NFL commissioner Roger Goodell addressed league employees in a memo Tuesday night, a day after a gunman opened fire in the New York City high-rise that houses the league offices, killing four and wounding a man that Goodell identified as a league employee.
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Goodell didn’t provide a medical update on the league’s wounded staff member, but noted that “he is currently surrounded by his family and members of the NFL community.”
Goodell announced that the league’s Manhattan office at 345 Park Ave. will remain closed until at least Aug. 8 and asked employees who normally work in the building to work remotely until the 44-story office tower is ready to reopen for business.
“We are strongest when we come together and support one another,” Goodell wrote. … “This has been a challenging time for our entire team. Please continue to take care of yourselves and one another.”
Goodell also announced a virtual town hall for NFL staff members on Wednesday to discuss the shooting and offered support from league management and the league’s human resources staff.
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Shooter opened fire with assault rifle, targeted NFL office
A man who the New York Police Department identified as 27-year-old Shane Tamura of Las Vegas stepped out of his car that he double parked outside the office building Monday evening carrying an M4 rifle, which is similar to the more commonly known AR-15.
Per NYPD commissioner Jessica Tisch, he walked into the lobby of the building and immediately opened fire, killing 36-year-old off-duty NYPD officer Didarul Islam and starting a shooting spree that killed three others. From the lobby, Tamura took an elevator to the 33rd floor, where he killed another person before taking his own life with a gunshot to the chest, according to Tisch.
A U.S. flag flies outside the building where a deadly mass shooting occurred on Monday at the building housing the NFL’s league offices in Manhattan.
(Reuters / Reuters)
Per Tisch, Tamura drove across the country from Las Vegas starting Saturday and carried out the shooting shortly after arriving in New York Monday evening. Police found a rifle case with rounds, a loaded revolver, ammunition and magazines in the car that he left behind
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Tamura’s motive wasn’t clear as Tisch and New York Mayor Eric Adams addressed media at a news conference Monday night. But police told ABC early Tuesday that Tamura left a note suggesting that the NFL was his target. Adams later told reporters that the NFL was the target of Tamura’s rampage and that he appeared to have mistakenly took the wrong elevator to the 33rd floor, which houses offices of the building’s owner Rudin Management Company.
The NFL is one of several tenants of the building and has offices on floors 5-8. The building also houses the offices of accounting firm KPMG and investment firm Blackstone.
Shooter left note stating he suffered from CTE
Tamura was a high school football player. Per ABC News, he wrote in his three-page note that he believed that he suffered from chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), a degenerative brain disease associated with repeated head trauma that’s commonly associated with football and other collision sports.
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Tamura’s note accused the NFL of concealing the dangers to players’ brains from playing football in order to maximize profits, according to ABC. The note also included a request from Tamura to study his brain for CTE, which can only be detected via postmortem inspection.
The New York City Office of the Chief Medical Examiner stated that it intends to examine Tamura’s brain as part of his autopsy.
