The Orlando nightclub terrorist Omar Mateen reportedly brought nearly $9,000 worth of expensive jewelry less than a week before committing the worst mass shooting in U.S. history.
According to ABC News, Mateen made the purchase at a Kay Jewelers on June 6 in Jenson Beach. The store is located near the Lotus Gun Shop where Mateen was turned away after seeking to buy bulk ammunition and heavy-duty body armor.
Signet, which owns the jewelry store, didn’t confirm Mateen’s purchase but did say they were working closely with the FBI in their investigation into the shooter.
Employees at the gun shop declined to sell Mateen anything after seeing him engage in suspicious behavior, The Wall Street Journal reported last week.
Robbie Abell, the Lotus Gun Shop’s co-owner, told The Journal that Mateen spoke on the phone in a Middle Eastern-sounding language and was repeatedly texting on his phone.
“[He] just seemed very odd,” Abell said. “The questions he was asking were not the normal questions a normal person would be asking.”
“If something is suspicious, it’s our discretion,” Abell said. “We are the gatekeeper.”
Federal investigators say that in the week before he murdered dozens people and wounded more than 50 others at the Pulse nighclub in Orlando, Mateen visited another gun shop, where he purchased a pistol and a .223 SIG Sauer semiautomatic rifle.
Authorities are still trying to determine the motives behind the deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history.
The Justice Department released the full transcript of Mateen’s 911 call on the night of the massacre Monday. In his 50-second call to police he claimed responsibility for the terror attack and pledged allegiance to Islamic State’s leader.
The summary shows that Mateen told negotiators he had a “vehicle outside that has some bombs. Just to let you know. You people are gonna get it, and I’m gonna ignite it if they try to do anything stupid.”
Mateen claimed he had an explosive vest similar to the kind used by terrorists “in France,” referencing the November terror attack in Paris.
“In the next few days, you’re going to see more of this type of action going on,” Mateen said.
He also reportedly told hostages that he would put suicide vests on them.
No explosives were ever found on Mateen inside the club or in any vehicles outside. Mateen was armed with two guns during the rampage.
Despite claims by the administration and law enforcement officials that ISIS did not direct Mateen to carry out the attack, Defense Secretary Ash Carter on Monday used the massacre as an example of why the terror group must be defeated.
“Orlando further steels our resolve to carry out all aspects of our coalition military campaign plan,” Carter said at a conference organized by the Center for a New American Security, a Washington think tank. “First, destroying ISIL’s parent tumor in Iraq and Syria, which is necessary, but not sufficient; second, combating ISIL’s metastases worldwide wherever it appears; and third helping protect the homeland.”
