NEW YORK (AP) — A gunman who killed four people at a Manhattan office building before killing himself was trying to target the headquarters of the National Football League but took the wrong elevator, Mayor Eric Adams said Tuesday.
Investigators believe Shane Tamura, of Las Vegas, was trying to get to the NFL offices after shooting several people Monday in the building's lobby but accidentally entered the wrong set of elevator banks, Adams said in interviews.
Four people, including off-duty New York City Police Officer Didarul Islam, were killed. Police said Tamura had a history of mental illness, and a rambling note found on his body suggested that he had a grievance against the NFL over a claim that he suffered from chronic traumatic encephalopathy, which can only be diagnosed after someone has died. He played high school football in California nearly two decades ago, but he never played in the NFL.
"He seemed to have blamed the NFL," the mayor told WPIX-TV. "The NFL headquarters was located in the building, and he mistakenly went up the wrong elevator bank."
NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell said in a memo to staff that a league employee was seriously injured in the attack and was 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.
The note found on Tamura claimed he had been suffering from CTE — the degenerative brain disease that has been linked to concussions and other repeated head trauma common in contact sports like football — and said his brain should be studied after he died, two people familiar with the matter told The Associated Press.
It also specifically referenced the NFL, one of the people familiar with the matter said.
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, and Monday's attack could bring further attention to security in the business world.
President Donald Trump said Tuesday that he knows that area of Manhattan well.
"I trust our Law Enforcement Agencies to get to the bottom of why this crazed lunatic committed such a senseless act of violence. My heart is with the families of the four people who were killed, including the NYPD Officer, who made the ultimate sacrifice," Trump posted on social media.
Building houses NFL HQ, KPMG, Blackstone and Rudin Management
In addition to housing the NFL's headquarters, the skyscraper is home to the investment firm Blackstone and other companies.
Blackstone confirmed that one of its employees, Wesley LePatner, was among those killed.
"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."
A Yale graduate, LePatner was a real estate executive at Blackstone, according to the firm's website, and spent more than a decade at Goldman Sachs before joining the firm in 2014.
Surveillance video showed the man exiting a double-parked BMW just before 6:30 p.m. carrying an M4 rifle, then marching across a public plaza into the building. Then, he started firing, Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch said, killing a police officer working a corporate security detail and then hitting a woman who tried to take cover as he sprayed the lobby with gunfire.
The man then made his way to the elevator bank and shot a guard at a security desk and shot another man in the lobby, the commissioner said.
"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 in a TV interview. "He appeared to have first walked past the officer and then he turned to his right, and saw him and discharged several rounds."
The man took the elevator to the 33rd floor offices of the company that owned the building, Rudin Management, and shot and killed one person on that floor. The man then shot himself, the commissioner said. The building, 345 Park Avenue, also holds offices of the financial services firm KPMG.
The officer killed was an immigrant
Islam was a 36-year-old immigrant from Bangladesh who had served as a police officer in New York City for 3½ years, Tisch said at a news conference.
His body was draped in the NYPD flag as it was moved from the hospital to an ambulance, with fellow officers standing at attention.
"He was doing the job that we asked him to do. He put himself in harm's way. He made the ultimate sacrifice," Tisch said. "He died as he lived: a hero."
Adams said one challenge of the investigation has been that Tamura only arrived in New York shortly before the shooting, leaving few clues in the area.
The mayor said it's also a challenge for law enforcement "dealing with those who come from areas with lax gun laws that allow individuals to have these high-powered weapons into cities like New York that have strong gun laws."
