The shooter who killed four people in the building housing the NFL headquarters in New York appears to have been targeting the league.
According to multiple reports Monday and overnight, the shooter — who is being widely identified as 27-year-old Shane Tamura — played high school football and was found with a note saying that he believed he suffered from CTE and wanted to have his brain studied. The note is also said to have made references to the NFL.
It was not immediately clear on Monday that the league was a target as the shooter was found on the 33rd floor. The NFL offices are located on floors five and six.
The shooter killed four, including an off-duty NYPD officer and a Blackstone executive, but that did not as of Tuesday morning include any NFL employees. NFL commissioner Roger Goodell said in a statement overnight that an NFL employee was seriously injured.
While it appears that the NFL escaped the most serious impact of Monday’s incident — perhaps just by the random chance of the shooter getting off on the wrong floor — it nonetheless marks an unprecedented moment in American sports history. It appears to be the first time that a league and its employees have been specifically targeted in an act of violence.
The CTE connection also makes Monday’s incident by far the most serious in the long-running NFL concussion scandal. Players who have been documented or suspected to have CTE have spiraled into acts of violence and self destruction — including at least one other mass killing — but never before has there been even a suggestion that one of them could target the league in such a fashion. To this point, the biggest threat to the NFL from these players has been lawsuits.
Though it was referred to in news reports as “the Blackstone building,” the building targeted — 345 Park Avenue — is perhaps primarily associated with the NFL. While many other businesses have offices at that location, none are as well known as the nation’s most popular sports league.
