A gunman armed with an assault-style rifle killed four people inside a Manhattan skyscraper that houses the headquarters of the National Football League (NFL) and offices of several major financial firms and then shot himself dead, New York City officials said on Monday.
One of the four victims slain in the gun violence was a 36-year-old New York police officer who immigrated to the US from Bangladesh. Mayor Eric Adams described the officer, who had been on the force for more than three years, as a "true blue" hero.
Authorities offered few details about the three other victims killed by the suspect, two men and a woman. A third man was seriously wounded and was "fighting for his life" in a nearby hospital, the mayor said.
New York police commissioner Jessica Tisch said the gunman, identified as Shane Tamura, a 27-year-old Las Vegas resident with a history of mental illness, had driven cross-country to New York in recent days.
He was believed to have acted alone and investigators had yet to determine a motive for the shooting, Tisch told reporters at a late night news briefing.
"Pure evil came to the heart of our city and struck innocent people and one of our police officers protecting the people," Patrick Hendry, president of the Police Benevolent Association, said at the press conference.
The slain police officer, Didarul Islam, a father of two whose wife is pregnant with a third child, was working at the time as part of an New York police department programme that allows its uniformed patrol officers to be assigned as security detail in commercial establishments.
The shooting spree in the evening rush hour began in the lobby of the Park Avenue tower in Midtown Manhattan, then shifted to the upper-story offices of a management company as the suspect took the elevator to the 33rd floor. The bloodshed came to an end when the gunman fatally shot himself in the chest, Tisch told reporters.
A photo of the suspect CNN said was shared by police showing a gunman walking into the building carrying a rifle. It was published by major news media outlets. Preliminary checks of the suspect's background did not show a significant criminal history, the report added, citing officials.
The skyscraper at 345 Park Avenue houses offices of financial institutions, including Blackstone and KPMG, and the headquarters of the NFL.
A large police presence converged on the area around the tower, according to Reuters journalists near the scene.
“I saw a lot of commotion and cops and people screaming,” Russ McGee, a 31-year-old sports bettor who was working out in a gym adjacent to the skyscraper, told Reuters in an interview near the scene.
Kyle Marshall, 38, was working at a Morgan Stanley office in a nearby building when his mother texted him, alerting him to an active shooter incident.
"Then she texted me the address and I was, like, 'Oh my God. That's right next door to my building'," he said.
Police kept Marshall and others inside the property on lockdown until after 8pm, he told Reuters. Marshall lives in the San Francisco area but travels to New York once a month for work.
"It doesn't make me feel less safe to be in Manhattan. The police responded quickly," he said.
The FBI said agents from its New York field office were responding to provide support at the scene.
Reuters
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