The gunman who killed four people in a shooting spree in Midtown Manhattan Monday had come to the Park Avenue office building to target the NFL, which is headquartered inside.
But Shane Tamura, 27, took an elevator to the “wrong floor,” Mayor Eric Adams said Tuesday, revealing the role that chance played in New York City’s deadliest shooting in 25 years.
Tamura, from Las Vegas, appears to have driven cross-country to New York City, before unleashing the deadly assault-rifle attack at 6:30 p.m. in the building’s lobby. He killed three people on the ground floor, including an off-duty NYPD cop, and injured another man before making his way to an elevator bank, NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch said at a Monday press conference.
When the elevator arrived at the ground level, one woman came face-to-face with the gunman, but escaped unscathed.
“A female exits that elevator and he allows her to walk past him unharmed,” Tisch said.
The woman has not been publicly identified and has not spoken out about the incident.The Independent has contacted the NYPD for more information about the elevator encounter.
The shooter then made his way to the 33rd floor, 28 floors above the NFL offices, and into Rudin Management. There, he killed a woman before turning the M4 rifle on himself.
“There are two different elevator banks,” Adams said. “Some banks don’t go to every floor. He appeared to have gone to the wrong bank, and he ended up on the floor of Rudin Management.”
Tamura, who played high school football in Southern California, had a suicide note in his pocket indicating that he was “going after” employees at the NFL, Adams told Fox 5.
Tamura’s note also claimed that he suffers from CTE, a brain disease that has been linked to head trauma endured by football players, that can only be definitively diagnosed after death.
The four victims have been identified as Wesley LePatner, a mother, wife and Blackstone executive; NYPD Officer Didarul Islam, a married father whose wife is eight months’ pregnant; Julia Hyman, a Cornell graduate and Rudin employee; and Aland Etienne, a father and security guard.
After entering the lobby, Tamura turned right and “immediately” shot Officer Islam before striking a woman hiding behind a pillar, Tisch said.
If the security guard hadn’t been killed, there’s a chance the shooter may never have reached the 33rd floor. Rudin Management, which owns the building, implemented a safeguard that would have allowed the security guard to stop the elevator from moving, Adams said.
Along with the four deceased, another man in the lobby suffered a gunshot wound and is in serious condition, Adams said.
The NFL has said one of its employees was “seriously injured” in the attack. The employee, who has not been named, is in the hospital in stable condition, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell said in a memo to staff, obtained by ESPN.
Some Rudin employees locked themselves in a “safe bathroom” with a bullet-proof door, a contraption that likely saved some lives, he added. Since it was so late in the work day, many people were also no longer in the office.
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