Staff slowly return to 345 Park Avenue one week after New York's Midtown mass shooting

Independent

6 hours ago

A New York City office building where a gunman killed four people then himself has reopened a week after the deadly shootings.
On Monday, workers trickled back into 345 Park Avenue in Midtown Manhattan, a skyscraper home to high-profile tenants including the NFL and asset management firm Blackstone.
New York City police officers and a police dog were seen guarding the building, where a memorial and bouquets of flowers paid tribute the victims of the shooting: NYPD detective Didarul Islam, Blackstone executive Wesley LePatner, Rudin Management employee Julia Hyman and security officer Aland Etienne. An NFL employee was also wounded in the attack.
Blackstone employee Erma Hernandez told CBS News of returning to the building, "You think about your family. You think about your loved ones. You think about the lives that were lost and all the fear that came to us on Monday. But, again, we are here and it feels so much better to be in the office today to kind of go through this together.'
Blackstone employees were given the option of returning to the office or continuing to work from home and the NFL has reportedly told staff to continue working remotely until at least the end of the week.
Those who went into the office reported a quieter than normal atmosphere around the building.
"I feel a little sad because I don't see a lot of my customers, they are like family, they come every day," Maribel Macedo, the owner of Eggstravaganza food truck, told ABC 7 New York.
The nearby St. Bartholomew's church plans to host a public interfaith prayer service Monday evening.
Gunman Shane Tamura drove across the country from Las Vegas to the New York building where he last week fired 47 shots from an assault rifle in a shooting that spanned multiple floors of the Manhattan tower.
Tamura, 27, said in a note he believed he was suffering from chronic traumatic encephalopathy, a degenerative brain condition, that has been linked to the head trauma endured in contact sports such as football. CTE can only be diagnosed in studies of the brain after death.
The Nevada man, who played football in high school, appeared to target the building because of its tie to the NFL, officials said.
A former high school teammate told The Independent that Tamura took 'some big hits' that left him 'looking empty' during his football career.
Medical examiners plan to examine Tamura's brain as part of the autopsy process.