Explainer | What is this brain injury that the New York shooter said he had?
‘Study my brain,’ the shooter said in a note found in his wallet that claimed he had chronic traumatic encephalopathy
Shane Tamura, 27, who played football in high school, said in a three-page note found in his wallet that he had chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) – diagnosable only after death – and implored those who found him: “Study my brain.”
Among his grievances against the NFL was a claim that the league put its profits ahead of player safety by concealing the harm CTE, and football, can cause. Echoing an eerie trend in NFL player suicides, he shot himself in the chest, preserving his brain for an autopsy that could confirm whether his layman’s diagnosis was correct.
A degenerative brain disease that has been linked to concussions and other head trauma common in military combat and contact sports, CTE has been diagnosed in more than 100 former NFL players and has arisen as an existential threat to the United States’ most powerful pro sports league.
Its dangers have led some states to consider banning youth football, prompted leagues at most levels to limit contact drills in practice, and spawned a series of concussion protocols and other rule changes designed to take the most violent edges off the hard-hitting sport.