A Nevada man who recently drove across the country to New York and has a mental health history is accused of walking into a Manhattan building with a rifle and opening fire Monday evening, killing four people, police said.
Shane Devon Tamura, 27, went into 345 Park Ave. in midtown just after the end of business Monday armed with an M4 rifle and opened fire in the lobby and again on the 33rd floor before he eventually killed himself, New York Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch said.
Authorities have said they are working to determine a motive.
“According to our law enforcement partners in Las Vegas, Mr. Tamura has a documented mental health history,” Tisch said. “His motives are still under investigation.”
Officer Didarul Islam, 36, who was working a security job at the building, was one of the four people killed in the attack. The other victims have not been identified.
Suspect had driven across the country
Tamura has a Las Vegas address, and the BMW he got out of in Manhattan is registered to him in Nevada.
Inside the vehicle, investigators found a rifle case with rounds, ammunition magazines and a loaded revolver, Tisch said.
Also found was medication prescribed to him, Tisch said. She did not say what kind or what it was for.
Tamura’s vehicle was very recently driven across the country, officials said.
It went through Colorado on Saturday, then Nebraska and Iowa on Sunday, and it was in Columbia, New Jersey, as recently as 4:24 p.m. Monday, the day of the shooting — and it entered New York City shortly thereafter, Tisch said.
California school teammates, coach are shocked
Tamura attended high school in Southern California, where he was a football player, according to his former teammates, who said they were stunned to learn he was a suspect in the shooting.
“You never would have thought violence was something you’d associate with him,” former classmate Caleb Clarke said. “Everything he said was a joke.”
Tamura transferred to Granada Hills Charter School in Granada Hills, a neighborhood in Los Angeles, in 2015 when he was a senior, coming from a school in Santa Clarita, Clarke said.
Clarke indicated that the pair lost touch but reconnected through social media recently and that Tamura worked at a Las Vegas casino.
Former coach Walter Roby said Tamura was a talented running back and “a great player” who was “real elusive, real agile.”
“He came in, worked hard, kept his nose down,” Roby added. “He was a quiet kid, well-mannered, very coachable. Whatever needed to be done, he would do.”
Roby said he was shocked that Tamura was suspected of carrying out a mass shooting.
“I’m just blown away right now,” he said.
A former Granada Hills teammate, Anthony Michael Leon, said he and his old football buddies have been texting one another in disbelief since they learned that Tamura was identified as the gunman.
“This is so shocking,” said Leon, 25. “I’m telling you, this was one of those kids who never exerted bad energy or a negative attitude.”
He said Tamura was in the school’s virtual program, which meant he took classes online and was in school only a couple of times a week outside of the football season.
But Tamura excelled on the field and led mostly by example, Leon said.
“He was quiet, but when he did actually talk, people listened,” Leon said.
Leon said that he remembered Tamura earning all-conference honors but that Tamura didn’t appear to harbor ambitions to play in college or the NFL.
“I knew so many kids in high school who made it clear that’s all they wanted to do,” Leon said. “I never got that from Shane.”
Why this location?
Tisch said security video showed the shooter get out of a double-parked black BMW while carrying an M4 rifle.
“The building security camera footage shows the shooter enter the lobby, turn right and immediately open fire on an NYPD officer,” Tisch said.
The gunman then shot a woman taking cover behind a pillar and fired at others before he took an elevator to the 33rd floor, where he opened fire again and killed another person, she said.
A motive was under investigation.
“We are working to understand why he targeted this particular location,” Tisch said.
Tenants of the building where the shooting took place include the NFL, Rudin Management, KPMG and Blackstone.
The police officer and another male were killed, as were two females, Tisch said.
The survivor who was shot was a male who was at a hospital in critical but stable condition Monday night, Tisch said. Four others sustained minor injuries trying to flee, she said.
