Article Originally Published Here.
The widow of a man killed in the July 2025 shooting at a midtown Manhattan office building sued the building, its contract security provider, and a tenant this week, accusing them of lax security.
Jamila Akhter’s husband, New York Police Department Detective Didarul Islam, was working an off-duty, uniformed security shift at 345 Park Avenue on 18 July in Manhattan, New York City. A lone gunman approached the building with an assault-style rifle. He entered the lobby and began shooting, hitting Islam, a security guard, and two other people. The gunman then went to one of the building’s elevators, where he rode up to the 33rd floor, and shot more people before fatally shooting himself. Islam and three other people died in the attack.
In a suicide note, the gunman alleged he suffered from chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE)—a brain disease linked to head trauma. It is notably linked to trauma received during tackle football. The shooter was apparently aiming to attack the headquarters of the National Football League (NFL), which is a tenant at 345 Park Avenue.
Akhter filed a lawsuit in the New York State Supreme Court on 15 December against Rudin Management, the real estate firm that owns and operates the 345 Park Avenue skyscraper and has offices there. The suit also names McLane Security, the building’s contract security provider, and the NFL as defendants.
The lawsuit accuses the defendants of recklessness and negligence in failing to stop the shooter, The New York Times reported. The suit claims that Rudin and the building lacked sufficient weapon detection and that it failed to identify or intercept the attacker as he walked across a plaza to the building with his rifle openly visible.
According to the Times, the suit says: “Not a single security measure—physical barriers, weapon detection systems, cameras, or human surveillance—deterred, detected, disrupted, or delayed the gunman’s unimpeded path from the street, up steps and across the plaza to the lobby doors. With total impunity, the assailant breached the entrance and began spraying the lobby with gunfire, shooting the decedent four times, including three shots in his back and once in the arm.”
The building has many security measures, including a button to freeze elevators so assailants cannot travel beyond the lobby. However, the security officer on duty, Aland Etienne, was shot before he could activate the function.
The suit claims that the building lacked a cohesive notification system and failed to provide compatible communication devices to security guards and off-duty police officers on security detail. The suit also accuses McLane Security of not having adequately trained staff to deter or delay the shooting.
It further accuses the NFL of failing to report threats of violence to the building and not putting appropriate security protocols in place when they “knew or should have known” about possible threats of violence from former NFL players or those suffering from CTE.
