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"I saw it coming." Former co-worker talks about Omar Mateen

Mateen had violent temper according to colleague
Posted at 11:20 PM, Jun 12, 2016
and last updated 2016-06-12 23:44:05-04

“He was an angry person, violent in nature and a bigot to almost every class of person," said Dan Gilroy, a former coworker of Orlando mass shooter Omar Mateen.

Gilroy worked with Mateen for about a year between 2014 and 2015.  The two worked as security guards at PGA Village in Port St. Lucie.  Gilroy says Mateen often made homophobic, sexist and racist remarks.

“He would hit things and as he was hitting things.  He would yell and of course there was always curse words involved and this wasn’t seldom, this was all the time."

Gilroy said he took very little to set Mateen off, for example a perceived snub from a motorist passing through.

“He’d say I hate all those 'n’s' and I wish I could kill them all.”

After his request to be transferred was denied, Gilroy told Mateen he didn’t want to continue their relationship on a personal level anymore.

“He(Mateen) acted very negatively towards that.  He then started to text me 20-30 times a day.  Call me 15-20 times.” 

As a former Fort Pierce police officer, Gilroy said Mateen’s actions did not scare him, but once his family became concerned, he quit.  He wishes now there was something more he could have done.

“I saw it coming.  I mean everything.  he told me he was going to do it.  Besides the date and the location, he said he was going to kill a whole bunch of people.”