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NEW YORK: A man who killed four people and then committed suicide in a New York skyscraper late on Monday (Jul 28) may have been targeting the National Football League’s (NFL) offices because he believed the league was responsible for his brain injuries, Mayor Eric Adams said on Tuesday.
The attacker, identified as 27-year-old Shane Tamura, left a suicide note referring to chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), a degenerative brain disease linked to contact sports, Adams told CBS News.
“He felt he had CTE, a known brain injury for those who participated in contact sports. He appeared to have blamed the NFL for his injury,” Adams said.
Authorities said Tamura, who never played in the NFL but was a standout high school football player in California, also asked in his note that his brain be preserved for CTE testing, The New York Times reported.
GUNMAN MISSED TARGET FLOOR
The shooting began outside the tower on Park Avenue when Tamura shot and killed a police officer, before opening fire in the lobby with a semi-automatic rifle.
A female bystander and a security guard were hit, preventing the guard from pressing a panic button that would have stopped the elevators from working, Adams said.
"As the guard attempted to hide himself behind the counter, he was killed as well, and the suspect then took the elevator upstairs," Adams said, explaining that the gunman mistakenly ended up on the 33rd floor, which houses the building's management offices.
He shot and killed another person on that floor before turning the gun on himself. One NFL employee was seriously injured in the attack but is now stable in hospital, NFL commissioner Roger Goodell said in a statement to employees.
BLOODY CROSS-COUNTRY JOURNEY
New York Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch said Tamura had a history of mental health issues. Authorities revealed he had driven across the country from Nevada to New York in a black BMW before carrying out the attack.
The police officer killed was a 36-year-old immigrant from Bangladesh, Adams said.
President Donald Trump called the mass shooting a "senseless act of violence" carried out by a "lunatic".
The mass shooting prompted a massive police response in midtown Manhattan, not far from the scene where UnitedHealthcare's CEO was fatally shot by a disgruntled man last December.
Office worker Shad Sakib told AFP he was preparing to leave for the day when the building's public address system instructed employees to shelter in place. "Everyone was confused," he said.
There have been 254 mass shootings in the United States so far this year, including Monday’s attack in New York, according to the Gun Violence Archive, which defines a mass shooting as four or more people shot.
