In the Manhattan office building shooting incident on July 28th, a janitor working on the 33rd floor ran into the gunman, Shane Tamura, as he emerged from the elevator in the middle of the corridor. How did she manage to escape? Recently, the janitor named Sebije Nelovic shared her harrowing experience through her union, the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), Local 32BJ.
“I heard a loud noise, and this guy walked out of the door and pointed a gun at me,” Nelovic recalled. The gunman then began shooting around her, “I am a janitor, I am a janitor… but I realized, he had an automatic weapon, he wouldn’t know who I was, he would shoot at anyone.”
The 65-year-old janitor was terrified and started running along the corridor of the 33rd-floor office, eventually hiding in a closet and locking herself in.
Nelovic heard shouting in the hallway. Then, “He started shooting,” she said, “He fired a shot at the closet door, I was scared, but thankfully nothing happened, and I heard him walking along the corridor.”
At that moment, Nelovic thought of 27-year-old assistant Julia Hyman from Rudin Management, knowing that she was working late recently and sitting at her desk.
“I thought: God, please help her,” Nelovic said, at that point her supervisor called and texted her, asking if she was safe. “I told him I was in a closet, he told me to stay there, I was afraid to make a sound, so I turned off my phone. I sat in the closet for two, maybe three hours, praying all the time.”
It wasn’t until the police arrived that Nelovic knew she was safe and learned about everything that had happened.
The perpetrator, Tamura, was a disgruntled Las Vegas security guard who blamed the National Football League (NFL) at 345 Park Avenue for what he believed was a chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) he suffered from. However, he mistakenly ended up on the 33rd floor where Rudin Management was located, resulting in Hyman’s tragic death.
Hyman’s death was especially heartbreaking for Nelovic, as the young employee would always say goodnight to her whenever she left the office.
“She was such a nice person,” Nelovic said. “I feel sad for her. I feel sad for everyone.”