By Debra J. Saunders / Las Vegas Review-Journal
I have a pet peeve about news coverage of mass murder. When the story breaks, cable news anchors report, as they first did after Monday’s shooting in Midtown Manhattan, that the killer’s motives were unknown.
What do mass shooters’ motives matter?
When killers leave notes to explain their brutality, they leave self-aggrandizing excuses for snuffing out the lives of good people who deserved to go home to their families.
The victims’ untimely deaths are set aside, while the killer’s twisted grievances get oxygen.
So what do we know about shooter Shane Tamura of Las Vegas, who took his own life after killing four people he didn’t even know in a high-rise building last Monday evening?
According to authorities, Tamura had a “documented mental health history.” So do a lot of other people who do not resort to violence.
In his suicide note, the 27-year-old wrote of his belief he had chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) from playing football, a contact sport, in high school. He asked authorities to conduct an autopsy to confirm his belief, which also happens to be his rationale for killing other people.
New York, of course, will conduct an autopsy. It’s something that needs to be known.
Whatever the diagnosis, I would add a very un-forensic cause of death. Guilt. He murdered Didarul Islam, an NYPD officer working private security; Blackstone executive Wesley LePatner; security officer Aland Etienne; and Julia Hyman, an associate at Rudin Management.
Tamura may have been able to convince himself that he shot five people, one who survived, for a cause. But the world does not have to believe him.
Ditto another young man who may have convinced himself that he shot and killed United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson on a Manhattan sidewalk last December to send a message about corporate greed in the health care industry.
The suspect in Thompson’s slaying, Luigi Mangione, 27, has pleaded not guilty and will have his day in court, as is his due.
What is not his due: Love letters from besotted groupies who think there is something noble about shooting a man in cold blood. Because they think he was serving a higher cause.
Pundits write about how we live in hyper-politicized times, so it should be no surprise that premeditated murderers use worthy and unworthy causes to justify their slaughter.
They write manifestos and they tell themselves they are killing for a cause. When really, they’re butchers.
Email Debra J. Saunders at dsaunders@reviewjournal.com. Copyright 2025, Creators.com.
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