FORT PIERCE, Fla. – As early as third grade, the Florida nightclub shooter talked frequently about sex and violence, and before finishing high school was suspended for a total of 48 days, including for fighting and hurting classmates, school records showed.
In the years since, other people reported having disturbing run-ins with Omar Mateen, including a bartender who said he stalked her nearly a decade ago and sent so many uncomfortable Facebook messages that she blocked him on the social network.
Mateen, whose attack on the Pulse nightclub left 49 people dead and 53 wounded, enrolled in Florida public schools after his parents moved in 1991 from New York City to Port Saint Lucie, on Florida’s Atlantic coast.
Teachers “couldn’t seem to help him,” said Dan Alley, retired dean of Martin County High School. “We tried to counsel him and show him the error of his ways, but it never had the effect that we were hoping for.”
The 29-year-old son of Afghan immigrants was killed Sunday in a shootout with police as they moved into the club.
CARLSBAD CAVERNS NATIONAL PARK, N.M. – Eyes wide open and head tilted upward, President Barack Obama appeared awed Friday as he toured an underground cave at a national park in New Mexico – part of a family vacation that’s also designed to draw attention to America’s natural wonders.
Obama, his wife, Michelle, and their daughters, Malia and Sasha, spent part of the afternoon at Carlsbad Caverns National Park.
“How cool is this?” Obama exclaimed as a National Park Service employee led the family on a tour of the Big Room, an area nearly 800 feet deep into the limestone cavern that nature carved out of the Guadalupe Mountains.
Associated Press
