Let’s Call It What It Was – An American Turned Immigrant Killer

A kid writes a message for the victims of the Pulse Nightclub shooting at the front of the nightclub on June 21, 2016 in Orlando, Florida. (Photo by Gerardo Mora/Getty Images)

By Felicia J. Persaud

News Americas, NEW YORK, NY, Fri, June 24, 2016: In the days since June 12, 2016, a lot has been said of the horrific mass shooting at the Pulse Night Club in Orlando, Florida. Just hours after the shooting, at least two U.S. congressmembers quickly jumped on television to report, before any FBI announcement, that the perpetrator who ‘shot up’ the gay night club was a Muslim man who had pledged allegiance to ISIS/ISIL.

What has not been as widely reported is the fact that the perpetrator was an American who may have had gay tendencies and who targeted, killed and injured dozens of immigrants from the Caribbean and Latin America who were gathered at Latin Night in this known gay club.

That has been quickly brushed aside in favor of the fear mongering tactic – laying the blame on terrorists who are Muslims and ISIS and on immigrants who come to America but somehow hate it.

But Omar Mateen was born in New York City, making him a born American – not a naturalized American. His Afghanistan-born father, the immigrant who moved to America years ago, did not shoot or harm anyone; his American-born son who had actually been a patron of the Pulse Night Club did!

We still don’t know why – as the FBI continues to piece together clues from the life of this American man while interviewing his wife. But what we do know is that he decided to spend thousands of dollars to easily obtain a Sig Sauer MCX semi-automatic assault-style rifle and a pistol and kill immigrants gathered at an entertainment venue in the wee hours of a Sunday morning, to simple party and destress from a week of toil.

He decided to kill brown and black people gathered at this Club he had been to at least several times; he choose to kill dozens – the majority of whom were born in Puerto Rico, Mexico, Cuba, the Dominican Republic and Venezuela.

He determined he would injure dozens of others – many of whom are both documented and undocumented, hardworking immigrants, working in service jobs to support families in the U.S. and back home while trying to achieve the American dream.

He decided that! Was it because like some say – he struggled with gay feelings and in self-hate decided to kill and injure patrons at this gay club? Or was it that he was driven by ISIS’ intolerance for homosexuality and the Conservative American prejudice he has heard about all his life while growing up in America that he saw the need to target this club? Or was he like one survivor claimed, simply exacting revenge for America’s bombing of the Islamic state?

We may never know the reason or reasons why; or whether Mateen simply latched on to the machismo of terror and ISIS on June 12th in an attempt to mask his own confusion of gender identity.

But just as expected – right wing nuts led by their Nut-in-Chief Donald Trump – ignored the facts again and went straight to scapegoating immigrants; the entire Muslim religion and of course President Obama!

And here we are wondering where Mateen learned all that hate that flowed from his heart down to the fingers he used to massacre 49 immigrants and injure 53 others?

The writer is CMO of Hard Beat Communications, which owns the brands News Americas Now, CaribPR Wire and Invest Caribbean Now.