Witnesses recount panic during Shane Tamura’s deadly rampage inside NYC skyscraper
Witnesses to the deadly shooting at 345 Park Avenue in Manhattan Monday recalled the terrifying moment they heard gunshots ring out as workers filed out of the busy building for the day.
“We heard multiple shots go off in quick succession from the first floor, and a lot of us just rushed into the room,” Jessica Chen, who was on the second floor of the 44-story building, told ABC News.
Chen told the outlet that she and about 150 other people were in the middle of a presentation when gunman Shane Tamura, 27, walked into the building and started blasting.
“Some went out in the back door, out onto the street,” she said. “Other people, including me, we ran into the conference room and then eventually barricaded the tables across the doors and just stayed still.
“I texted my parents I love them,” she added. “Nothing can describe that feeling.”
Employees on the 32nd floor barricaded the doors with piled-up office furniture, photos showed. The building is home to the NFL and Blackstone and KPMG.
Nekeisha Lewis was eating dinner nearby when the shots started.
“We heard the shots and looked up and I saw the wall of the first floor shatter,” she told NBC News. “I realized, ‘Oh my god, this is a shootout.’”
Moments later, a man ran out of the building screaming for help – then she saw there was blood pouring from his front and back.
“By the time he got to us he said ‘Help, help! I’ve been shot!” she said.
The man had apparently been shot through the torso, and one of Lewis’ colleagues helped him to the ground as police arrived.
How the shooting unfolded
- Reports of the shooting at 345 Park Ave. start coming in around 6:28 p.m.
- Shane Tamura, 27, is seen getting out of a black BMW between 51st and 52nd streets with an M4 rifle.
- He enters the lobby and turns right, where he shoots police officer Didarul Islam, 36, dead.
- Tamura guns down a woman cowering behind a pillar in the lobby, sprays more bullets and walks toward the elevator bank — where he shoots dead a security guard crouching at his desk.
- One more man reports being shot and injured in the lobby. He was in critical but stable condition.
- The gunman allows a woman to walk out of the elevators unharmed before heading up to the 33rd floor, where building owner Rudin Properties’ offices are located, “and begins to walk the floor, firing as he traveled.”
- One woman is shot and killed on that floor before Tamura shoots himself in the chest.
- It’s unclear how long the mayhem lasted. Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch posted on X at 7:52 p.m.: “The scene has been contained and the lone shooter has been neutralized.”
“It felt like you were in a war zone almost,” Lewis said, recalling the “rapid fire” shots she heard coming from the building as glass shattered and people screaming.
The shots were so loud that other bystanders outside heard them.
“I was on the one block away, and I heard shots being fired and then a bunch of police, they came to neutralize it,” 30-year-old Oleksandr Stupak, who was standing across from the skyscraper when the bullets started flying Monday evening, told The Post.
“I went to the Citizen app, and it says active shooting. A lot of police started to come. I mean. [It’s ] crazy,” he said.
Follow The Post’s live blog for the latest coverage of the 345 Park Ave. shooting
Another man was left gasping for breath on a neighboring office building’s stoop as he called a loved one to tell what happened.
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“I was at work, and this guy came in with an assault rifle and started shooting. I was in the lobby at work,” the man said into the phone.
He buried his face in his hands as he gasped for breath, and had a bandage on his knee and on a hand as a police officer tended to him.
Terrifying images captured Tamura – a Las Vegas resident – calmly strolling into the building with an assault rifle in one hand before the chaos commenced.
He made his way to the 33rd floor where he barricaded himself inside as heavily-armed police responded to the scene. He eventually killed himself with a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
At least four people were killed, including a police officer. Several others were injured.
Alerts of an active shooter and shelter-in-place orders went out to neighboring office buildings, which were still full of employees wrapping up their days.
“People came running back inside saying people were shouting on the street that there was an active shooter,” midtown worker Kathleen Benanti told NBC News, explaining she and her colleagues were told to stay down and keep away from windows.
“I had a bit of a PTSD response that came out of the blue,” she added. “I lived through 9/11 and all the sights/sounds reminded me of that day. I’m OK now.”
Finance worker Anna Smith was picking up dinner with colleagues down the block when they heard gunshots and saw crowds fleeing down the sidewalk.
“It was like a crowd panic,” she told ESPN.
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