On July 28, 2025, a man walked into a Midtown Manhattan building, killed four people, and commited suicide.
This is what we know so far.
Shane Devon Tamura was a 27 year old man, born in Hawaii, and grew up in the Southern California area.
He played American football at two separate schools during highschool, where coaches said he was a quiet, hardworking kid.
Most recently, he lived in Las Vegas and had a job working security at a casino, and was scheduled to be at work on Sunday, July 27, 2025, but he didn’t show up. He was on his way to New York, with a gun and a terrible plan.
According to a note found in his pocket, he believed he had CTE Chronic traumatic encephalopathy, which is a brain disease linked to repeated hits to the head, often seen in military veterans and athletes including football players. He also blamed the NFL for hiding the risks of the game, for letting young men like him get hurt without telling the full truth. He asked for his brain to be studied after he died.
It is believed that he went to that building because it housed the NFL’s headquarters. But when he got there, he ended up on the wrong floor, and opened fire on regular people at work.
Innocent lives were lost because he couldn’t find what he was looking for or maybe because there was nothing that would’ve satisfied the pain he carried.
This story is heartbreaking on all sides. The victims didn’t deserve what happened. And Tamura needed help. Now, we have more families mourning, and a reminder of how badly we fail people struggling with mental health, especially men, Black men, and people who feel discarded after chasing big dreams like football.
It didn’t have to end like this. But it did. And we should all be asking why.
