The gunman who suspected he had CTE when he killed four people and himself in a Manhattan office building in July did in fact have the degenerative brain disease, a medical examiner said Friday.
Shane Devon Tamura, 27, who played high school football, had “unambiguous diagnostic evidence” of low-stage CTE, or chronic traumatic encephalopathy, the New York City medical examiner said.
The brain disease is caused by repeated head injuries and is most commonly associated in the U.S. with NFL players. But researchers say Tamura is far from the first young athlete to develop CTE despite not having played sports after high school or college.
“We know that we have a lot of cases like this. We know high school football players can get CTE,” said Chris Nowinski, co-founder and CEO of the nonprofit Concussion Legacy Foundation.
Nowinski said Tamura’s findings should be a wake-up call to football coaches and other leaders in the sports world and trigger stricter guidelines for America’s most popular sport.
“We don’t need any more research to convince high school coaches to change the rules of the game,” he said. “There needs to be a will to do it.”
The medical examiner conducted a brain examination as part of Tamura’s autopsy after authorities say the attacker left a note at the scene of the July 28 shooting, expressing anger that his mental troubles may have been linked to playing football and requesting his brain be studied for CTE.
Authorities said Tamura was trying to target the headquarters of the NFL, which is in the Park Avenue building where the shooting took place.
Tamura played high school football in California about a decade ago and frequently took hits from other players in his positions as running back and defensive back, his former teammates and an ex-coach previously told NBC News.
Nowinski said news coverage of CTE cases has largely centered around high-profile NFL players, which he said creates the false perception that the issue only affects professional athletes. But he said experts who study brain injuries know that high school athletes are also at risk.
It’s a pressing concern, said Nowinski, who played college football for Harvard University and sustained a career-ending concussion in 2003 as a WWE professional wrestler.
Nowinski said he hopes Tamura’s case leads high school football associations to educate coaches and players about CTE and set stricter limits on how many times, and how hard, athletes can be hit in the head.
“We’d be insane not to enact efforts to prevent CTE,” he said.
An estimated over 300,000 high school athletes in the country suffer a concussion each year, the National Federation of State High School Association has previously said. In 2019, it recommended limiting full contact during practice sessions and limiting the total number of quarters or periods played per week in sports like football and ice hockey.
The NFL, which first acknowledged the link between CTE and football in 2016, did not immediately comment.
Former NFL player Aaron Hernandez had one of the worst cases of CTE for his age that researchers had seen, the Boston center said in 2017. The 27-year-old died by suicide that year after being convicted of murder.
Another ex-NFL player, Phillip Adams, who fatally shot six people before taking his own life in 2021, was also found to have CTE.
Most recently, when former Pro Bowl running back Rudi Johnson died by apparent suicide this month, his agent called for greater CTE research and prevention, although it’s unclear if the three-time 1,000-yard rusher had it.
CTE can only be diagnosed after death since there is no imaging tool that can detect brain injuries like CTE while a person is alive, according to Dr. Ross Zafonte, a brain injury specialist and the executive vice dean at the University of Missouri’s School of Medicine.
That has made it difficult to study how CTE affects behavior, he said.
While Boston University’s CTE Center said brain degeneration is associated with common symptoms of CTE, including impulse control problems, aggression, depression and suicidality, Zafonte and two other experts who study brain injuries said CTE has not been definitively linked to behavioral changes.
Authorities said Tamura had a history of mental health issues and encounters with law enforcement. In 2022, he threatened to kill himself while suffering from depression, chronic migraines and insomnia, according to a phone call his mother made to police.
Zafonte said the latest high-profile case study might help researchers further understand the role of impulsivity. But, he cautioned, many factors affect behavior and researchers do not yet know the full depth of Tamura’s mental health history.
“We have to remember this is an evolving and changing piece of science,” he said.
If you or someone you know is in crisis, call or text 988, or go to 988lifeline.org, to reach the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline. You can also call the network, previously known as the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline, at 800-273-8255, or visit SpeakingOfSuicide.com/resources.
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