He came to New York City as an immigrant from Bangladesh and worked his way up the nation’s largest police force.
Didarul Islam had worked as a school safety agent before becoming a patrol officer less than four years ago. But on Monday, that promising career was cut short.
While working a uniformed security assignment, Islam was killed in a midtown Manhattan skyscraper by a gunman targeting the NFL, whose headquarters are in the Park Avenue tower.
The 36-year-old Bronx officer was the first of four people killed in the attack, including a security guard, a real estate firm employee, and an investment firm executive.
“Officer Islam’s death was yet another reminder of everything you risk just by showing up to work,” Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch said Tuesday. “He knew that risk. He embraced it. He understood what it meant to put the safety of others above his own.”
Blackstone, one of the world’s largest investment firms, confirmed that Wesley LePatner, a senior managing director specializing in real estate, was among those fatally shot.
Security officer Aland Etienne was also killed, his labor union said.
The Rudin family, which owns the building and Rudin Management, said in a statement that one of their employees was a victim of the shootings but did not disclose the person’s name at the request of relatives. Police officials said a woman was found dead on the building’s 33rd floor in Rudin’s offices.
NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell said in a memo to staff that an employee at the league’s headquarters was seriously wounded but in stable condition at a hospital. He did not name the person. All other league workers were safe, Goodell said.
Mayor Eric Adams said police found a note suggesting the shooter, Shane Tamura, 27, of Las Vegas, was convinced he had chronic traumatic encephalopathy, a degenerative brain disease that has been linked to concussions in contact sports but can’t be diagnosed until death. He had played high school football in California about a decade ago.
Police officer’s body returned to Bronx neighborhood
Islam’s flag-draped body was solemnly escorted to a Bronx mosque Tuesday in preparation for his burial. Hundreds of his colleagues lined the street.
Mourners recalled his work ethic and deep faith, and generosity in the Muslim community.
Islam was married with two young sons and a third child on the way. He had been a New York City police officer for 3 1/2 years and worked out of a Bronx precinct.
Well-wishers visiting Islam’s home brought food for relatives gathered inside. Across the street, a public school where one or more of Islam’s children attended displayed a poster praising him as a loving parent and NYPD hero.
“He was a very friendly guy and a hardworking guy,” said Tanjim Talukdar, who remembered Islam from Friday prayers at the mosque. “Whenever I see him or he sees me he says, ‘How are you, my brother?’”
Sgt. Mohammad Islam, who is not related, said he saw himself in his fallen comrade, as a fellow father and an immigrant from Bangladesh. Both, he said, achieved the American dream by entering public service.
Family remembers fallen security guard as ‘light in our lives’
Aland Etienne, an unarmed building guard, was shot as he manned the lobby security desk, where he kept watch over the elevator bank to the upper floors.
His brother said the family was reeling from the shocking loss.
“He was more than a brother—he was a father, a son, and a light in our lives,” Gathmand Etienne wrote on Facebook. “Our hearts are shattered, and we’re asking for your prayers and strength as we navigate this painful time.”
The president of the union representing security officers hailed Etienne as a “New York hero” whose untimely death was a grim reminder of the sacrifice and risk his job entailed.
Etienne had been a licensed unarmed security guard since 2017 and had worked at the building since 2019, with a prior stint in 2017, according to the union.
“Every time a security officer puts on their uniform, they put their lives on the line,” said Manny Pastreich, president of Local 32BJ of the Service Employees International Union. “Their contributions to our city are essential, though often unappreciated.”
Blackstone executive was a Yale graduate who specialized in real estate
LePatner, 43, was Blackstone’s global head of core plus real estate and chief executive officer of Blackstone Real Estate Income Trust, the firm said. She joined the company in 2014 after working for more than a decade at Goldman Sachs, where she also handled real estate.
She graduated summa cum laude from Yale University in 2003 with a bachelor’s degree in history and served on the boards of several organizations, including The Metropolitan Museum of Art, the firm said. A company statement said executives and other employees were devastated by her death and described her as “brilliant, passionate, warm, generous, and deeply respected.”
LePatner’s family said their hearts were broken and asked that their privacy be respected as they mourn. They also offered condolences to other families who lost loved ones in the shooting.
“We cannot properly express the grief we feel upon the sudden and tragic loss of Wesley,” they said in a statement. “She was the most loving wife, mother, daughter, sister, and relative, who enriched our lives in every way imaginable.”
Author Bruce Feiler said in a Facebook post that he was shocked, saddened, and furious over LePatner’s death. He said they served together on a board at Yale.
“At 43, she was the most effortless and impressive person — you wanted to follow her wherever she went,” he wrote. “A mentor to young women and generous friend to everyone who knew her, she was on the board of her children’s Jewish day school, recently joined the board of The Met, and just felt in every way like the kind of leader we all want and need in these unsettling times.”
The man who stormed a Manhattan office tower with a gun, killing four people before killing himself, worked in the surveillance department of a Las Vegas casino, part of an industry built on watching for threats before they unfold.
Shane Tamura, 27, didn’t show up to work his usual shift Sunday at the Horseshoe Las Vegas. Instead, authorities say, he got in his car and drove across the country to carry out a mass shooting inside the skyscraper that houses the National Football League’s headquarters. A fifth person, an NFL employee, was wounded in the Monday attack.
As investigators work to uncover a motive, questions are being raised about how a man with a documented history of mental health problems — and a recent arrest for erratic behavior at another casino — ended up working in one of the most security-sensitive jobs in Las Vegas.
Caesars Entertainment, which owns the Horseshoe, confirmed Tamura’s employment but has yet to disclose the nature of his role or whether he was authorized to carry a weapon. A spokesperson didn’t respond to emails asking whether Tamura’s job required him to hold a valid work card from the state Private Investigator’s Licensing Board, which is needed to work as a private security officer in Nevada.
State licensing records show Tamura previously held a state-issued license as a private security officer, though it had expired in December.
While he held that license, Tamura was arrested at a casino in suburban Las Vegas. A report on the September 2023 arrest says he was asked to leave after he became agitated with casino security and employees who asked him for his ID, and he was arrested on a misdemeanor trespassing charge. Prosecutors later dismissed the case.
Tamura left a note saying he had CTE
Tamura had a history of mental illness, police said without giving details. Authorities have not provided more specific information about Tamura’s psychiatric history, but are investigating claims he included in a handwritten note he left behind, in which he said he had chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or CTE, a degenerative brain disease linked to repeated head trauma.
Officials said he had intended to target the offices of the NFL, which he accused of hiding the dangers of brain injuries linked to contact sports, but he took the wrong elevator.
Tamura’s family members did not respond to messages seeking comment. No one answered a knock at the door of his family’s Las Vegas home on Monday.
Tamura didn’t play professional football but was a standout running back during his high school years in southern California, where he was born, according to local news accounts at the time, including one that described his abilities as “lightning in a bottle.”
One of his former coaches, Walter Roby, said he did not remember Tamura sustaining any head injuries in his playing days. He recalled an ankle injury, “but that was the extent of it.”
“He was a quiet dude, soft spoken, humble, and led by his work ethic more than anything else,” Roby told The Associated Press. “His actions on the field were dynamic.”
Former classmates and neighbors say he didn’t stand out
Some of Tamura’s former classmates seemed stunned by the shooting, and several said they had lost contact with him.
But numerous others who say they were in Tamura’s grade at Golden Valley High School, which has over 2,000 students, weren’t familiar with him. Some of Tamura’s neighbors in Las Vegas also said they didn’t recognize him after seeing his photo shared in news reports about the shooting.
“They were so unremarkable, or maybe they were never home when I was home,” neighbor Wendy Malnak said about Tamura and his family.
Malnak, whose house is diagonally across from Tamura’s, has lived in the neighborhood since 2022. She said many of the residents on what she described as a quiet street keep in touch regularly and look out for each other, and yet none of them seemed to notice Tamura or his family before police officers showed up Monday night and surrounded their house.
Authorities work to piece together Tamura’s steps
Las Vegas police said Tuesday they were “supporting the NYPD with their investigation” but have not released details about the police activity Monday at Tamura’s home. Two groups of New York City detectives were on their way to Las Vegas to conduct interviews and search the home, New York City Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch said.
Authorities said they were also questioning an associate of Tamura who bought a component of the AR-15-style assault rifle used in the attack. Tisch said Tamura had “assembled” the weapon and used his concealed carry permit to purchase another firearm, a revolver, last month.
“This is part of a larger effort to trace Mr. Tamura’s steps from Las Vegas to New York City,” she said.