A gunman killed four people at a Manhattan skyscraper that houses the headquarters of the NFL and the offices of several major financial firms before turning the gun on himself, New York officials have said.
An NYPD officer identified as Didarul Islam, an immigrant from Bangladesh and a father of two whose wife is pregnant, was among those killed. He was working off-hours as a security guard at the time, New York mayor Eric Adams told reporters, describing him as a “true blue hero”.
Authorities offered few details about the three other victims killed by the suspect – two men and a woman. A third male was gravely wounded by the gunfire and was “fighting for his life” in a nearby hospital, the mayor said.
Jessica Tisch, the New York City police commissioner, confirmed that “the lone shooter has been neutralized”. New York police also said the shooter acted alone and was dead.
Tisch said the gunman, identified as Shane Tamura, a 27-year-old Las Vegas resident with a history of mental illness, had driven cross-country to New York in recent days.
The shooting spree in the evening rush hour began in the lobby of the Park Avenue tower in Midtown Manhattan. Tisch said that surveillance videos showed the gunman exiting a double-parked Black BMW between 51st and 52nd street on Park Avenue.
He allegedly opened fire immediately after entering the tower’s lobby, shooting multiple people. Police said that the gunman let a woman exit the elevator unharmed, and then took the elevator to the 33rd floor, the offices of Rudin Management Company, a behemoth New York real estate firm.
Tisch said that the gunman opened fire on the 33rd floor and killed one person. The gunman then went to the stairwell and shot himself with an assault rifle, she said.
Photographs show people exiting the building around 7pm ET with hands raised.
Tisch said that the NYPD found weapons in the parked BMW, as well as a prescription in Tamora’s name.
Tisch said Tamora entered the office fresh after driving across the country, making stops in Colorado, Nebraska and Iowa. Tamora’s final alleged stop was in New Jersey at 4.24pm ET.
The NYPD believes that the shooting was an isolated incident.
US House minority leader Hakeem Jeffries expressed his concern over the “horrific shooting”, and said he was “praying hard” for the NYPD officer.
“May God watch over our city during this challenging moment,” Jeffries wrote in a post.
A large police presence converged on the area around the tower, according to Reuters journalists near the scene.
“I just saw a lot of commotion and cops and people screaming,” said Russ McGee, a 31-year-old sports bettor who was working out in a gym adjacent to the skyscraper, told Reuters in an interview near the scene.
The office building at 345 Park Avenue occupies an entire city block and houses the corporate offices for the National Football League and the headquarters of investment firm Blackstone. It also holds offices for JP Morgan Chase.
According to an ESPN reporter, Jeff Darlington, an NFL security alert was sent to employees: “Do not exit the building. Secure your location and hide until law enforcement clears your floor. Please switch phones to silent.”
This shooting is the 254th mass shooting in the US this year, according to the Gun Violence Archive, a nonprofit that tracks gun-related violence, who defines a mass shooting as an incident in which four or more people, excluding the shooter, are killed or injured by firearms.
With Reuters