NYC Shooter Had Low-Stage CTE, ME Says

The New York City Office of the Chief Medical Examiner concluded that 27-year-old Shane Tamura—who drove from Las Vegas to Manhattan in July, opened fire in the building that houses the NFL headquarters, killed four people and then died by suicide—had unambiguous diagnostic evidence of low-stage chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) on postmortem exam. Police recovered a three-page note in which Tamura, a former high school football player, said he believed he had CTE, blamed the NFL and asked that his brain be studied. CTE is a progressive brain disease linked to repeated head trauma, commonly associated with football, that can affect cognition, emotional control and aggression and can only be definitively diagnosed after death. The medical examiner emphasized that the science is evolving and that pathologists did not state whether CTE caused Tamura’s actions. The finding has renewed attention to prior high-profile CTE cases, and officials and the NFL expressed grief for the victims while calling for more research and prevention.