Mayor Eric Adams and Gov. Kathy Hochul joined multi-faith leaders at Bryant Park Tuesday night for a prayer vigil honoring the four victims killed during madman Shane Tamura’s rampage at a Midtown skyscraper.
“This senseless act of violence, as the police commissioner and I walked through the building, we saw the blood trails and the videos. And the level of violence … I have not witnessed at that level before,” Adams said during the somber ceremony.
“We need our faith community at this moment to do something that is more powerful than any legislative agenda. And that is prayer,” the mayor added.
Mayor Eric Adams and Gov. Kathy Hochul joined multi-faith leaders Tuesday night at Bryant Park for a prayer vigil for the four victims killed during madman Shane Tamura’s rampage at a Midtown skyscraper. James Keivom
NYPD officer Didarul Islam, security guard Aland Etienne, Blackstone executive Wesley Lepatner and Rudin Management associate Julia Hyman were all shot and killed by Tamura on Monday night at 345 Park Ave. before he turned the gun on himself.
Islam leaves behind his expecting wife and two young boys. Lepatner and Etienne also had two children, respectively.
“To lose a child, it is one of the most abnormal things that can happen in our society. Children are supposed to bury their parents. Parents are not supposed to bury their children,” Adams said at the vigil.
Adams shakes hands with Hochul during a Tuesday night vigil at Bryant Park. James Keivom
Adams noted that he feels “personally responsible” for “what happened to each of the victims” as he asserted that it is his responsibility to keep New Yorkers safe under the oath he signed at the start of his term.
Hochul revealed that she spoke with many of the victims’ family members, including Islam’s widowed wife who simply asked the community to “pray for them.”
A person holding a sign honoring slain NYPD officer Didarul Islam at Tuesday’s vigil. James Keivom
The body of NYPD officer Didarul Islam is transferred from the medical examiner’s office to a funeral home following his death in a mass shooting at 345 Park Avenue. James Keivom
NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch praised Islam for his dedication to the force while highlighting the city’s lasting appreciation for each of the victims.
“That kind of love doesn’t disappear,” Tisch said.
Tisch specifically mourned her “beautiful friend Wesley,” though their exact connection or how they knew one another is unclear.
Hizzoner, Hochul and Tisch were flanked by multi-faith leaders and other senior officials with the mayor’s office.
While the devastating losses loomed over the vigil, so did politics – and mounting tensions surrounding gun control legislation that the governor and mayor asserted is needed now more than ever in a rare instance of agreement.
Four people were shot and killed in Monday’s rampage. Derek French/Shutterstock
“We cannot strengthen gun laws through vigils. It must be responded through legislation,” Adams said.
“It is time to turn the corner of a society where automatic weapons are as easy to get as a cellphone. We need to rethink who we are as a society, that there is a comfortability to carry an illegal weapon of this magnitude,” the mayor said.
“Congress must have the courage to say ‘we’re a great nation. Our citizens deserve better,’” said Hochul.
“We respect all rights, but no one should claim as a constitutional right the ability to bear an arm, and I assure you our Founding Fathers did not contemplate when our constitution was written,” the governor continued.
