Inside 345 Park Avenue when a mass killer arrived

By Rachel Clarke from reporting by Dakin Andone, Taylor Galgano, Lauren Mascarenhas, John Miller, Mark Morales, Sharif Paget, Shimon Prokupecz, Andy Rose, Ray Sanchez and Jessie Yeung, CNN

New York (CNN) — Hundreds of people call 345 Park Avenue in Manhattan their work home. The skyscraper soars more than 600 feet and occupies the entire city block from 51st to 52nd Street in Midtown, stretching from Park to Lexington Avenue in one of the ritziest areas of the city.

Trees along the south side would offer commuters some relief from the summer sun were the building not so large it casts a massive shadow all by itself.

Yet there’s an airiness around the building, with a large open plaza across from the century-old Romanesque grandeur of St. Bartholemew’s Church leading to the light-filled lobby.

It was across that plaza and into that lobby that a mass killer walked early Monday evening.

The bustle of rush hour became alarm as witnesses heard two shots, the sound of glass shattering and then rapid fire. Nekeisha Lewis was nearby eating dinner with friends when she saw a man run from the building saying “Help, help. I’m shot,” she told The Associated Press.

The gunman had left his black BMW sedan double-parked on the street and strolled to the entrance, sunglasses on and holding an assault-style rifle in his right hand. His demeanor as captured by a security camera was “quite brazen,” noted retired NYPD Capt. John Monaghan.

“It’s clear from the picture he is not worried about getting caught,” Monaghan told CNN’s Kaitlan Collins. “This is a guy who went into that building knowing, intending to kill someone and probably knowing he was not going to come out alive.”

As he entered the glistening 44-story tower that houses the headquarters of the National Football League as well as venerable investment and real estate firms, the man turned right, New York Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch said on Monday.

He pulled the trigger on his rifle, shooting Didarul Islam in the back. Islam was in his dark blue NYPD uniform, working a sanctioned overtime shift to provide extra security.

Surveillance footage showed he shot a woman behind a pillar, then sprayed the area with gunfire.

Another man in the lobby was hit and managed to get out of the building.

Glass panels at the entrance and a revolving door were shattered but the pieces remained in the frames Tuesday.

The shooter then went toward the gates leading to the elevators, shooting and killing Aland Etienne, a building guard trying to set off an alarm behind his desk that would have deactivated the elevators.

On a normal day, that guard would have checked in visitors before they could go through the turnstiles and to the upper floors, according to CNN’s Coy Wire, who has been to the NFL offices in the building several times. Wire said his experience was the building was “highly secured.”

The gunman reached the elevators as one opened into the lobby, letting out a woman. Early investigations show he was targeting the NFL but the elevator he took does not serve the lower floors where its headquarters are. Instead, after allowing the woman to walk past him unharmed, he took the same elevator to the 33rd floor.

Above the lobby, workers piled furniture against an office entrance, according to photographs posted on X.

At 6:28 p.m., the NYPD’s 911 call center started receiving alerts about an active shooter at 345 Park and sirens of emergency responders were soon blaring their way to the building.

At about that time, Iris Christo Doulou saw people running outside from her office across East 52nd Street, telling CNN a helicopter was soon hovering overhead as well.

She and her colleagues were told to stay inside.

“They made two announcements. We didn’t know what was going on. If there was a bomb, how many shooters? We stayed away from the windows, so we went (to) the back of the office so that we’re safe.”

A column of a couple dozen police officers hustled into 345 Park, seen on video captured from a neighboring building.

Outside, streets filled with office workers running with their hands up past a falafel truck and an entrance to the Downtown 6 train on Lexington Avenue. Uniformed police organized evacuations and warned a reporter trying to approach the building there was a shooter with a high-powered rifle inside.

On the 33rd floor, at the office of Rudin Management, the gunman stepped out of the elevator and walked around, firing as he went. One woman was struck and killed. He then walked down a hallway and shot himself in the chest.

As law enforcement poured into the building — so large it has its own ZIP code — the extent of the bloodshed became clear.

Two men and two women killed, along with the shooter, in New York’s worst gun attack in 25 years. Another man, an employee of the NFL, seriously injured in hospital.

Security guard Etienne was remembered as “a New York hero” by his union. “Every time a security officer puts on their uniform, they put their lives on the line. Their contributions to our city are essential, though often unappreciated,” 32BJ SEIU President Manny Pastreich said in a statement.

Rudin Management, the owners of the building, said Etienne was “beloved” there. They also confirmed a Rudin employee was killed. Julia Hyman was named as the employee by her alma mater Cornell University, from where she graduated in 2020. Cornell Dean and Professor Kate Walsh described her as “an extraordinary student.”

Blackstone, a company with offices in the building, said Wesley LePatner left a husband and children bereaved. She was a senior managing editor of Blackstone and a trustee of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, among other activities out of work.

The UJA-Federation of New York, where she was on the board of directors, said: “Wesley was extraordinary in every way — personally, professionally, and philanthropically. An exceptional leader in the financial world, she brought thoughtfulness, vision, and compassion to everything she did.”

As investigators started their painstaking search for answers, less than two miles north, at New York Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center, more officers gathered, but there to honor their colleague who was shot and killed. Didarul Islam’s body, draped in the NYPD flag, was wheeled to an ambulance as his family watched. His brothers in blue stood silently at attention, hands on their hearts.

Police Commissioner Tisch praised the father-of-two working to provide for his wife and family with another baby on the way. “He put himself in harm’s way, he made the ultimate sacrifice — shot in cold blood, wearing a uniform that stood for the promise that he made to this city. He died as he lived, a hero.”

By Tuesday morning, the sounds of rush hour again were dominant in Midtown. No worker was allowed inside 345 Park; instead, the US and New York state flags fluttered at half-staff and a small memorial started to take shape. Flowers were tucked into a railing and a single yellow balloon was added, with a simple handwritten message: “Love one another!”

The-CNN-Wire
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