By Jennifer Peltz, Cedar Attanasio, Dave Collins and John Seewer
The Associated Press
NEW YORK (AP) — A gunman who killed four people inside a Manhattan office tower blamed his mental health problems on the National Football League and intended to target the league’s headquarters upstairs but took the wrong elevator, officials said .July 29.
Investigators said Shane Tamura, a Las Vegas casino worker, was carrying a handwritten note in his wallet that claimed he suffered from chronic traumatic encephalopathy, known at CTE, and accused the league of hiding the dangers of brain injuries linked to contact sports.
Tamura, 27, shot several people in the skyscraper’s lobby and another in a 33rd-floor office on July 28 before he killed himself, authorities said. Among the victims were an off-duty New York City police officer and a security guard.
The attacker’s grievances with the NFL emerged as police began piecing together the details of his life and the cross-country road trip that brought him to Manhattan. It’s unclear if Tamura showed symptoms of CTE, which can only be diagnosed by examining the brain after a person dies.
Tamura, who played high school football in California a decade ago but never played in the NFL, had a history of mental illness, police said. In the three-page note found on his body, he accused the NFL of concealing the dangers to players’ brains for profit. The degenerative brain disease has been linked to concussions and other repeated head trauma common in contact sports such as football
In the note, Tamura repeatedly said he was sorry and asked that his brain be studied for CTE. He mentioned a PBS Frontline documentary about the disease and referenced former NFL player Terry Long, who was diagnosed with CTE, and the manner in which Long killed himself in 2005.
The NFL long denied the link between football and CTE, but it acknowledged the connection in 2016 testimony before Congress and has paid more than $1.4 billion to retired players to settle concussion-related claims.
The shooting shakes Manhattan
NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell, who works out of the offices, called the shooting “an unspeakable act of violence in our building,” saying he was deeply grateful to the law enforcement officers who responded and to the one who gave his life to protect others.
Goodell said in a memo to staff that a league employee was seriously injured in the attack and was hospitalized in stable condition.
The shooting happened along Park Avenue, one the nation’s most recognized streets, and just blocks from Grand Central Terminal and Rockefeller Center. It’s also less than a 15-minute walk from where UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson was shot and killed last December by a man who prosecutors say was angry over corporate greed.
The attack drew a response from the White House, with President Donald Trump posting on social media, “My heart is with the families of the four people who were killed, including the NYPD Officer, who made the ultimate sacrifice.”
Video shows the gunman stroll into the building
Tamura, who worked security at the Horseshoe Las Vegas but failed to show up to his shift July 27, drove across the country over the past few days and into New York City just before the attack, Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch said.
Detectives plan to question a man who supplied parts for the AR-15-style rifle Tamura used July 28, including the weapon’s lower receiver, she said during a news conference.
Surveillance video showed Tamura getting out of a BMW early on the evening of July 28 and strolling across a plaza in a button-down shirt and jacket with the rifle at his side before he entered the building, which also has offices for the investment firm Blackstone and other companies. It was closed July 29 except to investigators.
Once inside, he sprayed the lobby with gunfire, killing Didarul Islam, the off-duty police officer who was working a corporate security detail, and hitting a woman who tried to take cover, Tisch said. He then made his way to the elevator bank, shooting a guard at a security desk and another man in the lobby, she said.
“He appeared to have first walked past the officer and then he turned to his right, and saw him and discharged several rounds,” Adams said in a TV interview.
Tamura took an elevator to the 33rd-floor offices of the company that owns the building, Rudin Management, and shot and killed someone there before fatally shooting himself, the commissioner said.
He shot himself in the chest, according to Adams.
Blackstone confirmed that one of its employees, real estate executive Wesley LePatner, was among those killed. Security officer Aland Etienne also died, according to a labor union.
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This story was updated to correct that Tamura played high school football about a decade ago, not nearly two decades ago.
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Collins reported from Hartford, Connecticut, and Seewer from Toledo, Ohio. Associated Press reporters Mike Balsamo, Philip Marcelo and Julie Walker in New York; Rob Maaddi and Maryclaire Dale in Philadelphia, Mike Catalini in Trenton, New Jersey; and Eric Tucker in Washington contributed to this report.
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