The gunman who fatally shot four people inside a Midtown Manhattan skyscraper was carrying a suicide note blaming the National Football League (NFL) for a brain condition he believed he had, New York City Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch revealed on Tuesday.
The shooter, identified as 27-year-old Shane Tamura, was a Las Vegas casino security officer and former high school football player with a known history of mental illness. Authorities said he entered the Park Avenue high-rise on Monday armed with an assault-style rifle and opened fire.
Tamura killed two security guards—one of them a city police officer on special detail—as well as a real estate executive and a business management associate before turning the gun on himself on the building’s 33rd floor.
An NFL employee was among several others shot in the lobby area of the building, which houses the league’s headquarters along with offices of major financial firms. The NFL staffer was critically injured in what city officials described as the deadliest mass shooting in New York City in 25 years.
Officials believe Tamura was targeting the NFL but ended up in the wrong section of the building after taking an incorrect elevator bank, ultimately entering the offices of Rudin Management, the real estate company that owns the property.
Commissioner Tisch, in a video statement posted online, said a suicide note recovered at the scene points to a potential motive.
“In the note, Tamura claimed to be suffering from CTE, possibly as a result of playing high school football, and he blamed the NFL for his condition,” she said.
CTE, or chronic traumatic encephalopathy, is a degenerative brain disease linked to repeated head trauma and has been found in the brains of numerous former football players.
Authorities continue to investigate Tamura’s background and the circumstances that led to the shooting.
