Trump blames Muslim community for not reporting Orlando shooter

Presidential candidate told CNN he thought Orlando nightclub shooter Omar Mateen was known to people in the Muslim community as someone with a potential for violence.

Republican US presidential candidate Donald Trump addresses the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) in Washington (photo credit: REUTERS)
Republican US presidential candidate Donald Trump addresses the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) in Washington
(photo credit: REUTERS)
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump faulted the Muslim community on Monday for not reporting people like the man who carried out the Orlando gay nightclub attack, killing 49 people and wounding 53 others.
Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee for president, told CNN he thought Orlando nightclub shooter Omar Mateen was known to people in the Muslim community as someone with a potential for violence.
"You will find that many people that knew him felt that he was a whack job ... (that) something like this would have happened," Trump told CNN in a phone interview. "People that knew him, the ex-wife, other people. They don't report them. For some reason the Muslim community does not report people like this."
Trump said the United States needed better intelligence-gathering to prevent such things from happening.
"We have to look at the mosques ... and we have to look at the community," he said. "And believe me, the community knows the people that have the potential to blow up.
Meanwhile, Democratic Presidential potential Hillary Clinton said that the US must protect national security but not demonize Muslims.
Clinton called for "statesmanship, not partisanship" in the aftermath of the shooting in Orlando while Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee, urged the monitoring of mosques in the United States and reiterated his calls for a temporary ban on Muslims entering the country.

Clinton, in several television interviews, said she would support stronger measures to prevent so-called lone wolf attacks and urged closer internet monitoring. She said she was committed to protecting the rights of Muslim Americans at the same time.

"We cannot demonize, demagogue and declare war on an entire religion. That is just dangerous," Clinton said on the MSNBC network.

She also called for steps to prevent people who are on the U.S. no-fly list from purchasing guns and said possible restrictions on assault weapons needed to be part of the debate.