School records show Orlando nightclub shooter Omar Mateen was disruptive and sometimes violent in school, receiving suspensions totalling 48 days.
Records from Martin County, Florida, show Mateen attended three schools there, including time at an alternative school. The records show at least some of the suspensions were for fighting that involved injuries. Other suspensions were for unspecified rules violations.
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Mateen attended high school and part of middle school in Martin County. He attended elementary and early middle school in neighbouring St. Lucie County, where teachers regularly found him disruptive and struggling academically because of a lack of focus.
Records show Mateen withdrew from Martin County High School in 2003 and eventually graduated from Stuart Adult Community High School with a standard diploma.
According to the St. Lucie County school records, teachers found dealing with Omar Mateen difficult as early as third grade.
One teacher wrote that he’s “very active … constantly moving, verbally abusive, rude, aggressive.”
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The teacher noted he talked about violence and sex and had his hands “all over the place – on other children, in his mouth.”
The same teacher wrote that Mateen and another student sang the words “marijuana, marijuana” rather than the school’s song, “mariposa, mariposa.”
In seventh grade, school administrators moved Mateen to another class to “avoid conflicts with other students.” That same report said Mateen was doing poorly in several subjects because of behavioural problems.
In a 1999 letter to Mateen’s father, one of his middle school teachers wrote that the boy’s “attitude and inability to show self-control in the classroom create distractions.”
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