Ex-Football Player Who Murdered 4 Suffered from Severe CTE

The shocking mass shooting at a Manhattan skyscraper this summer has taken on a new—and even more disturbing—dimension. An autopsy has revealed that 27-year-old Shane Tamura, the former high school football standout who gunned down four people in July before killing himself, was suffering from chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), the brain disease long linked to football.

Investigators say Tamura left a note explicitly blaming the NFL for concealing the dangers of repeated head trauma. “Please study brain for CTE. I’m sorry. The league knowingly concealed the dangers to our brains to maximize profits. They failed us,” the note read.

Tamura had driven cross-country from Las Vegas, armed with a rifle, with the apparent intent of storming NFL headquarters. He never made it to the league’s offices. Police say he took the wrong elevator and opened fire instead on workers from Blackstone and Rudin Management before fatally shooting NYPD officer Didarul Islam, 36, who responded to the scene.

Though Tamura never played college or professional ball, he had suffered repeated concussions as a teenager in Santa Clarita, California. Friends recall him as a quiet athlete with “NFL dreams that just didn’t happen.” His suicide note shows he remained convinced the league’s decades of denial about brain trauma applied even to players like him.

“CTE can only be diagnosed after death, but the evidence in Tamura’s brain was unambiguous,” a spokesperson for the New York City Medical Examiner’s Office confirmed. “This is what’s known as low-stage CTE.”

For grieving families, that detail offers little comfort. “My brother went to work and never came home,” one relative of a victim told reporters. “It doesn’t matter if the NFL lied or if this man was sick—lives were stolen.”

Tamura’s words echo a dark history. For years, the NFL spent millions discrediting scientists, denying links between football and brain trauma, and lobbying against safety reforms. It wasn’t until 2016—after relentless reporting and congressional hearings—that league officials finally admitted there was a connection between football and CTE.

Even then, reforms were slow. Helmet innovations, concussion protocols, and rules aimed at curbing violent collisions only arrived under mounting public pressure. In 2025, the league introduced new kickoff rules and began allowing players to wear “Guardian Caps”—soft shell helmet covers designed to absorb hits—during live games. Some players, including Buffalo Bills safety Damar Hamlin, wore them last postseason.

But critics say it’s far too little, far too late. “These were changes that could have been made a decade earlier,” said Dr. Ann McKee, a Boston University researcher who has studied hundreds of CTE cases. “The NFL dragged its feet while countless athletes suffered.”

The Tamura case underscores what researchers have warned for years: CTE can lead to memory loss, impaired judgment, depression, and in severe cases, suicidal or violent behavior. More than 90 percent of former NFL players studied posthumously have shown signs of the disease.

Still, officials stopped short of saying Tamura’s condition caused the massacre. “We’re not making a direct causal link,” the medical examiner’s office told reporters. “But the evidence of CTE is clear.”

Under President Trump, who has often dismissed concerns about player safety as “overblown,” the NFL has leaned into nostalgia and toughness, even as medical evidence piles up. In a 2024 campaign rally, Trump mocked Guardian Caps as “pillow helmets,” insisting “real football players don’t need them.”

For the families left reeling in Manhattan, those words ring hollow.

“The NFL knew. Trump knows. Everyone knows,” said one survivor who barely escaped the gunfire. “But the people who pay the price aren’t the billionaires in those offices—it’s kids like Tamura, and now it’s the people who died in that building.”