America has suffered another mass shooting, and this time it’s in a place that has enacted some of the strictest gun laws in the country, yet still, here we are.
27-year-old Shane Tamura killed five people, including himself, Monday evening at a midtown Manhattan office building, and according to ESPN, the NFL headquarters was his target. League employees might have been among the dead if not for Tamura taking the wrong elevator. Many high-profile Manhattan offices require security check-in and passes to access different floors, so it’s shocking that Tamura was even able to enter the elevator banks. NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell released an internal memo stating that one league employee was injured in the shooting and has been hospitalized in stable condition.
“We are deeply grateful to the law enforcement officers who responded to this threat quickly and decisively and to Officer Islam, who gave his life to protect others,” Goodell said.
NYPD investigators revealed that Tamura left a note on his person that seemed to blame the NFL for his longstanding mental illness that included chronic traumatic encephalopathy, more commonly known as CTE. ESPN noted that Tamura never played NFL football but did play high school football in California roughly twenty years ago.
The shooting took place at the prestigious 345 Park Avenue, which investment firm Blackstone also calls home. The company confirmed that Wesley LePatner, one of their beloved employees, was among the five deceased.
“Words cannot express the devastation we feel,” the firm said in a statement. “Wesley was a beloved member of the Blackstone family and will be sorely missed. She was brilliant, passionate, warm, generous, and deeply respected within our firm and beyond.”
An off-duty NYPD officer named Didarul Islam was also among the deceased and the first to be gunned down. Mayor Eric Adams explained what happened to Officer Islam during a subsequent press conference.
“Our officer, he was slain in the entryway to the right as soon as he entered the building, the suspect entered the building,” Adams said. “He appeared to have first walked past the officer and then he turned to his right, and saw him and discharged several rounds.”
CTE can only be discovered after a person has died and their brain can be studied. Although Tamura says he suffered from the debilitating brain disease, that can’t be confirmed until an autopsy is done by a medical examiner. While it won’t change the carnage he enacted on innocent people, there will likely be great interest in whether or not Tamura actually had CTE.
Rest in peace to those who lost their lives. Speedy recovery to those injured.
