the House
Homeland Security Committee, described Hassan as "disgruntled in the mission
in Iraq and Afghanistan." According to Hassan's family members, he was
constantly harassed by army colleagues, who called him a "camel jockey [7]"
and menaced him with anti-Arab insults. The Army's refusal to answer
Hassan's
request for a discharge was the most plausible motive for his shooting
spree, yet the Arab soldier was ultimately painted [8] in mainstream media
and by Congress as a fanatical terrorist, imbuing the war on terror with a
renewed sense of urgency.
As with Hassan, Mateen's descriptions of racial harassment at the hands of
his co-workers threaten to complicate the politically convenient narrative
of a "lone wolf" jihadist attack. To the extent that his testimony is true,
it sheds light on the culture of racism at the heart of some police
departments and the destructive impact of Islamophobia. Perhaps that's why
the documents detailing his complaints have been underplayed in the national
media, if not ignored altogether.
"I learned if I boast of the terrorist events they would get the
satisfaction and they would leave me alone in the courthouse," Mateen said
of his police co-workers back in 2013. Three years later, he acted out a
version of those events, realizing the cartoonish stereotype he claimed the
deputies made of him.
Asked by the Orlando Sentinel if it had investigated its personnel over
Mateen's complaints, the St. Lucie County Sheriff's Office did not respond
[9].
Max Blumenthal is a senior editor of the Grayzone Project at AlterNet, and
the award-winning author of Goliath [10] and Republican Gomorrah [11]. His
most recent book is The 51 Day War: Ruin and Resistance in Gaza. Follow him
on Twitter at @MaxBlumenthal [12].
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mailto:corrections@xxxxxxxxxxxx?Subject=Typo on New Documents Reveal Orlando
Shooter Omar Mateen's Allegations of Disturbing Racial Harrassment by Police
Co-Workers [13]
[14]
Source URL:
http://www.alternet.org/grayzone-project/new-documents-shocking-accounts-orl
ando-shooter-omar-mateen-alleging-racial
Links:
[1] http://www.alternet.org/authors/max-blumenthal
[2] http://alternet.org
[3]
http://www.alternet.org/grayzone-project/police-are-using-tragedies-dallas-a
nd-orlando-demand-more-militarized-weapons
[4]
http://www.judicialwatch.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/Omar-Mateen-mental-s
tability-records.pdf
[5]
http://www.timesofisrael.com/jewish-victim-of-california-attack-had-argued-w
ith-shooter-about-islam/
[6]
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/san-bernardino-bloodbath-born-bigot
s-article-1.2456491
[7]
http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/nidal-malik-hasan-wanted-army-family/story?id=
9008184
[8]
http://www.alternet.org/story/143964/the_memory_scrub_about_why_ft._hood_hap
pened_is_almost_complete_..._if_it_weren%27t_for_archives
[9]
http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/pulse-orlando-nightclub-shooting/omar-ma
teen/os-pulse-omar-mateen-faced-racial-taunts-20160718-story.html
[10]
http://www.amazon.com/Goliath-Life-Loathing-Greater-Israel/dp/1568586345
[11] http://republicangomorrah.com/
[12] http://twitter.com/maxblumenthal
[13] mailto:corrections@xxxxxxxxxxxx?Subject=Typo on New Documents Reveal ;
Orlando Shooter Omar Mateen's Allegations of Disturbing Racial
Harrassment by Police Co-Workers
[14] http://www.alternet.org/
[15] http://www.alternet.org/%2Bnew_src%2B
