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New Yorkers were stunned to hear about the shooting Monday afternoon at the Park Avenue building that is home to the offices of the NFL. A lone gunman, Shane Tamura of Las Vegas, walked into 345 Park Avenue with a rifle and killed four people before turning his gun on himself. A possible suicide note suggested that the gunman had CTE as a result of playing football, even though it appears he never played the game at the professional or collegiate level. Tamura may also have had a lengthy battle with mental health issues prior to the shooting. Now the investigation begins, and the first question is what caused Tamura to unleash the carnage that ensued.
Former N.Y.P.D. Commissioner Bill Bratton and former N.Y.P.D. First-Grade Detective Mike Sapraicone are both retired from the force and conducted their share of crime investigations when they were active in law enforcement. They appeared on 710 WOR’s Mendte in the Morning program to discuss what investigators will try to do as they comb through the Park Avenue crime scene.
Bratton cautioned the investigation into the shooting spree is still in the earliest stages, but he told host Larry Mendte that he found one fact intriguing: “Long guns are very, very seldom ever used in the city of New York. They’re very common in other cities. When I worked in L.A., the use of long guns, if you will- the automatic rifle, semi-automatic rifles- was very common place among gangs, but here in New York you very seldom see a crime involving a long gun, so that’s something unique about this particular one, particularly the way he so brazenly displayed it in that short walk from the car on Park Avenue into the building, so that aspect will be followed up, as to where did he get that. Did he buy it legally, did he gain it illegally- again, all part of the many facets of the investigation.”
Sapraicone found it less than helpful that CNN reported the existence of a suicide note at this early stage of the investigation. “Sometimes those things tend to get out. You have overzealous police officers trying to think they’re helping and they’re not, or some reporter who got some information, but this investigation will come out and show what this is. You know, yesterday everybody was yelling, ‘Terrorism, terrorism’. A detective or investigator’s job is to look at everything openly and sort out what this might be… The P.D. and other local and federal law enforcements are working on [that] right now.”
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