Gunman kills 4 at NYC office building, including NYPD officer and Blackstone executive: Here's everything we know
A man armed with a high-powered rifle entered an office building in midtown Manhattan on Monday and opened fire, killing four people, including an off-duty New York City police officer, and wounding another before killing himself, officials say.
The shooting occurred at 345 Park Avenue, a 44-story hi-rise whose tenants include the National Football League and the financial services firms KPMG and Blackstone, among others.
The suspected gunman was identified as 27-year-old Shane Devon Tamura of Las Vegas. According to multiple news outlets, Tamura was carrying a note that suggested he was suffering from chronic traumatic encephalopathy or "CTE," a brain disease caused by head trauma that has been linked to NFL players.
The note reportedly made reference to Terry Long, a former offensive lineman for the Pittsburgh Steelers who killed himself in 2005 by drinking antifreeze.
'Study my brain please,' the note said, according to the New York Times. 'I'm sorry.'
How the shooting unfolded
According to police, surveillance footage showed the suspect exit a double-parked BMW around 6:30 p.m. carrying an M4 rifle, walk across a public plaza and enter the building. Once inside the lobby, he began "spraying it with gunfire," New York Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch said.
Tamura shot four people in the lobby, including an NYPD officer who was working as a corporate security detail, officials said. He then took the elevator to the 33rd-floor offices of Rudin, a building management firm, where he shot and killed another person before fatally shooting himself in the chest, according to authorities.
New York City Mayor Eric Adams said Tuesday that it appeared Tamura was trying to get to the NFL offices but took the wrong elevator. The NFL's offices are on the fifth through eighth floors.
'He mistakenly went up the wrong elevator bank,' Adams said.
Employees on other floors barricaded themselves when they heard the gunfire.
Jessica Chen told ABC News she was watching a presentation on the second floor when she heard multiple shots go off 'in quick succession' on the floor below her. Chen said she and dozens of others rushed into a conference room, barricaded themselves inside using tables and "just stayed still.'
She texted her parents saying she loved them.
"I think it was very, very apparent through all this that a lot of us were young, a lot of us went through training in elementary school of what to do in an active shooter situation," Chen added. "We were all unfortunately prepared."
Staffers throughout the building were told to shelter in place.
What we know about the victims
The off-duty NYPD officer killed in the shooting was identified as 36-year-old Didarul Islam, a married father of two whose wife is pregnant.
Islam, who emigrated to the United States from Bangladesh, was a member of the NYPD's 47th Precinct in the Bronx. He had been with the NYPD for more than three years.
"He put himself in harm's way. He made the ultimate sacrifice,' Tisch said. 'He died as he lived: a hero.'
Wesley LePatner, a 43-year-old real estate executive at Blackstone, was among those killed in the shooting.
'Words cannot express the devastation we feel,' the company 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.'
According to her LinkedIn profile, LePatner was a Yale graduate who joined the firm in 2014 after spending more than a decade at Goldman Sachs. She also served on the board of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
NFL commissioner Roger Goodell said that one of the league's employees was 'seriously injured' in the shooting.
"One of our employees was seriously injured in this attack,' Goodell wrote in a memo to staff late Monday, according to Yahoo Sports. 'He is currently in the hospital and in stable condition. NFL staff are at the hospital and we are supporting his family. We believe that all of our employees are otherwise safe and accounted for, and the building has nearly been cleared."
What we know about the suspect
Tamura was a former high school football player who had a 'documented mental health history,' Tisch said.
He had a license to carry a concealed weapon in the state of Nevada, the commissioner said, adding: "We believe this to be a lone shooter"
"Those holds typically allow a person to be detained for up to 72 hours if they are thought to be a danger to themselves or others," per ABC News.
Authorities believe that Tamura had recently driven across the country. His vehicle was seen in Colorado on Saturday, Nebraska and Iowa on Sunday, and in New Jersey on Monday afternoon before entering New York City.
Inside the vehicle, police found a rifle case with rounds, ammunition magazines and a loaded revolver, as well as prescription medication, Tisch said.
He had a license to carry a concealed weapon in the state of Nevada, the commissioner said, adding: "We believe this to be a lone shooter."
Former classmates stunned
Tamura attended high school at Granada Hills Charter School in Los Angeles, where he played football.
Former classmates, teammates and coaches toid NBC News that they were shocked to learn Tamura was a suspect in the shooting.
'This is so shocking,' said Anthony Michael Leon, a former teammate. 'I'm telling you, this was one of those kids who never exerted bad energy or a negative attitude.'
'You never would have thought violence was something you'd associate with him,' said Caleb Clarke, a former classmate.
Walter Roby, his former football coach, remembered Tamura as a talented running back.
'He came in, worked hard, kept his nose down,' Roby said. 'He was a quiet kid, well-mannered, very coachable. Whatever needed to be done, he would do.'
Roby said he was stunned that to hear Tamura identified as the suspect in Monday's rampage.
'I'm just blown away right now,' Roby said.
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A new law could have led to the Manhattan shooter's guns being confiscated. It went into effect a month before the rampage
Crime Gun violence Mental health Gun controlFacebookTweetLink Follow A new Nevada law that went into effect last month gives police officers the power to confiscate firearms from a person placed on a mental health crisis hold. Experts say it was designed to work in cases like the gunman who opened fire in a Manhattan office building on July 28. Shane Devon Tamura, 27, of Las Vegas, owned guns and was placed on a psychiatric hold in 2022 and 2024 after his mother reported to police her son was threatening to take his own life, according to records from the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department. Tamura had a Nevada license to carry a concealed weapon when he killed four people at the 345 Park Avenue office building in New York and injured another before he died by suicide, police said. The key to the state's new law is it allows police to confiscate the firearms of someone experiencing a mental health crisis before a court's ruling. 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The two incidents were 'critical touchpoints' where the red flag law could have been triggered, and they represent one of the major indicators of future acts of violence, which is when those closest to the individual have tried to intervene, according to Christian Heyne, a gun violence survivor and the chief programs and policy officer at Brady, a gun violence prevention organization. 'These tools exist, but even when people are calling law enforcement, they may not be aware they have the ability to prevent them from purchasing firearms or possessing them or pushing law enforcement to pursue these tools as well,' said Heyne. The law is not widespread nationally, but states such as Texas, Florida and California have similar ones with variations. All 50 states have a legal procedure for taking a person into custody for a mental health crisis hold but not all of them have added a provision about what to do if they possess or own guns, according to Chittum. Depending on the circumstances of his psychiatric holds, which are still unclear, Tamura would not have necessarily been prohibited from obtaining his license in 2022 or buying firearms because of the holds alone, gun law experts say. Under federal law, only involuntary commitments or an 'adjudication of mental defectiveness' are disqualifying, Chittum said. The federal government and most states – with some variations – restrict firearm ownership in cases where a person was declared incompetent by a court, faced a restraining order, involuntarily committed or deemed a danger to themselves or others due to a mental illness, Chittum said. An extreme risk protection order, or red flag law, allows law enforcement or family members to petition a court to seize a person's guns in cases where they pose a danger to themselves or others. 'It might have worked in this case if they had sought an ERPO, which goes into the background check system and would have blocked him from buying a firearm,' Chittum said of Tamura. Gun rights advocates who oppose such laws argue they deprive a person of their Second Amendment rights without having been convicted of a crime, according to Chittum. The Nevada Firearms Coalition, a gun rights group, wrote a letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee members, strongly opposing the bill and comparing it to the red flag law. 'The entire purpose and point of individual constitutional rights is that they must be protected by the government, and cannot be taken away by the government without due process,' the coalition's president Duncan Rand Mackie wrote. Mackie said rules around 'the confiscation and return of the firearms are vague, and both place an undue, unconstitutional, and expensive burden on the accused for the return of his property, ownership of which is a constitutional right.' 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'Must we wait until they've committed a crime and been convicted? That's the tension – we've got to do something and yet we've got this right, so how do we protect it?' In previous high court cases where police took away someone's firearms under the 'umbrella' term of community caretaking, they were sued and the court determined such justification does not give officers blanket authority to seize them, according to Chittum. One of those cases is Caniglia v. Strom. Police confiscated firearms from a man they took for observation, and he later sued them for violating his Fourth Amendment rights of unreasonable seizure of property. While the First Circuit Court approved the seizure under the community caretaking function, the Supreme Court ruled it was not a 'blanket exception' and remanded, Chittum said. 'On remand, the court found the officers had qualified immunity because it wasn't settled law,' he added. In another case last year, U.S. v. 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