The former high school football player who killed four people inside a Manhattan office tower that houses the headquarters of the NFL, and who blamed the league for hiding the dangers of brain injuries, was suffering from the degenerative brain disease CTE, New York’s medical examiner said Friday.
Shane Tamura, 27, had “unambiguous diagnostic evidence” of low-stage chronic traumatic encephalopathy, commonly known as CTE, according to the New York City medical examiner.
Tamura, a Las Vegas casino worker, shot himself in the chest after spraying bullets into the Manhattan office building on July 28, killing four people, including a police officer, a security guard and two people who worked at companies in the building.
He had traveled across the country intending to target the NFL office, officials said, but took the wrong elevator.
Among the dead were a police officer, a security guard and two people who worked at companies in the building. An NFL employee was badly wounded but survived.
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In a three-page note found in his wallet, Tamura said he had chronic traumatic encephalopathy — diagnosable only after death — and implored those who found him: “Study my brain.”
Among his grievances against the NFL was a claim that the league put its profits ahead of player safety by concealing the harm CTE, and football, can cause.
“There is no justification for the horrific and senseless acts that took place,” an NFL spokesperson said in response to the findings. “As the medical examiner notes ‘the science around this condition continues to evolve, and the physical and mental manifestations of CTE remain under study.’”
The disease affects regions of the brain involved with regulating behavior and emotions. It has been linked to concussions and other head trauma associated with contact sports, with evidence of the disease found in both professional and high school athletes.
After more than a decade of denial, the NFL conceded the link between football and CTE in 2016 testimony before Congress, and has so far paid more than $1.4 billion to retired players to settle concussion-related claims.
Tamura played high school football in California a decade ago but never played in the NFL.
Police have said Tamura had a history of mental illness. In September 2023, he was arrested on a misdemeanor trespassing charge after allegedly being told to leave a suburban Las Vegas casino and becoming agitated at being asked for his ID. Prosecutors later dismissed the case.
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