A cleaner narrowly escaped the mass shooting at the Midtown Manhattan Park Ave. skyscraper, just missing a face-to-face encounter with the assault rifle-toting gunman, police said Wednesday.
Through sheer luck, the cleaner on the 33rd floor of 345 Park Ave. made a left turn down a corridor just as Tamura, heading down the same hallway, turned the opposite direction.
“(Tamura) made a right, she made a left — and it saved her life,” NYPD Chief of Department John Chell, who reviewed building surveillance footage, told Fox 5’s “Good Day New York.”
Upon seeing Tamura, the cleaner ran down the hall, taking her rolling garbage can on wheels with her, Chell said.
When Tamura spotted her running away, he opened fire but missed her as she scrambled to hide in a room, added Deputy Mayor of Safety Kaz Daughtry, who also watched the video.
“God was with a lot of folks in that building that day,” Daughtry said. “If she would have made a left that would have ended her life, but she made a right.”
Tamura fatally shot NYPD Officer Didarul Islam,36, building security guard Aland Etienne, 46, and Blackstone executive Wesley LePatner, 43, in the lobby of the 44-story skyscraper at 6:30 p.m. Monday.
He wounded another man, an NFL employee, before heading to the elevators. As the elevator doors opened at the lobby, he confronted a woman exiting the elevator, whom he didn’t harm, Daughtry said.
“(She) met face-to-face with the gunman,” Daughtry said of that woman.
Going to the 33rd floor, he began shooting indiscriminately, missing the cleaner and killing Rudin employee Julia Hyman, 27, before taking his own life.
All four deceased victims died of gunshot wounds to the torso, officials said.
Police believe Tamura, a high-school football player who believed he suffered a brain injury on the gridiron, was targeting the offices of the National Football League, although he never played professionally. He took the wrong elevator and did not make it to NFL headquarters.
After taking part in a dignified transfer of Officer Islam’s body from the hospital, NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch, Mayor Adams, Daughtry and Chell all went back to 345 Park Ave. and did a walk through of the crime scene Tuesday.
Blood and bullets covered the lobby and the 33rd floor, Chell said.
“I’ve been doing this 32 years,” Chell said, getting choked up at times during the interview. “Just getting there on that scene and realizing you had casualties and there was an active shooter going on. This is not a normal event.”
“We lost four great New Yorkers,” he added. “They didn’t deserve this. This was pure evil. Senseless.”
Originally Published: July 30, 2025 at 10:24 AM EDT
