Shooter in New York skyscraper blamed NFL for brain injury, mayor says

RNZ News

2 days ago

By
Lananh Nguyen, Doina Chiacu
and
Brendan O'Brien,
Reuters
The man who
killed four people with an assault rifle
while rampaging through a Midtown Manhattan office tower carried a note with him that appeared to blame the National Football League for his degenerative brain disease, New York Mayor Eric Adams said on Tuesday (US time).
Police have identified the shooter as Shane Tamura, a 27-year-old Las Vegas resident with a history of mental illness. Tamura ended the Monday evening massacre by shooting himself in the chest on the 33rd floor of the Park Avenue office tower.
The NFL has its headquarters in the skyscraper alongside major financial firms, but Tamura apparently entered the wrong elevator bank and ended up in the offices of Rudin Management, a real estate company, where he shot employees, the mayor said.
"The note alluded to that he felt he had CTE, a known brain injury for those who participate in contact sports," Adams told CBS News. "He appeared to have blamed the NFL for his injury."
The man they believe to be the gunman walking into the building.
Photo:
Obtained by CNN
Chronic traumatic encephalopathy is a serious brain disease with no known treatment that can be caused by repeated bangs to the head while playing contact sports. It has been linked to aggression and dementia.
The NFL has paid more than US$1 billion (NZ$1.6b) to settle concussion-related lawsuits with thousands of retired players after the deaths of several high-profile players in the top professional American football league.
Tamura was never an NFL player, but online records show he played football at his California high school and was a varsity player at a Los Angeles charter school until graduating in 2016, according to school sports databases. The note found in his wallet said his football career was cut short by his brain injury, Bloomberg News reported.
A former coach, Walter Roby, told Fox News that Tamura was a "quiet, hard worker" during the year he spent on the team at Granada Hills Charter School. "He was, you know, one of my top offensive players at the time," Roby said.
Blackstone also has its headquarters in the tower, and the private equity firm said Wesley LePatner, a senior executive who oversaw some of Blackstone's real estate operations, was among those Tamura killed, and several colleagues were injured and taken to hospital.
Many of the offices near the site of shooting, including Blackstone's, were closed on Tuesday morning. Those who returned to the area, home of some of the country's financial powerhouses, were shaken by the proximity of the violence.
"We are very saddened about the tragic loss of life ... thankfully, everyone at (our) firm is safe," said Mitchell S Nussbaum, co-chair of law firm Loeb & Loeb, which has offices on the 18th to 22nd floors of the building.
The yellow mark shows where the shooting took place.
Photo:
Supplied/Maps
The shooting follows last year's killing
of a top UnitedHealth executive
outside a hotel about three blocks away from Monday's rampage. Prosecutors say the man charged with that murder targeted his victim as a symbol of corporate greed.
Tamura also killed a New York Police Department officer, Didarul Islam, 36, who came from Bangladesh and had been on the force three years, the mayor said.
US President Donald Trump said his "heart is with the families of the four people who were killed, including the NYPD Officer, who made the ultimate sacrifice".
An NFL employee was also injured in the shooting and was in stable condition at a hospital, according to a memo sent by NFL commissioner Roger Goodell to league staff. Goodell wrote there would be "increased security presence" at the league's offices "in the days and weeks to come".
Tamura appeared to have driven to New York City from Las Vegas over three days and to have acted alone, New York Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch told reporters on Monday night.
He entered the skyscraper's lobby, turned to his right and immediately shot the NYPD officer, who was assigned to the building's security detail, Tisch said. She said Tamura used an M4 carbine, a semi-automatic rifle popular with civilian US gun enthusiasts modeled on a fully automatic rifle used by the US military.
He then shot a woman and two men in the lobby but inexplicably allowed another woman to pass him unharmed before he took the elevator to the 33rd-floor offices of Rudin Management. There he fatally shot his final victim before taking his own life, Tisch said. A widely circulated photo showed the permit issued to Tamura by the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department allowing him to legally carry a concealed firearm. He had recently worked as a security guard at a Las Vegas casino, Fox 11 news channel in Los Angeles reported.
On two occasions, in 2022 and 2024, records show law enforcement officials detained him for up to 72 hours under a "mental health crisis hold", which requires the detainee to be evaluated at a hospital, ABC News reported.
A loaded revolver was later recovered from the black BMW vehicle Tamura had left double-parked outside the office tower, along with a backpack and prescription medications, Tisch said.
-Reuters