Orlando nightclub shooter Omar Mateen called Boston Marathon bomber Tamerlan Tsarnaev his “homeboy” during a conversation with a 911 dispatcher, recently released audio revealed.
Mateen, a U.S.-born Muslim opened fire inside the Pulse nightclub June 12 killing 49 workers and club goers in the nation’s deadliest-ever mass shooting.
On the night of the shooting Mateen and a 911 dispatcher known only as Andy exchanged more than a dozen calls before Mateen was eventually shot dead by police, the Orlando Sentinal reported. “My name is Isalamic soldier. Call me mujahideen. Call me the soldier of God,” Mateen told the dispatcher.
Mateen said he was motivated by the airstrikes in Syria and Iraq that were killing innocent women and children.
“The U.S. is collaborating with Russia and they’re killing innocent women and children, OK? My homeboy, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, did his thing in the Boston Marathon… now it’s my turn,” Mateen said. Listen to the full audio below, Mateen discusses his allegiance to Tsarnaev at 3:15.
Tsarnaev and his brother Dzohkhar detonated two bombs near the Boston Marathon finish line on April 15, 2013, killing three and wounding more than 260 others. In the days that followed, the brothers also killed MIT police officer Sean Collier when they tried to steal his pistol on April 18,the Boston Globe reported.
Tamerlan Tsarnaev died hours later in Watertown during a shootout with police. Dzhokhar was caught hiding in a boat in the yard of a Watertown home. He was sentenced to death by a U.S. District Court just in Boston last year. The sentence is being appealed.
