The crazed gunman who massacred four people at the NFL’s headquarters building while holding a note asking his brain be studied for “CTE” actually had the tragic brain disease, the medical examiner’s office revealed Friday.
The brain of Shane Tamura, 27, showed “unambiguous diagnostic evidence of Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy, also known as CTE,” officials said.
“It is unambiguously there and it is what is known as low-stage CTE,” a spokeswoman with the city’s medical examiner’s office said. “We’re answering that question that many people wanted to know the answer to.”
The diagnosis came after Tamura, an ex-high school football player with a long history of mental illness, left a rambling suicide note detailing his perceived struggle with chronic traumatic encephalopathy.
The note found in Tamura’s pocket railed against the NFL, blaming the football league for his struggles.
“Please study brain for CTE,” the note read. “I’m sorry. The league knowingly concealed the dangers to our brains to maximize profits,” the note read.
“They failed us.”
Tamura apparently targeted the NFL’s headquarters on July 28 as he walked into 345 Park Ave. with an AR-15-style weapon.
He failed to reach the league’s HQ, but killed four people — including NYPD Officer Didarul Islam, 36 — during the rampage, before turning the gun on himself.
The medical examiner’s spokeswoman stressed that it’s unclear whether Tamura’s CTE actually led to the shooting.
“We’re unable – as I don’t think science would be able to at all at this point – to say what role CTE played in that particular incident, causing that incident,” she said. “We’re not saying that CTE is the cause of what happened at the Park Avenue shooting.”