As a former NFL player, I’ve seen up close what brain trauma can do. Shane Tamura’s final note echoed a familiar pain while showing how silence, access and neglect can kill
Four people lost their lives this week in a Manhattan office building, gunned down in a place I know well, by a man with a rifle and a three-page note blaming football and the brain diseases it allegedly left him with. One of the victims was an off-duty NYPD officer. Another was a Blackstone executive. All were innocent. All were just trying to make it home, and thanks to 27-year-old Shane Tamura, they never did.
I’ve walked through those NFL offices. I’ve sat in those rooms. I have friends who still work there, people I care about deeply. And on the other side, I’ve known people and lost people who have suffered with chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), not always to death, but to the isolation that comes with it and the slow unraveling of mind, body, and spirit. And I’ve lost people to gun violence. Too many of us have.
