An assumption could be made that a secondary crime scene in a potential matter of national security would be treated with delicacy and scrutiny — and would be guarded against contamination from outside parties. But almost immediately following the mass shooting in Orlando — exactly as what happened after the San Bernardino massacre — mainstream media breached the ostensible crime scene at the apartment of key suspect, Omar Mateen.
This time, however, reporters didn’t need to break through a barricaded but unguarded residence — the FBI simply left the door unlocked after its initial investigation. Actually, make that two doors — the apartment’s front and back doors were not only left unlocked, they weren’t barricaded, even with the ubiquitous yellow crime scene tape.
And just like San Bernardino — when a slew of reporters rummaged through the shooter’s belongings — media crews made a mockery of the FBI in live time, snapping pictures, pushing items around, tweeting in real time pictures from Mateen’s bathroom. Pure sensationalist gawkery on display.
As an independent media narrator of a well-assembled video of this farce wryly queried, “I’m starting to think this is actually part of a social experiment to prove how many people are not paying attention — or just watching Dancing With the Stars and football, and just don’t care.”
Leading the corporate media de facto breach of Mateen’s apartment was the Daily Mail who — as the TRUTHstreammedia video shows — entered the apartment less than 24 hours after the massacre at Pulse nightclub.
There have been better-protected homes of killers in cases where a single person was murdered.
After controversy raged following the similar media breach of the home of San Bernardino shooters Sayed Farook and his wife, Tashfeen Malik, it would be a safe assumption the FBI or DHS would better protect the scene of a crucial investigation — if not as a matter of national security, at least as a criminal probe.
But reporters again rifled through belongings with abandon — showing evidence left behind by the feds seemingly incongruent with investigatory integrity.
For instance, Mateen’s expired firearm carry license had been putatively left on the kitchen counter — as a reporter pokes it with a pen and pans the camera in for a close-up. Considering Mateen carried out one of the most deadly non-governmental attacks on citizens in U.S. history, you would think the FBI might have collected the expired carry permit as critical evidence.
Booklets on Islam were also oh-so-conveniently located near the expired license — and while the CIA recently reported no evidence links the killer to the so-called Islamic State, the unlocked doors and location of these items not confiscated as evidence certainly seems a bit odd, if not outright staged.
“Is this the Geraldo Show?” the video’s narrator intones.
Clearly, the intrusion of multiple media outlets on the scene of an ongoing criminal investigation looks awful for the FBI — but similarly shows a complete lack of journalistic integrity and ethics. There is no evidence any of these outlets contacted the FBI or other authorities to report the lack of security at Mateen’s apartment — or to request permission to enter.
In any investigation, items are bagged, catalogued, and taken as evidence. Dusting for fingerprints is performed. DNA evidence is collected. But seemingly crucial pieces were left behind, in the open, and wholly unprotected in the unlocked residence.
In fact, there is a logical inconsistency in the lack of protection at Mateen’s apartment versus the complete refusal by authorities to release any records about the shooter.
A number of media outlets have requested the release of 911 audio — in which Mateen reportedly called to pledge his allegiance to ISIS, as well as from victims inside Pulse — but have been thwarted by the City of Orlando. Attempts to obtain records from Mateen’s time as a corrections officer, his tenure as a security guard, and other relevant information, have similarly been refused.
Why would Mateen’s previously public information be guarded more diligently than his physical address — including some items of critical import left inside?
As with many other aspects of the massacre in Orlando, the live media spectacle in Omar Mateen’s apartment simply doesn’t add up.
Claire Bernish writes for TheFreeThoughtProject.com, where this article first appeared.
Do not waste your time with this controlled BS; it was a hoax.Never happened.
They are getting better with the acting and media. Learning from past mistakes.
Perhaps the most distressing thing about this sweeping mainstream media coverage is how many people actually believe it. I’ve heard people say the FBI just happened to be a bit “careless” and “irresponsible” leaving his home so wholly open to be ransacked. Even that they “just forgot” to yellow tape the area. I’ve heard people say there’s no need to hear the 911 calls pledging allegiance to ISIS. I’ve heard people say obviously the gun store is lying about reporting to the FBI his attempt to buy armor, which would explain why the FBI and law enforcement report to have zero record of anyone calling a month ago to report Mateen. Those who refuse to believe anything outside of their established normal paradigm will always deny their own intelligence, reasoning, and logic.
The country is filled with idiots and liberals.
The Idea That For the 2nd Mass Shooting in a Row, Media Allowed to Trample Evidence at Shooter’s Home can mean only one thing… This must be another made for tv crisis event!!!
the really sad part about all of this, is that they can target any innocent civilians, and use them as patsies or set up’s, this man in the photo’s for example if he is innocent he will be killed or dead either way, because they have made him an instant target, and if this CIA was not a terrorist network, and was working for the benefit of the country and it’s people you would not be hearing about these terrorists that they have got their eye on, it would have been taken care of, that is why all these set up’s like the John and Robert Kennedy killings and Martin Luther King 911, That is why this CIA-MOSSAD Hit list goes on and on and on, ALL SABOTAGE we now know, SHIPS, PLANES,TRAINS it’s all theirs, Since 1946 at the end of world war two when it changed from the OSS To the CIA, they became the central Network of terror, they were never meant to be anything else, the only difference today is that they have incorporated MOSSAD and MI6, and this really is in Plain Site, they can target any country and any person anywhere in the World. and another thing is that they keep using the RUSSIANS as the diversion, and they are not the enemy and they never were, like I said the REAL ENEMY IS IN PLAIN SITE, it’s called ABI and that stands for AMERICA,BRITAIN, and ISRAEL.
part of obama’s policy of protecting islamic illegals not the american taxpaying citizens…
He is such a piece of chit.
Like Arlene below said, they can DO THIS to ANYONE these days! FRAME and then BLAME/MURDER YOU for ANYTHING under the Sun! It happened with Sandy Hoax and the Boston Fake-A-Thon. It CAN happen to YOU. Are you a “thought criminal?” Do you believe in the US Constitution and your “Rights?” Are you a traditional Christian and Bible believer? Are you a gun owner? Haha. Well, if so, better keep a watch on your 6 o’clock position.
Wow…I WONDER if the media are deliberately being allowed to do this by the powers-that-be? Nah…this is America! We’re not a corrupt banana republic. Er…wait…
Thanks a lot, el Presidente! You’ve created quite a cesspool over the past 7 years. I can’t wait to get a real American patriot in the Oval Office again.
Why not, after all they, the FBI found the passports of a couple of 9/11 hijackers after planes flew into the world trade towers.
The more times you tell a lie the more people believe it. I believe Hitler’s propaganda minster said something along those lines. That was seventy plus years ago.