A routine Monday rush hour in Midtown Manhattan turned into a scene of terror as a lone gunman carried out a deadly shooting spree that left five people dead, including a police officer and the attacker himself.The first alert to New York’s 911 system came in at 6:00pm local time (2200 GMT), with frantic calls quickly flooding in. Police commissioner Jessica Tisch later provided a chilling reconstruction of the sequence of events during a press conference.Surveillance footage showed the suspect, 27-year-old Shane Tamura of Las Vegas, pulling up in a black BMW, double-parked on Park Avenue between 51st and 52nd Street.Armed with an M4 rifle, he crossed the street and entered a building, where the violence began almost immediately.“Turned right and immediately opened fire on an NYPD officer,” Tisch said. That officer, a 36-year-old immigrant from Bangladesh, was killed in the lobby — the first of Tamura’s victims. Mayor Eric Adams paid tribute to the officer, stating, “We lost four souls to another act of senseless violence,” excluding the gunman from the count.Tamura then moved through the building lobby, firing at a woman taking cover behind a pillar. He continued toward the elevator bank, where he gunned down a security guard hiding behind a desk. Another man in the lobby was also shot; he survived and provided a statement to police from the hospital.Tisch said Tamura had driven cross-country from Las Vegas in just three days, and Nevada authorities had flagged a history of mental illness. After summoning an elevator, he let a woman pass by unharmed before riding to the 33rd floor – home to the offices of Rudin Management, a real estate firm.On that floor, Tamura “begins to walk the floor, firing rounds as he travelled,” said Tisch. One person was struck and killed there.The rampage ended when Tamura turned the gun on himself. “He proceeds down a hallway and shoots himself in the chest,” Tisch said.In total, the violence claimed the lives of four civilians and one police officer. Another person remains in critical condition.
‘People used furniture to barricade office doors’
According to ABC7 Eyewitness News, panic gripped office workers in the Midtown Manhattan building as the gunman made his way through the floors. In a desperate bid to stay safe, some employees reportedly used furniture to barricade their office doors.“Everyone was confused with like, ‘wait, what’s going on?’ And then someone finally realized that it’s online, that someone walked in with a machine gun,” one witness told AFP.“He walked right into a building right next door. We saw the photo of him walking through the same area that I walked through to get lunch here. You would think it won’t happen to you, and then it does,” the same witness added, reflecting the shock shared by many.Another woman, who declined to give her name while leaving the scene, shared her harrowing experience: “I was in the building. He went floor by floor.”
‘Documented mental history’: Who was Shane Devon Tamura?
- Shane Devon Tamura, the 27-year-old gunman behind Monday’s deadly Midtown Manhattan office shooting, was originally from Hawaii and had later settled in Las Vegas.
- Tamura opened fire inside a Park Avenue high-rise during the evening rush, killing four civilians and an NYPD officer before taking his own life.
- New York Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch confirmed that Tamura had a “documented mental health history,” though investigators have yet to determine a clear motive. “We are working to understand why he targeted this particular location,” she said.
- While an official biography has not been released, unverified accounts suggest Tamura once played high school football as a running back at Granada Hills High School in California.
- Speaking to NBC, former teammate Caleb Clarke remembered him as “a goofball” and “class clown,” always full of energy.
As investigators work to uncover a motive, the city is left reeling from another tragic eruption of gun violence.
