Veteran G4S Security Guard Murders 49 In Orlando

Maybe G4S will fire him now...

...if the terrorist were on-duty, the company would be bankrupt quickly.

Morally I agree with the sentiment.

Legally, though I think the mere fact of him being on the clock or not has little bearing to their liability, all other facts staying the same.

Which makes it even more pathetic that they are stressing this point.

If he is a model security officer -- as stated above

Where did G4S say he was a 'model security officer'? I had not seen anything like that.

All the details will come out over the next few months. If that does turn out to be the case, it will be good for G4S.

Minimally, it is reasonable that G4S is put under a microscope until authorities can determine all the details. Similarly, you would think large end users of G4S would need to do the same.

I suspect they be a lot of hot air then after a while it will all be forgotten or brushed under the carpet.

They should be held accountable!

For this shooting?

no one on the record or off is saying what reasons they gave for requesting he be removed.

First of all, the courthouse did not request Mateen simply be removed, they requested 'immediate removal'.

So you are assuming now that the courthouse would not tell their security provider G4S the reason for the 'immediate removal', and that G4S either did not ask or could not find out from asking the 'colleagues' at the courthouse that he made this threat to. That is a highly unreasonable assumption.

Next, G4S demoted him:

the shift was from an armed position to one considered unarmed

So G4S demoted Mateen from protecting a courthouse to checking retiree's IDs, even though, according to your interpretation, G4S had no idea why the courthouse required his 'immediate removal'.

Your basing this on this paragraph:

The G4S official said he did not know the specific details of the transfer except that it did not appear to be for disciplinary or precautionary reasons. "It's not as if a decision was taken that he was never again going to be given an armed position," he said.

Notice the G4S person is heavily qualifying his response - 'did not know the specific details', 'did not appear to be'. But the official contradicts himself at the end by acknowledging that he was, at least then, demoted from an armed to an unarmed position. If G4S had no knowledge of what happened at the courthouse (which again is unreasonable to assume), why demote him to an unarmed position even then?

Finally, the end of the report confirms that G4S talked to Mateen about this:

After the transfer, Mateen had at least one discussion with G4S about the events before the matter was considered resolved.

Now, it is not clear how G4S 'resolved' this but it is unreasonable to assume they did not know that Mateen made threats.

More evidence from another G4S official that G4S absolutely knew about these threats. See Exclusive: PGA Village residents want answers from security firm

Money quote:

In an interview with G4S management shortly after the courthouse comments, Mateen told his superiors he was the target of inflammatory comments from co-workers because of his Islamic faith, Levine said. The interview, Levine said, took place shortly after the Boston Marathon bombings, which was carried out by two Islamic extremist brothers. Levine said Mateen claimed his co-workers on one occasion asked him what suicide vest he was wearing on a particular day.

G4S concluded Mateen worked in a hostile environment and did not fire him, [G4S] Levine said.

So G4S knew about the threats but decided that Mateen was the victim here. Quite a mistake.