"goat-fucker", "Aladdin", "terrorist-sympathizer", "If you say Allahu Akbar, I'm gonna kill you" ...

[DetlefK]

http://www.rawstory.com/2016/08/dont-you-arabs-sleep-with-goats-records-show-orlando-shooters-harassment-by-fellow-cops/

The ongoing intrigue surrounding Omar Mateen and his massacre of 47 patrons of the Pulse Nightclub in Orlando, Florida was drowned out by the political circus of two party conventions this month.

...

Taken together, these elements of Mateen’s person profile directly contradicted the popular portrayal of the mass killer as an Islamic extremist acting in the name of ISIS. Unsurprisingly, they have fallen down the Orwellian memory hole.

As the facts that could have interrupted the official narrative fell by the wayside, Congress and state legislatures exploited the tragedy to push for an expansion of undemocratic databases of “terror” suspects and the discriminatory no-fly list.

...

The documents feature complaints Mateen filed with the St. Lucie County Sheriff’s Department in which he recounted vicious and sustained racial harassment by deputies serving at the courthouse where he worked.

Here are just a few of the incidents Mateen alleged:

* Mateen said a sheriff’s deputy named John Roleau taunted him, asking, “Don’t you Arabs sleep with goats?” Mateen was of Afghan descent, not an Arab, and he was born in the United States.
* Robert MacNamara, a deputy and Gulf War veteran said to have a reputation for right-wing views, praised former Republican Rep. Alan West for his anti-Arab posturing, according to Mateen, and declared, “we need to kill all the fucking Muslims.” In another instance, Mateen claimed MacNamara would stand behind him outside the courthouse and “clip and unclip” his gun holster to menace him.
* Mateen stated that someone put Rep. Alan West campaign stickers on his car and deflated his front two tires while he was parked at the courthouse.
* Deputy Rusty Wright allegedly met Mateen in a courthouse hallway, pointed at a dirty mat on the floor and said, “Isn’t it your prayer time? Take your magic carpet and pray to your Allah and make sure it’s in the east.”
* Several deputies badgered Mateen with questions about Muslim infiltration of American society and taunted him with accusations about the Islamophobic concept of creeping Shariah. “I did economics investigations for a few years and Italian mobs get caught and drug cartels get caught, but you Muslim Arabs are sneaky and know how to do it without getting into trouble. You guys do a lot of Western Union,” Sgt. Jeff Buchanan said, according to Mateen.
* Deputy Bobby Dimarco casually referred to Mateen as “Aladdin” over the police radio, Mateen said. “You guys had your Arab spring, now it’s time for our redneck spring,” said another deputy, Michael Robinson, according to Mateen. Mateen said other deputies mocked him as a backward primitive, spoke openly about slaughtering Muslims, offered him bacon, and relentlessly taunted him about praying while on lunch break.
* Mateen claimed his colleague from the private security firm G4S, Lt. David Torres, was one of his main antagonists, urging the sheriff’s deputies to view him with suspicion and once remarked, “Muslims are similar to Jews…they rape the system and monopolize.” Another G4S employee, Hunter Dennis, said, “Omar, you look like a Haji I killed in Iraq,” Mateen said. “Omar, I had rifle training in the military and I can shoot up to 200 yards away,” Torres declared, according to Mateen. “And if I hear you say, ‘Allahu Akbar,” I will shoot you in the head.”
* Mateen complained: “After every terrorist event that would occur on the news, I would get confronted by Deputies throughout the day [asking what I thought] about it and if I knew more about it. From the time I would come in until the time I would leave.”

...

Islamophobic workplace harassment has factored into at least two other mass shootings popularly chalked up as terror attacks. In the days leading up to the San Bernadino mass killing, the shooter, Syed Farook, was repeatedly confronted by a right-wing evangelical co-worker, Nicholas Thalasinos, who reportedly berated him about the inherent violence of Islam and preached to him the righteousness of Israel’s cause. “Thalasinos was also a hate filled bigot,” wrote New York Daily News columnist Linda Stasi, pointing to his Facebook posts trashing feminists and liberals, calling for Muslims to be exterminated and proposing that far-right pundit Ann Coulter be appointed head of the Department of Homeland Security. When Farook opened fire on his co-workers, Thalasinos was among those he targeted.

The story of Ft. Hood shooter, Army Major Nidal Hassan, is also filled with reports of workplace harassment. Hassan had hired a lawyer to get him a discharge or exemption from deploying to Iraq or Afghanistan, two wars he fervently opposed. Rep. Michael McCaul, a Republican who now heads the House Homeland Security Committee, described Hassan as “disgruntled in the mission in Iraq and Afghanistan.” According to Hassan’s family members, he was constantly harassed by army colleagues, who called him a “camel jockey” and menaced him with anti-Arab insults. The Army’s refusal to answer Hassan’s request for a discharge was the most plausible motive for his shooting spree, yet the Arab-American soldier was ultimately painted in mainstream media and by militaristic members of Congress as a fanatical terrorist burrowing from within America’s most revered institution.

...

Asked by the Orlando Sentinel if it had investigated its personnel over Mateen’s complaints, the St. Lucie County Sheriff’s Office did not respond.