The Florida gun store where Orlando shooter Omar Mateen apparently tried to buy body armor and bulk ammunition weeks before the attack on a gay bar reported the effort to authorities, according to the store owner.
But the tip went nowhere because the store didn’t know the man’s name and had no way to lead authorities to him, gun store owner Robert Abell told reporters Thursday.
“We had no link, no contact, we didn’t know who he was, but we did contact authorities and let them know we just had a suspicious person in here,” said Abell, the owner of Lotus Gunworks in Jensen Beach, Florida.
Authorities received a report from the store of a suspicious man who tried to buy body armor, three law enforcement officials told CNN, but the details of their account of the encounter were slightly different than Abell’s.
They said the store first alerted authorities to a group of men who appeared to be of Middle Eastern descent buying police gear. The FBI looked into it and determined the men were visiting police officers and the purchase was not suspicious.
It was at the conclusion of that investigation that an employee told agents about the attempted purchase of body armor and ammunition, the law enforcement officials said.
But the store had no name, purchase record or surveillance video to help authorities investigate, the officials said. Law enforcement sources had told CNN earlier they had no record of a call from the store regarding the encounter.
According to Abell, store employees recognized Mateen as the man who had visited their store about six weeks ago after reports identified as the gunman who killed 49 people Sunday at Orlando’s Pulse nightclub before police shot and killed him to end the deadliest shooting rampage in modern U.S. history.
Abell said the man sought high-level body armor that the store doesn’t carry and asked questions that seemed unusual for a civilian, Abell told reporters. “Our salesman got very concerned about it and just informed him we do not have this body armor. At this time, he pulled away and got onto the cell phone,” Abell said. “When he was on the cell phone, he had a conversation in a foreign language that was more concerning. Then he came back and he was requesting ammo. He wanted bulk ammo only.”
The employee — by now increasingly suspicious — told Mateen that the store didn’t have the bulk ammo and the man left, Abell said.
“Unfortunately, nobody connected the dots, and he slipped through the cracks,” Abell said.
The FBI had no official comment on the matter when reached Thursday night.
Spokesmen for the Florida Department of Law Enforcement and the Martin County Sheriff’s Office said the agencies don’t have any records of receiving calls from Lotus Gunworks.
The revelations are the latest in the investigation into what motivated Mateen, whether anyone else knew of his plans and whether law enforcement could have done more to stop him. The FBI had previously investigated Mateen.
Among new details emerging Friday:
Mateen was suspended from his high school for 48 days — five days out of school and 43 in-school, according to Martin County High School.
Among the suspensions are two for “fighting with injury,” according to documents provided to CNN.
It’s been reported earlier that he traveled to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates at some point in 2011 or 2012, but on Friday, New York University confirmed he traveled on a pilgrimage to holy sites in Saudi Arabia organized by the university’s Islamic Center in 2012.
He was among about 80 people on the trip, including three others assumed to be his family members, NYU spokesman John Beckman said. There’s no indication now that Mateen was in contact with any suspicious individuals during that travel, an official familiar with the investigation had told CNN earlier.
