Inside the nightmare at 345 Park Avenue, a Manhattan office tower under attack

Mint

6 days ago

Jon Ferrer was working late Monday evening, reviewing tax returns and trying to get a head start on the week. The KPMG senior tax associate said he heard a faint alarm when he was in the bathroom, but thought nothing of it.
Then an associate walked over to his desk and gave him the horrifying news: There was an active shooter in their office building. 'My heart sank to my stomach," Ferrer said.
He was ushered into a partner's office with about 15 co-workers, as colleagues pushed a desk across the door and put blankets up on windows in the room. They sat together in a circle.
As a gunman rampaged through 345 Park Ave., an unthinkable nightmare unfolded for the thousands of employees who work at the landmark New York office tower, which is home to such firms as the private-equity giant Blackstone and KPMG, as well as the National Football League.
In the end, four people were killed—an off-duty police officer, a security guard, a senior Blackstone executive and a real-estate firm employee—while others were hospitalized with injuries. The shooter, 27-year-old Shane Tamura from Las Vegas, left a suicide note saying he believed he had had chronic traumatic encephalopathy, a brain disease associated with head injuries, and he was apparently blaming the NFL.
The center of Manhattan is populated with fancy hotels and office towers including 345 Park that house banks, hedge funds, law and accounting firms, most of them under security protocols that restrict access to buildings. The appearance of security plus a reputation as a lower-crime environment has long kept most Midtown workers feeling safe.
But employees are adapting to a reality where grievances can be channeled into violence aimed at American corporations. Last year a brutal attack unfolded less than a 15-minute walk away, when UnitedHealthcare's chief executive officer was gunned down outside a Hilton hotel.
As Tamura entered the lobby of 345 Park at around 6:30 p.m., armed with what authorities said was an M4 rifle, a Blackstone star executive, Wesley LePatner, 43 years old, was on her way out to meet a colleague for a drink. She tried to take cover behind a pillar, but was shot and killed. The colleague she was meeting came down in the elevator and saw LePatner lying on the ground.
Meanwhile, word trickled up to employees still in the firm's offices, which span roughly two dozen floors. Blackstone employees got two automated messages in quick succession — the first said to evacuate the building and a second said to shelter in place and wait for the police to come.
A midlevel Blackstone employee was working late and heading downstairs to pick up her DoorDash dinner. She had already pressed the elevator button when the delivery driver messaged her with the news: There was a shooter in the lobby. She crammed into a mother's room, which requires a keycard to enter, along with several colleagues.
Another Blackstone employee came into the lobby right after the shooting and saw a chaotic scene. She and others ran to a storage room. When they realized they were trapped, they decided to take the service elevator up to another floor. There they found people still at their desks and told them to disperse. This person and around 15 others barricaded themselves in a bathroom.
Blackstone regularly holds active-shooter trainings for employees that reiterate the importance of 'ABC," a shorthand that instructs people facing a threat to avoid, barricade and, as a last resort, confront an assailant.
Blackstone President Jonathan Gray was in his office on the 44th floor when colleagues told him LePatner had been shot. Chief Executive Officer Stephen Schwarzman wasn't in the building.
A helicopter near the scene of the shooting Monday.
During his lobby firing spree, the shooter killed a New York Police Department officer, Didarul Islam, 36, as well as Aland Etienne, a security guard. He also hit an NFL employee who was on his way out. Commissioner Roger Goodell told staff after the shooting in a letter that the employee was 'seriously injured" but stable at a hospital.
There were no indications that Tamura breached the league's offices, which are on the fifth through eighth floors. Still, with word spreading of an active shooter, the employees who hadn't left for the day hunkered down and hid in the offices. Staff received notices of the attack and updates from the league's security service, with the first one arriving at 6:52 p.m.
'Gunfire reported outside 345 Park Ave," the message said. Another one, 14 minutes later, advised employees to shelter in place.
The league's floors in the building, with tributes, large photos and memorabilia in every direction, were turned into a makeshift shelter. Goodell wasn't in the building at the time of the attack.
Tamura appeared to have shot at one of the waist-high glass turnstiles in the building's lobby, a Blackstone employee said, before making his way onto an elevator. He rode up to the 33rd floor of the building, hoping to find the NFL offices but instead landed at the office of the real estate management firm Rudin Management. There, he killed a Rudin employee, Julia Hyman before shooting himself in the chest.
Office workers leaving an area near the scene of the shooting Monday.
Ferrer, the KPMG employee, said he and his colleagues spent two to three hours holed up in the partner's office, calling loved ones and following news and updates from leaders of the firm. 'We were pretty much freaked out until we got out of there," he said.
KPMG said it was 'not aware of any significant physical injuries" to its employees.
As night fell, police led employees of the buildings' tenants out floor by floor, starting with the higher floors. Some were still being escorted out of the building at around 10 p.m.
The building was closed to tenants Tuesday as investigators combed through the crime scenes. Gray teared up talking about LePatner on a call with Blackstone employees.
In an internal memo sent to employees early Tuesday, KPMG U.S. Chair and CEO Tim Walsh said the firm plans to provide counselors and other resources on the ground and virtually to employees. It reminded employees of a mental-health hotline that was available to call.
'Please stay safe and support each other," the memo said.
Write to Mark Maurer at [e-mail], Miriam Gottfried at [e-mail] and Andrew Beaton at [e-mail]