Hey, New York City taxpayers… did you know that your police officers went on a trip to Saudi Arabia with Orlando terrorist Omar Mateen? So, you got that going for you. Which is nice.
Mateen, the murderer of 49 people at a gay nightclub in Orlando, was invited along with a group that went to Mecca on an annual Umrah trip organized by the Islamic Center at New York University.
One wonders how many tax dollars were used to facilitate this trip? The story comes from the Wall Street Journal, but doesn’t detail just how this trip was all paid for.
Besides the payment, though, the trip also included a group of Muslim New York Police officers. According to the New York Daily News:
The gunman who slaughtered 49 people at an Orlando nightclub traveled to Saudi Arabia in 2012 with a group from New York that included 12 Muslim NYPD officers, according to reports.
Omar Mateen made the trip as part of an annual pilgrimage led by the Islamic Center at New York University, according to the Wall Street Journal.
About 80 people were on the trip for Umrah, a religious pilgrimage taken by millions of devout Muslims to Mecca and Medina.
Groups from Columbia and Yale universities, as well as about 40 people from an NYPD contingent were on the journey, the university told the newspaper in a statement.
Authorities are investigating this trip to see who Mateen met with when he got to Saudi Arabia, but chances are they won’t find much out.