NYC office shooter had low-level CTE, medical examiner finds
The shooter who killed four people in an office building in Manhattan had chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), a degenerative brain disease often linked to high -contact sports like American football, according to the office of the New York medical examiner.
Shane Tamura, 27, led Las Vegas to New York with an assault style rifle in July, pulling four in a skyscraper from Park Avenue before committing suicide.
Police think that he was targeting the offices of the National Football League (NFL), which was inside the building.
In the notes left on the scene, Tamura would have blamed the NFL for concealing the effects of the CTE and asked her brain to study. The CTE can only be diagnosed with post-mortem.
The New York Chief Legalist said that the shooter’s autopsy confirmed that he had “a low floor CTE” and that the diagnosis was “unambiguous”.
The disease is caused by repeated head blows and was found in the brains of dozens of former NFL players.
Science around CTE evolves, said the medical examiner. It is associated with symptoms, including memory loss, depression and progressive dementia.
“The physical and mental demonstrations of the CTE remain under study,” they said.
Tamura, a former secondary school player who did not play in the NFL, opened fire in a building where the American football league is located. But he took the bad elevator and went to another part of the building.
His alleged suicide note said “studying my brain please”, according to a senior official who spoke to ABC News. “I’m sorry,” he also wrote.
Police said Tamura was known to have mental health problems.
Among the people killed during the mass shooting was the NYPD officer Didarul Islam, Wesley Lepatner, employee of the Blackstone finance giant, and Julia Hyman, a Rudin Management employee.
The NFL employee Craig Clementi was also seriously injured.
