NY shooting victim Julia Hyman made it into panic room before she stepped out and was immediately gunned down

News.com.au

5 days ago

Midtown mass shooting victim Julia Hyman had made it into a fortified panic room at 345 Park Avenue when gunman Shane Tamura started blasting apart her office, but stepped out for a moment and was 'immediately' gunned down, according to a tragic new timeline of the deadly rampage.
Ms Hyman, a 27-year-old employee of Rudin Management, dashed into a panic room hidden in a 33rd-floor bathroom on Monday evening as Tamura stepped out of the elevator and began firing off an assault rifle, officials familiar with the investigation told the New York Post.
The panic room was fitted with a ballistic door, locking bolts, a hardwired phone, and even a live camera feed looking out on the hall, officials said.
Tamura, 27, had fired through a glass wall after stepping off the elevator and kicked through the broken glass to get inside the Rudin offices and then began spraying bullets through glass office doors and walls.
He fired at a female cleaner who was pushing a garbage cart through the hall, but missed as she ran away.
There was a brief pause in the gunfire and then — for reasons unclear — Ms Hyman stepped out of the bathroom panic room, and was instantly shot by Tamura, officials said.
Wounded, the Cornell grad crawled to a desk, reached out for a phone, and collapsed.
Moments later, Tamura pointed the gun at his own chest and pulled the trigger, killing himself.
The heartbreaking details come from a timeline pieced together using witness statements and security footage from inside the building, which housed offices of the NFL headquarters that Tamura is believed to have been targeting.
The shooting play-by-play also revealed that Tamura grew 'visibly angry' when he saw the Rudin Management logo after stepping off the elevator onto the wrong floor.
Despite realising he was not on the NFL HQ floor and Hyman was not one of his intended targets, he still killed the young employee who had worked at Rudin for less than a year.
Tamura's rampage began when he stormed the building's lobby at 6.27pm after pulling his assault rifle from his BMW, which he'd double-parked outside the Midtown tower.
Once inside, he immediately started shooting up the lobby, and gunned down NYPD officer Didarul Islam, 36, as he sat behind the front desk in full uniform, police said.
By then, security guard Aland Etienne, 46, started running for the building's elevator lockdown panel, but Tamura shot him too.
Mr Etienne still desperately tried to reach the lockdown panel and crawled bloodied across the lobby floor, but collapsed before he could make it.
Tamura next shot NFL employee Craig Clementi, who was wounded but survived.
Blackstone executive Wesley Le Patner, 43, was fatally gunned down next as she sprinted for cover that she never reached.
The gunman then boarded an elevator — allowing a woman to exit unscathed — and rode it to the 33rd floor, where he killed Ms Hyman.
The 27-year-old was remembered at a funeral packed with hundreds of mourners Wednesday.
'With seemingly innate emotional intelligence, Julia knew how to connect in a deep and meaningful way with those around her. Julia was truly wise beyond her age,' her uncle said.
'Julia knew this and lived life with wide open eyes and courage and conviction. She didn't just go to the party. She planned it all, made the playlist and served as the DJ.'