Investigators are recreating the days, weeks and months of Orlando shooter Omar Mateen before he killed 49 people at a gay nightclub last week in America's deadliest ever shooting, a top official said today.
"We don't have any announcements to make about other individuals at this time, but we are trying to recreate the days, the weeks, the months of this killer's life before this attack. And we're also asking people who had contact with him to come forward and give us that information as well," US Attorney General Loretta Lynch told Fox News.
"We are now is in the middle of a very aggressive investigation. We are talking to everyone who had contact with this killer and that, of course, includes the family members. We want to know what they know, what they saw, and what he said to them. The investigation is ongoing," Lynch said.
Lynch said she is headed to Orlando on Tuesday and would be meeting with the team on the ground, as well as the victims and first responders, and meeting with the local, LGBT and Latino communities that were targeted in this terrible act of hate and terror.
On Monday, she said investigators would be releasing the transcripts of the phone contact between the killer and Orlando negotiators the night of the attacks.
"So, it will be a partial transcript of those calls. We're trying to get information out. It's our goal to be as transparent as possible in this investigation," she said.
"With respect to the prior contact that we had with him, we're going to go back and looking at that as well. We're going to go back and look at everything we did in connection with him and be as transparent as possible about how it evolved, what developed and what changes we could have made," Lynch said.
In an interview to CNN, she said investigators are trying to learn everything they can about Mateen's motivations.
"As you know he was in a gay nightclub. This was an act of terror and an act of hate, targeted against a community, the LGBT community, the Latino community," she said.
Investigators, she noted, are talking to everyone who knew him, and that, of course, includes his family, to determine what they knew, what they saw in the days and weeks leading up to this.
"But we're not going to comment on anyone else's role in it at this point in time, because it is an open and ongoing investigation," she said.
"We don't know the answer to that right now," Lynch said when asked if the famous Disney World amusement park was among the targets of the shooter.
"That is, of course, one of the things that we are trying to determine. Were there any other locations he was focused on, but also why did he pick this particular location? Why did he target the LGBT community, and particularly on Latin night?" she said.
