On Monday, a man entered an office building in New York City and killed four people with a rifle, including a NYPD officer, and wounded another. He later took his own life. The man was identified as Shane Tamura, a 27-year-old man from Las Vegas, with a "documented mental health history."
Police are now investigating the causes of the attack, a don't rule out a premeditated attack to the NFL's corporate offices, housed in the building at Park Avenue where the attack happened. A note was found in Tamura's pocket, where he attributed his mental health issues to suffering Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE), a brain disease linked to head trauma, according to sources by CNN and New York Post. CTE is commonly associated with football players, as studies have shown that repetitive hits to the head can result in the disease. It can lead to behavioural problems, mood problems, even dementia, and has no real treatment as it kills brain cells.
Tamura has been found to be a competitive football player in his youth, for Granada Hills Charter High. In the note, the attacker asked for his brain to be studied. A theory is that he wanted retaliation against NFL, as he wrote "You can't go against the NFL, they'll squash you."
Fox News talked with Tamura's coach at the time at Granada Hills, describing him as "very quiet, hard worker, coachable and one of his top defensive players at the time", and lamenting himself for not having done more to help the kid.