A New York Police Department (NYPD) officer stands in front of a bullet-shattered window at 345 Park Avenue building on Park Avenue after a gunman killed four people before turning the gun on himself on Monday evening on July 29, 2025, in New York City. The suspect, identified as Shane Tamura, 27, shot and killed a police officer and three civilians, the New York Police Department has said. (Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images)
It was the white noise of the helicopter blades slicing through the air — not the incessant emergency vehicle sirens — that tipped me off that something was wrong.
In New York, the chaos — the wailing of an ambulance, the incessant honking of the horns — is so commonplace that it becomes an unnoticed, repeating chorus. Which is why when I heard the sounds of fire engines and cop cars while sitting on the 14th floor of my co-working space in midtown Manhattan, I didn’t think much of them. Last week, there had been some sort of festival on the street with live singing that went on for an hour. This was, I thought, the soundtrack of the city.
It was already past 6:30 p.m., but I just needed one more hour of focus to wrap up a project for a client. I was in a designated “Quiet” space where people aren’t allowed to talk aloud. There were about five of us sitting there plowing through our work. But every 10 minutes or so, people from other rooms on the floor would gather behind me to look out a window and mumble to each other softly. After about half an hour, I decided to pack up and go home because the distraction was too much.
Then, the helicopters flew in. Something was wrong.
By 7 p.m., I slid my laptop into my backpack, took a few last sips of my mango tea and headed to the main area of the co-working space to toss my trash. That’s when I started to catch snippets of full-voiced conversations.
Something about an active shooter.
Something about the building across the street.
Something about us being stuck here.
That can’t possibly be right, I thought. I even asked one guy about whether there was an alternate exit, but he just shrugged his shoulders and walked away.
I quickly threw my laptop bag over my shoulder and headed down to the lobby to find out for myself. Once I was on the ground floor, I could see the commotion outside the wall-to-wall glass doors and a blue wave of police officers walking back and forth on the street. I realized every word I’d heard was true.
What we would find out later was that at around 6:30 p.m., a 27-year-old man named Shane Devon Tamura had walked into 345 Park Ave. with an M4 and opened fire in the lobby before making his way to the elevator to continue the rampage upstairs, tragically killing four people and himself. As a result, the building I was in, which was directly across the street, was on lockdown.
Anadolu / Getty Images
Security forces take measures after a police officer and a civilian were shot by a suspect armed with an assault rifle, in New York City, United States on July 28, 2025. The shooting happened outside 345 Park Avenue near East 52nd Street in Midtown Manhattan. (Photo by Selcuk Acar/Anadolu via Getty Images)
At that moment, however, the details were sparse. Yes, lobby attendants confirmed there was an active shooter situation happening directly across the street. And no, we couldn’t leave the building. Instead, I and about 10 other people in the lobby were being told by a guard to do something I thought I’d never do: “shelter in place.”
If the confirmation of the shooter sparked fear in me, those three little words — the command to shelter in place — set it ablaze. I knew that sheltering in place served an important purpose for emergency responders minimizing a threat. But wasn’t sheltering in place what they told people in the South Tower to do after the North Tower was struck on 9/11? Wasn’t sheltering in place what people who had no other means to escape did when Hurricane Katrina hit? Wasn’t sheltering in place what people in Paradise, California, were forced to do when the roads were blocked and there was no way to escape the fires?
To live in this city is to always have your guard up and to be ready for a red alert. You know exactly how many seconds of eye contact it takes to let someone dangerous know that you see them, but you’re not staring at them. You know which ways to look before jaywalking across a street. You know where to sit on the train and how to position yourself so that you’re least likely to be the victim of a crime.
When I read about other tragedies, I had told myself that sheltering in place wasn’t always the safest option and that I’d make a break for it if I were ever in that situation. But in a moment of escalating anxiety and shock at how close I was to danger, I didn’t flee or fight as I expected and planned from the comfort of my home. I turned on my heels and headed back to the elevator bank to go back to the 14th floor with everyone else.
“Stay away from the windows,” the lobby attendants reminded us as we waited for the elevator doors to open back up.
Back upstairs, there was a mix of reactions. Some people were specifically peering out the windows, trying to make out what was happening in the office building across from us. Others looked like they were still hard at work on their laptops. Even more were probably hidden away in other rooms. But it was eerily quiet. As I walked the floor searching for the safest place to settle down, I caught the eye of a kind stranger who must’ve noticed the confusion on my face.
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Anadolu / Getty Images
Security forces take measures after a police officer and a civilian were shot by a suspect armed with an assault rifle, in New York City, United States on July 28, 2025. The shooting happened outside 345 Park Avenue near East 52nd Street in Midtown Manhattan. (Photo by Selcuk Acar/Anadolu via Getty Images)
“Should I be more worried?” I said to him, looking for some comfort.
“Maybe,” he replied. “Maybe not.” He graciously invited me to sit with him and his girlfriend, but I wanted another wall between the exterior windows and me. Instead, by 7:30 p.m., I had exiled myself to an interior office and was oscillating between my Twitter feed, CNN and a text chain with worried friends — one of whom actually worked in the building across the street but was (thankfully) working from home that day.
At the time, no one knew exactly what was going on. They didn’t know if the shooter was a lone gunman or if he had accomplices with him in the building. I watched footage online of people being handcuffed and escorted away from the scene directly in front of my building. Authorities didn’t know if this was an isolated incident or if there was more to expect in the area. On my floor, one person casually mentioned that they were concerned the shooter might have a bomb.
I knew that the people across the street from me were in exponentially greater danger than me. I knew that the terror they were experiencing was of the gravest kind. And at the same time, I had to remind myself that I was still in a very real zone of danger and needed to take it seriously. That I couldn’t diminish or ignore the emotional and physical ripple effects this event was having even though I, and those around me, weren’t at the center of them. Proximity to danger also breeds panic and leaves an impact even after you’re in the clear.
I sat in that interior office, listening nervously to the updates that came in over a loudspeaker every 20 minutes or so reminding us to stay put and stay away from the windows. By 8:30 p.m., we finally received a different message: We could leave the building through a side exit.
I’m embarrassed to say that I barely glanced at the other people on the floor or mumbled a goodbye before rushing to the elevator to head downstairs and out an exit I’d never seen before. As I hurriedly walked half a mile away from the crime scene before getting on the subway, I had nothing but time to think about what just happened.
Everyone has a plan, they say, until you get punched in the mouth. There’s sometimes a disconnect between how we think we’ll behave and what we actually do in unpredictable and unsettling moments. Are we kind? Are we bold? Are we selfless? Do we unravel? Do we excel? Do we falter?
No matter how you act in terrifying situations, you shouldn’t judge yourself too harshly. What I had to remind myself of, as a New Yorker, is that this city is completely unpredictable. Even the best-laid plans fall apart every day. I am grateful that I have the benefit of being able to plan another day.
Do you have a compelling personal story you’d like to see published on HuffPost? Find out what we’re looking for here and send us a pitch at pitch@huffpost.com.This article originally appeared on HuffPost in August 2025.
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