THE MAN WHO shot over 100 people and killed 49 in an Orlando nightclub Saturday worked at a retirement home as a security guard for G4S – a giant, an often controversial global contracting corporation that provides mercenary forces, prison guards, and security services. G4S is one of the world’s largest private security companies, with more than 620,000 employees and a presence in over 100 countries.
G4S confirmed in a statement that Omar Mateen had worked for the company since 2007, and said it was “shocked and saddened” by the shooting. A later statement said that Mateen was subject to “detailed company screening” in 2007 and again in 2013, “with no adverse findings.”
But one of Mateen’s former coworkers told the New York Times that he “saw it coming,” that Mateen “talked about killing people all the time,” and that he was “always angry, sweating, just angry at the world.”
The coworker, who said he quit his job due to harassment from Mateen, explained that he “complained multiple times” to G4S because Mateen didn’t like “blacks, women, lesbians, and Jews.”
Yet G4S continued to employ Mateen, who was able to obtain a “security officer” license to buy firearms in addition to his state license and conceal carry permit.
Mateen was even allowed to work at G4S while under FBI investigation. According to the FBI, Mateen was suspected of involvement in terror in 2013. The FBI investigation included the use of paid informants, recording conversations, following him, electronic surveillance, and interviewing him three times, FBI Director James Comey said on Monday. The investigation was closed because it produced no hard evidence of terrorist complicity.
G4S’s statement says that Mateen was subject to “checks from a U.S. law enforcement agency with no findings reported to G4S.” But according to the New York Times, the investigation took place because of “reports from [Mateen’s] coworkers, that he… suggested he may have had terrorist ties.”
G4S has previously been accused of improperly vetting its employees. In 2009, Danny Fitzsimons, a former British paratrooper and employee of a G4S subsidiary, killed two colleagues in Iraq, claiming to be “the antichrist” and saying he “must satisfy” his “bloodlust.” An official investigation concluded that his employer did not properly vet his psychological health.
