LAST UPDATE | 29 Jul

A GUNMAN WHO killed four people at a Manhattan office building may have been targeting the NFL offices there because he blamed the American football league for brain injuries he said he suffered, according to New York City mayor Eric Adams.

Investigators believe 27-year-old Shane Tamura, of Las Vegas, was trying to get to the NFL offices after shooting several people in the building’s lobby but accidentally entered the wrong set of lifts, Adams told reporters today. 

An off-duty New York City police officer was among the four people killed by Tamura. 

Tamura died today in the incident by suicide.

Police said Tamura had a history of mental illness and that evidence found suggested that he had a grievance against the NFL over an unsubstantiated claim that he suffered from chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE).

He had played American football in high school in California but never in the NFL.

“He seemed to have blamed the NFL,” Adams said. “The NFL headquarters was located in the building, and he mistakenly went up the wrong elevator bank.”

The note claimed he had been suffering from CTE – the degenerative brain disease that has been linked to concussions and other repeated head trauma common in contact sports — and said his brain should be studied after he died, two people familiar with the matter told the Associated Press.

It also specifically referenced the NFL, one of the people familiar with the matter said.

A motive has not been determined but investigators were looking into, based on the note, whether he might have specifically targeted the building because it is home to the NFL’s headquarters.

US President Donald Trump condemned the shooting as a “senseless act of violence” by a “crazed lunatic”.

NYPD officers stand in line during the transfer of Didarul Islam, who was shot and killed by a gunman. Alamy Stock Photo Alamy Stock Photo

Trump, who said he had been briefed on the incident, posted on social media that he trusted law enforcement to “get to the bottom” of the tragedy.

NFL commissioner Roger Goodell called the shooting “an unspeakable act of violence in our building”, saying he was deeply grateful to the law enforcement officers who responded and the officer who gave his life to protect others.

The shooting took place at a skyscraper that is home to the headquarters of both the NFL and Blackstone, one of the world’s largest investment firms, as well as other tenants.

Blackstone confirmed one of its employees, Wesley LePatner, was among those killed.

“Words cannot express the devastation we feel,” the firm 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.”

A Yale graduate, Wesley LePatner was a real estate executive at Blackstone, according to the firm’s website, and spent more than a decade at Goldman Sachs before joining the firm in 2014.

‘Took the wrong elevator’

Authorities said Tamura had driven across the country from Nevada and stopped outside the skyscraper in a black BMW, carrying a rifle.

He killed a police officer immediately, then began “spraying the lobby” with bullets,” police commissioner Jessica Tisch said.

A female bystander and a security guard were hit, Adams said, explaining that this prevented anyone hitting a panic button that would have stopped the elevators from working.

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.

“If he was able to get to the button, he could have froze the elevator.”

One of those shot was an NFL employee, who was “seriously injured” but stable in hospital, league commissioner Roger Goodell said in a statement to employees.

While his target was determined to be the NFL offices, Tamura “took the wrong elevator,” Adams said, ending up on the 33rd floor, which houses the building’s management. He shot one person dead there and then shot himself in the chest.

Adams said the police officer killed was a 36-year-old immigrant from Bangladesh.

Office worker Shad Sakib told AFP that he was packing his things to leave work when a public address announcement warned him and his colleagues to shelter in place. “Everyone was confused,” he said.

The office tower block at 345 Park Avenue is also home to hedge fund giant Blackstone and auditor KPMG.

Ireland House, which contains the Irish Consulate and a number of Irish state agencies, had previously been based in the building but moved to a new premises last year. 

New York Mayor Eric Adams speaks during a news conference at New York Presbyterian Weil Cornell Medical Center. Alamy Stock Photo Alamy Stock Photo

Mass shootings are frequent in the United States, where a constitutional right to bear arms outweighs demands for stricter regulations on guns.

There have been 254 mass shootings in the United States this year including yesterday’s incident in New York, according to the Gun Violence Archive – which defines a mass shooting as four or more people shot.

Police officers deployed a drone near Park Avenue at the height of the evening rush-hour as dozens of officers swarmed the area, some carrying long guns and others wearing ballistic vests.

The area is home to several five-star business hotels, as well as a number of corporate headquarters. The United Nations headquarters is nearby.

New York Governor Kathy Hochul said she has been briefed on the shooting.

The frontrunner in the race for mayor Zohran Mamdani wrote on X that he was “heartbroken to learn of the horrific shooting in midtown and I am holding the victims, their families, and the NYPD officer… in my thoughts.”

With reporting from Christina Finn