Orlando Massacre: Error Reported On Shooter’s Firearms Approval; Wrong Psychologist Listed

Documents attesting to Orlando, Florida, nightclub shooter Omar Mateen’s fitness to carry a gun contained a “clerical error” in identifying the person who scored the rating, the company that employed Mateen said.

The Miami Herald reported G4S, the security firm that employed Mateen, said it erroneously listed psychologist Carol Nudelman as the person who evaluated Mateen in 2007 and pronounced him fit. Nudelman issued a statement saying she had closed her practice two years prior to the evaluation and was not even in the state at the time.

Mateen, 29, shot and killed 49 people and wounded 53 others in a rampage last Sunday at the Pulse nightclub, a gay bar where hundreds of people were celebrating Latin night. He was shot and killed by authorities after and hourslong siege.

“What I do know is that in September 2007, I was not living or working in Florida, I was not performing any work for Wackenhut [as G4S was known at the time], and I did not administer any type of examination to Omar Mateen,” Nudelman said in a statement issued by her attorneys.

The Wall Street Journal reported Sunday the test actually was administered by the Headquarters for Psychological Evaluation, but the company was not immediately available for comment.

The Journal said G4S did not re-evaluate Mateen after he was investigated by the FBI in 2013, an investigation prompted by the concerns of co-workers after Mateen spouted support for Hezbollah and claimed he had terrorist ties. The company said once a guard is hired, no subsequent psychological evaluations are conducted.

“It is not our policy — nor the policy of any security provider or law enforcement agency that we are aware of — to demand psychological exams in such situations,” the company said in a statement.

Mateen reportedly exhibited a propensity for violence as early as the third grade. The Herald reported school records indicated he was suspended repeatedly for fighting and hurting classmates, and later, as an adult, allegedly stalked a female bartender and abused his ex-wife.

“We tried to counsel him and show him the error of his ways, but it never had the effect that we were hoping for,” Dan Alley, a retired Martin County High School dean, told the Herald. His third grade teacher described him as “verbally abusive, rude, aggressive” and said he talked about “violence and sex.”

In middle school he was described as disruptive, with an inability to exercise self-control, the Herald said.

“He was the jerk of the class,” said Dina McHugh, who went to middle school with Mateen. “He just got on everybody’s nerves. He found a way to get underneath everybody’s skin.”