New York shooter's shocking suicide note blaming NFL: 'Please study my brain'
In a disturbing turn, the perpetrator of a deadly Manhattan shooting, Shane Tamura, left a suicide note directly blaming the NFL for his alleged Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE). The former high-level youth football player, who murdered four before taking his own life near the NFL's offices, pleaded, "Please study my brain," drawing grim parallels to the league's long-standing concussion crisis.
Shane Devon Tamura, the 27-year-old shooter who ended his own life after a horrific rampage that left at least four dead and five injured in a midtown Manhattan building housing the NFL's offices, carried a chilling three-page farewell letter in his back pocket.
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Originally from Hawaii and residing in Nevada, Tamura was a former high-level youth football player. In his suicide note, he explicitly voiced his profound discontent with the NFL and the severe health consequences he attributed to the sport.
Shooter alleges CTE caused by American football
French newspaper L'Equipe, citing information from CNN, reports on the contents of Shane Tamura's farewell note. In it, he claimed to be suffering from Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE), a progressive neurodegenerative disease strongly linked to repetitive head trauma, particularly in contact sports like American football.
"Football caused my CTE and it made me drink liters of antifreeze," the alleged killer reportedly wrote in his letter, according to CNN.
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Shane Tamura, who made a direct reference in his letter to Terry Long (a former Pittsburgh Steelers player diagnosed with CTE who died by suicide in 2005), also wrote, "you can't compete in the NFL, they will crush you." His final, desperate plea was: "please study my brain."
Before tragically taking the lives of four individuals and injuring five others, Tamura penned a haunting apology: "I'm sorry, I'm sorry for everything." A police spokesman revealed during the press conference following the murders that the shooter had a documented psychiatric history.
The NFL's enduring CTE controversy: Unpacking head injuries
This tragic incident casts a dark shadow back on the NFL's long and contentious history with CTE. In 2021, former NFL player Phillip Adams, also suffering from CTE, committed suicide after killing five people, highlighting a disturbing pattern.
Dr. Hallie Zwibel, director of the New York Institute of Technology's Center for Sports Medicine, explained the nature of the disease to The New York Post: "It doesn't matter the number of concussions suffered in your life, but the number of blows received to the head, there is no cure. CTE affects the ability to relate, you feel frustration, you act impulsively and there is emotional instability."
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As reported by Enrique Mellado in MARCA, the link between CTE cases and American football first came to public light at the beginning of this century, following years during which the NFL reportedly attempted to suppress the issue. The league initially downplayed the cognitive damage resulting from heavy impacts during games. In 1994, the first Mild Traumatic Brain Injury Committee was established with the Jets' physician as its chairman. It wasn't until 2009 that an NFL spokesman publicly acknowledged that concussions could lead to long-term brain damage, signaling the beginning of more active steps to address the critical issue.
The demand to "study my brain" from a former player, following such a devastating event, is a stark and chilling reminder of the ongoing debate surrounding head trauma in professional sports.
