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The gunman who killed four people at a Manhattan office building before killing himself claimed in a note to have a brain disease linked to contact sports and was trying to target the National Football League’s (NFL) headquarters but took the wrong lift, officials said on Tuesday.

Investigators believe Shane Tamura, of Las Vegas, was trying to get up to the NFL offices after shooting several people in the lobby of the building at 345 Park Avenue on Monday but entered the wrong elevator, Mayor Eric Adams said.

Four people were killed, including an off-duty New York City police officer, Didarul Islam.

Tamura, who played high school football in California nearly two decades ago but never in the NFL, had a history of mental illness, police said.

A three-page note found in his wallet suggested he had a grievance against the NFL over a claim that he suffered from chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE).

The degenerative brain disease has been linked to concussion and other repeated head trauma common in contact sports such as football, but it can only be diagnosed after someone has died.

In the note, Tamura repeatedly said he was sorry and asked that his brain be studied for CTE, according to the police department.

The note also referenced former NFL player Terry Long, who was diagnosed with CTE, and the manner in which Long killed himself in 2005.

The note accused the NFL of concealing the dangers to players’ brains for profit.

The NFL long denied the link between football and CTE, but it acknowledged the connection in 2016 testimony before Congress and has paid more than $1.4 billion (€1.2 billion) to retired players to settle concussion-related claims.

NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell called the shooting “an unspeakable act of violence in our building,” saying he was deeply grateful to the law enforcement officers who responded and the officer who gave his life to protect others.

Goodell said in a memo to staff that a league employee was seriously injured in the attack and was hospitalised in stable condition.

Cross-country drive

Investigators found that Tamura drove across the country over the past few days and made his way into New York City just before the shooting, Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch said.

Surveillance video showed the gunman exiting a double-parked BMW early on Monday evening with a rifle, then marching across a plaza and into the Park Avenue skyscraper, which is also home to investment firm Blackstone and other companies.

It was closed on Tuesday except to investigators.

He then sprayed the lobby with gunfire, killing an off-duty NYPD officer, and hitting a woman who tried to take cover, Tisch said.

He next made his way to the elevator bank, shooting a guard at a security desk and another man in the lobby, the commissioner said.

“He appeared to have first walked past the officer and then he turned to his right, and saw him and discharged several rounds,” Adams said in a TV interview.

Tamura took an elevator to the 33rd-floor offices of the company that owns the building, Rudin Management, and shot and killed one person on that floor.

He then shot and killed himself, the commissioner said.

Blackstone confirmed that one of its employees, real estate executive Wesley LePatner, was among those killed. Security officer Aland Etienne also died, according to a local labour union.

Officer killed was immigrant from Bangladesh

Didarul Islam, 36, had served as a police officer in New York City for more than three years and was an immigrant from Bangladesh, Tisch said at a news conference.

His body was draped in the New York Police Department flag as it was moved from the hospital to an ambulance, with fellow officers standing at attention.

“He was doing the job that we asked him to do. He put himself in harm’s way. He made the ultimate sacrifice,” Tisch said.

“He died as he lived: a hero.”