NYC Shooter Had Two Mental Health Holds in Las Vegas

Posted on: August 8, 2025, 11:10h. 

Last updated on: August 8, 2025, 01:13h.

Corey Levitan Read More
Expertise: Commercial Gaming, Entertainment, Expert Insight, Las Vegas, Restaurants, Vegas Myths Busted.
  • Shane Tamura, the Las Vegas casino surveillance worker who shot four people to death in a Manhattan skyscraper last month, was subjected to two emergency mental-health holds in Las Vegas over the past three years
  • Neither prevented him from legally obtaining the automatic rifle he used in the atrocity

Two mental health holds in Las Vegas weren’t enough to stop Shane Tamura from legally obtaining guns, including the AR-15-style rifle he used to kill four people in a Manhattan skyscraper on July 28.

Shane Tamura, 27, worked in the surveillance department at Horseshoe Las Vegas. (Image: LVMPD)

Records released this week by the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department (LVMPD) confirm that the 27-year-old was the subject of two emergency psychiatric evaluations in 2022 and 2024.

“I have reason to believe that Shane, if left alone, could cause serious injury to himself or death,” a police officer wrote in Tamura’s most recent application for a 72-hour mental-health hold.

In addition to checking off a box marked “attempting suicide” as the outcome the officer believed Tamura was at most serious risk of, the officer also checked off a box stating “causing bodily injury to himself or herself or others, including without limitation, death, unconsciousness, extreme physical pain, protracted and obvious disfigurement or a protracted loss or impairment of a body part, organ or mental functioning.”

The application filled out by a police officer for gunman Shane Tamura’s most recent of two mental-health holds in Las Vegas. (Image: LVMPD)

“He’s made vague statements to mom/medical about ending it,” the officer wrote. “He doesn’t have a method in mind yet.”

These records, which would typically have been withheld due to privacy protections, were released this week “in light of the extraordinary circumstances,” LVMPD explained on its website.

Nothing Illegal Here

Tamura was still allowed to purchase firearms because Nevada is one of about 25 US states without a law rendering temporary mental-health holds as gun-disqualifying.

Such a hold “does not automatically trigger a firearm prohibition under federal or state law, unless it progresses to a court-ordered involuntary commitment,” Duke University law professor Jeff Swanson told NPR this week, adding that emergency holds by themselves are not reported to the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) and wouldn’t show up in a background check.

Under federal law, people can be prohibited from buying guns, but only if they are adjudicated as “a mental defective” by a court or other authority. The NICS currently lists more than eight million names in that category.

Tamura was also arrested for trespassing at the off-Strip Red Rock Casino Resort in 2023.

On July 28, Tamura entered 345 Park Avenue in Midtown Manhattan and opened fire inside the lobby of the high-rise office building.

Using a semi-automatic rifle purchased from his supervisor in the surveillance department of Horseshoe Las Vegas, Tamura killed four people and critically injured another before making his way to the 33rd floor, where he died by suicide from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

His victims included an off-duty NYPD officer working security and multiple building employees.