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Jon Ferrer was working late Monday evening, reviewing tax returns and trying to get a head start on the week. The KPMG senior tax associate said he heard a faint alarm when he was in the bathroom, but thought nothing of it.
Then an associate walked over to his desk and gave him the horrifying news: There was an active shooter in their office building. “My heart sank to my stomach,” Ferrer said.
He was ushered into a partner’s office with about 15 co-workers, as colleagues pushed a desk across the door and put blankets up on windows in the room. They sat together in a circle.
As a gunman rampaged through 345 Park Ave., an unthinkable nightmare unfolded for the thousands of employees who work at the landmark New York office tower, home to the private-equity giant Blackstone and KPMG, as well as the National Football League.
In the end, four people were killed—an off-duty police officer, a security guard, a senior Blackstone executive and a real-estate firm employee—while others were hospitalized with injuries. The shooter, 27-year-old Shane Tamura from Las Vegas, left a suicide note saying he believed he was suffering from chronic traumatic encephalopathy, a brain disease associated with head injuries, and he was apparently blaming the NFL.
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