"A Life of Violent Threats Paved Way for Orlando Attack"

"Often citing Islamic terrorists, Omar Mateen worried peers, employers and the FBI, but wasn’t stopped"

Again and again for much of his life, Omar Mateen let people know he was a violent, dangerous person capable of murder. Repeatedly, he wiggled out of trouble, distracting officials with a beguiling charm, a feigned stupidity or some other tactic.

A look at Mateen’s troubled life, based on interviews with officials and people who knew him, as well as documents, reveals that on at least a dozen occasions, beginning when he was in grade school, he gave clues in a public setting that he was capable of mayhem.

At age 14, he said he could shoot an AK-47 and mimicked an airplane flying into the World Trade Center. At 26, he bragged to courthouse co-workers of terrorist ties. Weeks ago, at 29, Mateen sought to buy heavy-duty body armor and bulk ammunition.

Many of his violent outbursts aped or celebrated Islamic terrorism and he repeatedly claimed connections to known terrorists, including the Boston Marathon bombers. He cheered the 9/11 attacks on the day they happened and once threatened to shoot partygoers at a barbecue when pork, which is forbidden to Muslims, touched his hamburger.

Read the whole thing...

He raised suspicions at Disney, gun shops, offices, carwashes and falafel stands.

Everywhere but the FBI. https://t.co/xKPpwBw7TC

— Ron Coleman (@RonColeman) June 16, 2016

"Missouri football players strike amid campus racial tensions"

"More than 30 black football players at the University of Missouri have said they will boycott team activities until the school's president is removed over his handling of racial tensions on campus. The players said on Twitter Saturday night they would not participate in practices or games unless president Tim Wolfe resigns or is sacked."

"The athletes of color on the University of Missouri football team truly believe 'Injustice Anywhere is a threat to Justice Everywhere'," the statement read, quoting slain black civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr. "We will no longer participate in any football related activities until President Tim Wolfe resigns or is removed due to his negligence toward marginalized students' experience. WE ARE UNITED!!!!!"

Racial tensions have been brewing for some time now at the University of Missouri. Here is a photo below of the University president Tim Wolfe, nearly a month ago, choosing not to confront the protesters, possibly believing meeting with them would only aggravate an already tense situation.

On Oct. 10, with the LBC abuse still fresh in their minds, Butler and 10 other African American students interrupted Mizzou’s homecoming parade by surrounding Wolfe’s gleaming red convertible. “We will be here until we are heard,” Butler shouted into a megaphone as Wolfe and his wife sat awkwardly on top of the back seat, “and our people are protected and they feel safe on this campus.” 

When Wolfe didn’t hear them out, Butler (the student now on a hunger strike) became even more frustrated. 

“I thought, ‘What else do I have to do to prove my humanity’?” Butler told The Washington Post. “What else do I have to do, just because I’m a black person, to prove to you that I deserve to have a good experience on campus? That’s when I started to think about the action of the hunger strike.” 

Then, two weeks later, Mizzou’s racial tensions flared again when someone used their own feces to smear a swastika on a communal bathroom wall in a brand new residence hall... For Butler, the disgusting incident, and the university’s response, was the last straw. On Nov. 2, he tweeted out a letter announcing that he was going on hunger strike.