Investigators are looking into whether a Las Vegas man who went on a deadly shooting spree in Manhattan Monday was targeting the National Football League after it emerged that the gunman was a former Los Angeles high school football player with a documented mental health history.
New York Mayor Eric Adams said Tuesday that the shooter, identified by law enforcement officials as 27-year-old Shane Tamura, appeared to have a grievance with the N.F.L but ended up on the wrong floor.
“He seemed to have blamed the N.F.L.,” the mayor told the WPIX-TV news station. “The N.F.L. headquarters was located in the building, and he mistakenly went up the wrong elevator bank.”
Law enforcement officials have said that Tamura marched into a 44-story office tower on Park Avenue that is the headquarters of the N.F.L and investment firm Blackstone, at around 6:25 pm Monday carrying an M4 assault rifle in his right hand. He immediately opened fire in the lobby, shooting first an NYPD officer, then a woman who took cover behind a pillar and a security guard behind the security desk.
After spraying more gunfire across the lobby, the gunman got into an elevator and went to the 33rd floor, which houses the Rudin Management real estate firm. He then walked around the floor, firing more rounds and shooting and killing another person, before walking down a hallway and fatally shooting himself in the chest. Four people died in the attack along with Tamura.
“Mr. Tamura has a documented mental health history,” New York City Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch said Monday night at a news conference, citing Las Vegas law enforcement. “His motives are still under investigation, and we are working to understand why he targeted this particular location.”
Tamura, who was a celebrated varsity high school player at Golden Valley High School in Santa Clarita and Granada Hills Charter School in the San Fernando Valley, had a suicide note in his back pocket alleging that he suffered from CTE, a brain disease linked to head trauma, CNN reported, citing a source with knowledge of the investigation.
In the short three-page note, he appeared to blame football for his problems, referencing former Pittsburgh Steelers player Terry Long, who died by suicide after drinking antifreeze in 2005, and expressing grievances with the N.F.L.
“Terry Long football gave me CTE and it caused me to drink a gallon of antifreeze,” the gunman allegedly wrote. “You can’t go against the NFL, they’ll squash you,” the note said, according to the source.
“Study my brain please,” the note added. “Tell Rick I’m sorry for everything,”
N.F.L. commissioner Roger Goodell reportedly said an NFL employee was seriously injured in the attack. A person with knowledge of the situation told The Times that most of the NFL employees had left by the time the shooter entered the building and that the building was cleared by police from the top down, floor by floor.
Gov. Kathy Hochul of New York on Tuesday called the shooting a “horrific act of violence,” noting that one of the victims was NYPD officer Didarul Islam, who had been in the force for three and a half years and left behind a wife who was eight months pregnant and two young sons. A Bangladeshi immigrant, Islam was off duty at the time of the shooting, working as a security officer in the skyscraper.
“My heart is with his loved ones, his NYPD family and every victim of this tragedy,” Hochul said in a statement.
Hochul also called on Congress to limit the sale of military-grade rifles. The state of New York passed some of the strongest gun laws in the nation, she noted, “but our laws only go so far when an AR-15 can be obtained in a state with weak gun laws and brought into New York to commit mass murder.”
“The time to act is now,” Hochul said. “Congress must summon the courage to stand up to the gun lobby and finally pass a national assault weapons ban before more innocent lives are stolen.”
Tamura played football at Golden Valley High School in the Canyon Country neighborhood of Santa Clarita for three years before transferring to Granada Hills Charter School for his senior year in 2015.
Dan Kelley, Golden Valley coach, said only that he remembered Tamura as “a good athlete.”
In his senior year at Granada Hills, the 5-foot-7, 140-pound player had 126 carries, 600 rushing yards and five touchdowns, according to MaxPreps. He also won several “player of the game” awards.
A 2015 video that circulated on social media Monday night showed Tamura as a high school football player celebrating a win for the Granada Hills Highlanders.
In a post-game interview after a 35-31 win over Kennedy High, Tamura was hailed as a “stand-out running back” by a reporter from the Los Angeles Daily News and asked how the team came through.
“We definitely had to stay disciplined,” Tamura said, noting the team was down 10-0 in the first quarter. “Our coach kept saying, ‘Don’t hold your heads down. Don’t hold your heads down.’ … We just had to stay disciplined and come together as a team.”
Tamura scored several touchdowns, the reporter noted, including a pivotal one in the fourth quarter with under four minutes to go.
Tamura graduated in 2016, MaxPreps said.
The initial investigation indicates that Tamura had traveled from Las Vegas to New York, driving a black BMW cross country through Colorado, Nebraska and New Jersey over the weekend.
Law enforcement said that officers searched the vehicle the gunman double parked on Park Avenue between 51st and 52nd streets and found a rifle case with rounds, a loaded revolver ammunition and magazines, a backpack and medication prescribed to Tamura. No explosives were inside.
Times staff writers Eric Sondheimer and Sam Farmer contributed to this report.
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