The UnitedHealthcare CEO shooter's meticulous planning has helped him evade police so far, experts say
Summary
UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson was fatally shot in a targeted attack outside a New York Hilton hotel, with investigators describing the killing as meticulously planned.
The gunman fled on foot, then by rental bike, and possibly left the city via bus. Shell casings at the scene had words like “deny” and “defend” inscribed, hinting at a motive linked to Thompson’s work.
Experts suggest the shooter may have military or weapons experience but left key clues, including surveillance footage and discarded items.
Police are analyzing evidence, including DNA, to identify the suspect.
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/unitedhealthcare-ceo-shooters-meticulous-planning-helped-evade-police-rcna183184Open linkView original on lemmy.world584
Comments168
Well, I'll be damned! The republicans were right!
All it takes is a good-guy with a gun!
It takes a bit more than that to get away with it though. The police even seem impressed.
If failing to close a murder file impressed the police they'd be in a constant state of amazement. About half of homicides are solved and I'm sure premeditated murder outside of family is much much lower than that. 5 to 10 percent for organized crime/gangs for example.
Yeah, but this is one they want to solve. They don't care if a random person gets shot in the Bronx.
Anyways, what are y'all having for dinner tonight?
Is it time to update the phrase to "If you see someone gun down a CEO, no you didn't!"?
What’s better than a dead CEO?
Two.
What do you call one dead CEO?
A good start.
What's the difference between a bucket of shit and a CEO?
The bucket
Even a broken Glock was right twice that day.
...Hundred. *You forgot the last part.
Thousand, even.
Two thousand sixty six. Well, two thousand sixty five now.
Yesh
Eat the rich?
There is no such thing as ethical consumption under capital ... I stand corrected.
I say "OM!" you say "NOM! NOM! NOM!"
OM!
Crab Rangoon
Probably pan-fried fish - I always put out an extra placemat in case I have a visitor I'll be unable to recall any details about in the morning though.
Awhhh that sounds awesome. I should have thawed the salmon. Probably just some box potstickers and rice, maybe some edamame if I feel like getting the steamer out.
Went out for lunch and ordered WAY too much (I ordered the lunch special which I thought came with one entree, but instead got a lunch special AND an entree) so I'm skipping dinner today.
But lunch was a full serving of goat korma, plus small portions of dal, rice, tandoori chicken, some curry I don't remember, a samosa, rice, and naan. Ate till I was full and took home lots of leftovers.
Coincidentally, that will also be tomorrow's lunch ben😅
Was thinking air fred chicken wings and homade spicy fries
I also choose this guy’s dinner
I don't recall.
I ordered a pizza
Idk. It's almost 8, I'm only a little hungry.
Maybe some beans
I’m pondering some sort of soup, but I’m not sure. Black bean seems sweet.
I've been going vegetarian more lately, and looking for hardy meat substitutes. Yesterday I found a lentil sloppy joe sandwich I wanna try.
A bowl of farina, microwaved
Chicken and Brussel sprouts. Doesn't sound fancy but it's hot fire and I look forward to it.
Got any plans this weekend?
I went and got fried chicken... it was not good. Cold fries and lots of gristle.
Beef & gravy rolls
I had T-Bell
Good for him. Hope they never catch him.
Even avoiding airports, he could be on the other end of the country by now.
Isn't there's something where if the police don't find a suspect in the first few days, they probably won't? May not apply when the case has this much attention and the police are motivated.
"The first 48 (hours)" is misleading.
First, it is mostly a function of how much the cops care. If they care about finding someone they will get off their asses. If they don't, they will just procrastinate and ignore it. This is why you have stories of families frantically trying to get any help at all to find their loved one that was written off as "a junkie" or "a slut".
Second, it matters more when you are dependent on grocery store security cameras and the like that might only have 24 hours of capacity anyway. Less so when you are relying on train stations and bus stations that got all that 9-11 money.
Third? The cops likely already have all they need to identify him. He was allegedly tracked to having got on a bus in Atlanta. They have a few photos of his face. And basically everyone is in the DMV databases. That gives a general tri-state area (possibly an outright car if they check long term parking for the period he was away) and they can narrow that down by employment status (taking a few weeks off to go off grid is not something a Starbucks barista is allowed to do) and even UHC records to see who was denied a claim in the past few years (fortunately THAT doesn't narrow shit down at all).
So they can eventually find him. It is inevitable.
That said: This is the cops. The first white guy who looks vaguely like the shooter and who has no alibi will be heroically killed by the cops when they went to ask him questions and he opened fire while screaming "I am the guy who killed the UHC CEO and I feel really really bad about it and only did it because I am woke and hate my life and please forgive me officer but I will never be taken alive. Also I am pro illegal immigrants and am spraying fentanyl around in case any cops piss hot after this.". Also he had a dime bag of weed on him for some reason. Sorry, half a dime bag.
US is a mad place.
lmaooooo 😭
I had to turn off ne2s when they were saying it's now a multi state manhunt and it's important to keep this in the public eye.
I was like good point, let me stop watching.
It would be good for him if they never catch him, but if they do, and he is sentenced to death as would be expected, his last words could greatly magnify the historical impact of his act, as with the anarchist/labor martyrs of the early 20th century.
That is, unless the media deliberately suppress what he actually said and report his last words as “skibidi toilet” or a declaration of undying love for some Jodie Foster analogue or something, thus proving that the shooter was nuts, as anyone who had a grudge against America’s healthcare providers would have to be.
I know this is indirect speech how they'd spin it, not your own words, but I fucking hate the way these vampires are spun as "providers" - they don't provice jack shit except the rare case of "I provide the wealth to shoulder large financial burdens at once" (but we all know the fine print on that).
The actual providers, on the other hand, have to watch a mother's entire world collapse when she's told her child is gonna die because the treatment isn't affordable and the insurance that made her come all this way to find an in-network doctor in the first place decided the kid should try Yoga or whatever bullshit.
I’m sure the propaganda ghouls in the US are currently talking with one voice about how Brian Thompson was one of the carers, who gave his life to helping the sick, and how his killer is bound for the lowest circle of Hell alongside Hitler, Oswald and the Rosenbergs.
Bitch, my boss is doing more for my healthcare.
Spontaneous Home Office because I caught a cold? If you mark it on your time sheet, I might have to reprimand you, so just don't.
Doctor's appointment with awkward scheduling? If it interferes with important meetings, we'll have to see if we can make it work, otherwise just mark it in your calendar so I know when you're unavailable, catch up the hours whenever.
Granted, it's an office job and I'm doing good work, so he has little reason to object, but that puts him above Thompson already.
So you're saying there's a difference between healthcare providers (doctors/surgeons/nurses/PAs/etc) and wealthcare providers (insurance companies)?
What I've seen the media do is that they will under-report the story and highly focus on a meaningless attention-grabbing event to distract from it. Whenever I see lots of news reporting on something meaningless but engaging, I think they're covering an important story that they don't want us to see.
I would really like to see a site that aggregates independent media so that we could see news headlines by media that isn't handicapped by political connections.
There's plenty of sites that'll give you whatever AI written garbage that'll conform to your personal political beliefs.
The real problem is revenue is drying up for media that confirms their sources and reports the facts without having a political slant to it.
People only viewing media that conforms to their personal biases is what got Trump elected.
New York has no death penalty afaik.
They'll throw him in prison where he'll be treated like royalty.
They can easily prosecute this as a federal crime in a federal court. Crossing state lines might be enough to do it, and they can probably add some additional charges like terrorism. Federal murder can be eligible for death penalty.
Biden should do something cool, since he's thinking about preemptive pardons...
And if they do I hope the courthouse has mobs of protesters larger than has ever been seen.
You know the rich are shitting their pants over this. It's gotta be like a David and Goliath thing for them. It'd be a great time to start a private security company.
I'm sure Academie (or whatever they're calling Blackwater these days) and the Pinkertons are about to see a lot of new business.
Every time I am reminded that the Pinkertons still exist, I go replay a couple parts of Red Dead Redemption 2...
It'll fade. Unless...
It happens every three months or so. With escalating difficulty. All they way to being found dead alone in their office. Then slow down to every 18 to 36 months. That's when they'd be scared enough to actually change corporate policies.
After writing my comment, I thought of mass shooters tweaking their tactic, and going to different kinds of locations. Like certain board rooms.
It's going to be harder after Wednesday. I'm certain Sodexo, ABM, Cintas, etc are going to scrutinize all the support staff working at every F500 from now on, since that's ideally the closest working class staff to any C-level.
And these C-levels are all gonna get private, armed security baked into their comp packages now - the guys who are actually competent, not John With His Dad's Revolver.
...also risks killing innocent people in adjacent parts of the building.
The janitor and the guys fixing the elevator don't need to become collateral damage.
I don't want to be a downer, but https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propaganda_of_the_deed has a long history of doing that and so far it kind of culminated in world war 1.
Certainly the assassination of Ferdinand is a proximate cause of WWI, but there were much greater forces in play. The great powers had giant mechanized armies for the first time, they had plans for the deployment of millions on very strict deadlines, and they had the belief that failure to meet those deadlines would mean national destruction.
I think it is more plausible to argue that propaganda of the deed helped to end the gilded age and usher in the New Deal era, which was America's golden era.
I also act under political desperation. Only under the most optimistic assumptions will electoralism be able to save us from climate change; currently the most likely outcome is human extinction. If the propaganda of the deed has only a 5% chance of saving us from our modern gilded age and the resultant climate-induced end of civilization, then I say it is a chance we must take for we are running out of serious options.
As someone once said: We only have to get lucky once. You have to be lucky every day of your life.
As much as I would totally hate to see the average board room turned into a kindergarten classroom: Not gonna happen. Just expect to see more stories about security guards "roughing people up" and more cops told to bring a spare piece and a dime bag to the site of a self defense shooting when one of the roid fiends unloads on someone for looking at them funny.
This is the bad timeline though. I'm just waiting to hear that this guy was a pro hired by a C-suite rival. Not some hero of the commons.
Good being done for bad reasons is still good
What about bad being done for good reasons? Still bad? (hint: murder)
Idk, the implication it seems your making is that this murder was bad, but I'd argue the result is pretty good here regardless of intentions (though their intentions seem pretty clear given the bullet casings)
Cool motive still murder
No that one's fine actually
That would be kind of a bummer. Still a gain for society
I doubt it would be a gain if someone, who hired someone to kill this guy, would become the next CEO.
There is going to be another either way
Elon was building droids to replace workers, but now they are going to have to use them to protect Elon.
Someone will find a way to hack the droid and turn it on the 'protected' individual.
Hopefully the hacker waits until the droids develop a good name for themselves and all the CEOs have one. Then flip them all at once iRobot style.
Politicians in particular should be rethinking about how much they really want to be complete shitheads in public. Perhaps turn down the glee when they enact harmful legislation as well.
I mean yes, but also these execs are more than rich enough to just have a 24/7 guard detail on retainer. They'll be mildly inconvenienced by that tho so bets are they'll step back and put a pazzi as the face of their companies.
How about these fucking class traitors use their resources to catch the murderers of decent everyday people instead
There are three kinds of people in this world. Those who benefit from the system, those who are exploited by the system, and those who deluded themselves into thinking the system benefits them.
What about the people who delude themselves that they are not beneficiaries of the system?
Why don't you call the tip line and ask them yourselves? Your son could be shot in the face in broad daylight and they were just move on the next day. They would never look for your son's murderer.
Why are they protecting the ultra wealthy more than they are protecting the working class??
Maybe the police are not here to protect us after all?
Ok like the police suck but they would absolutely look for a murderer in that instance. No reason to exaggerate when they're bad enough
i doubt the effort would be actually equal. dont know about ny, but where im from, the double standard is blatant
I played a cop in a video game once and know that they investigate murders of poor/homeless people.
So happy for you
Oh no. What if they never find him? What if this poor, sweet, humble, *checks notes* absolute monster of a healthcare CEO never gets justice.
Narrator: but he already got justice.
“Words like ‘deny’ and ‘defend’”
Don’t forget the all important DEPOSE.
i have noticed a lot of mainstream headlines leave out "depose." which is interesting.
DENOTED
"We are not incredibly incompetent. The shooter was very smart" - overfunded police ranking as a top military force
They're just anxious to get back to the real problem, domesticated squirrels.
Further proof that if you're smart enough you can usually get away with it, and a reminder that cops are only effective because must criminals are fucking stupid.
Well yeah. The real criminal is dead. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Most murders aren't premeditated killing of what is basically a stranger.
If you're not on the scene when the police arrive, not a family member, not somebody with a known grudge and not a rival gang member, don't brag about the killing to your friends, and don't visibly flee the scene in your own car, then they're reduced to the CSI stuff, which I'll wager is far less effective than it is on the show.
And also don't give your DNA to 23 and Me.
If he planned this much and they don't know his names homie is long gone by now
Those discarded items might not even have his DNA on them. Everyone knows about DNA evidence nowadays, if he's really on the ball it'd be easy enough to pick up some random decoys.
Doesn't it also require the DNA to be stored on file to be matched? They haven't even got a suspect to get DNA from.
No, they could pinpoint you just by dna of relatives. Hence why the whole 23andme is such a terrible idea.
If those were his items, and his dna on those items, sure. Iirc, this is how they got the BTK killer- a familial match.
Not BTK, Golden State Killer.
They can't pinpoint you. DNA is about as terrible as fingerprints and lie detectors. They're all full of false positives.
Sure its not perfect but if they can narrow it down from a few million people to just a few 100/1000's that makes fibding someone much easier .
Nah, this tech isn't useful to prove you're a suspect. Its only use is to prove that someone is not a suspect
They got his face on camera... maybe. Assuming it's the same smiling guy and with a partial DNA match, I'd think that's enough to get a court order to get a blood sample to get a better DNA match.
Of course that's assuming the smiling guy is the same guy AND one of his relatives did 23andme AND they can find and arrest him.
Let's see here. It's currently the 7th. I wonder what other things happened in NY that need attention. Everyday is indeed a busy day.
I'll just leave this here.
https://www.nyc.gov/site/nypd/stats/reports-analysis/homicide.page
Statistically, there should have been at least one more murder in the city since then. Looking at victim demographics in that chart and it's pretty obvious why this is getting so much attention...it's very uncommon for a white, non-hispanic person to get murdered in the city.
Just go through the list of people with a motive to kill this guy. Should be easy!
If you look at this jacket in this picture closely and compare it to the one at the scene of the crime, they don’t match. This is the wrong guy.
CNN and others released the photo and included a disclaimer that these photos weren't official. They literally made it up
The Unabomber special!
They don't care... They just need a person to kill and make this go away..
Meticulous planning, and/or broad public sympathy
It'd be the cherry on top if he left evidence that linked other health insurance CEOs.
I bet plenty of non millionaires would be willing to shelter and hide him. 🤷♂️
Okay, honestly? Hear me out because as an European one thing stood out to me.
Why didn't NYPD catch him? Because he fled using... public
communicationtransportation. It's too out of this world for them to be able to track him down. No protocols. No nothing. Because nobody, ever, uses public communication in USA.Edit: And it seems I am the bigger joke for writing public communication when half-asleep. ._.
pretty sure nyc has the highest usage of public transportation of the whole country though
Almost 50% in fact
And that is still pretty low compared globally, which is the posters point
Do you have a source to back that up? In nyc about half of the population doesn't have a car. That sounds pretty in line with other major cities in the world
America is car centric. I am saying many other countries are way more focused on public transportation.
We are talking specifically about nyc here buddy
Exactly buddy. Globally NYC still aint that big on public transportation
Bullshit. The nyc subway has 472 stations which is the most in the world for a single city subway system https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_New_York_City_Subway_stations
What do you mean by public communication?
I think they met either transportation or commuter
Transportation. Thanks...writing half-asleep didn't work out for me. :/
Public transmit
Did he use public transit? I thought the first thing I heard is people thought he used a rental bike but it turned out it wasn't one of those. But yeah even if he did I think basically what he did was ride from the scene of the crime into Central Park which has less CCTV and is a lot harder to track people in so it probably took longer for the police to find his trail from there.
Ditch the bike in the park, get changed (remove top layer, put in backpack), hop in to the waiting car on the other side of the park. Toss the backpack in a dumpster on your way out of town.
You’re outta there before NYPD even knows it happened.
Interesting.
I suppose carrying the bag out of CP would be kinda sus
I did hear he actually most likely took a bus out of NYC as they had footage of him entering a bus station but not leaving it. It could be hard to figure out which bus he took although if he had to buy a ticket from a person there it might be easier.
I heard he turned in to a bird and flew away
I heard all birds now contain a pearl of his consciousness and that he lives on in an endless dream.
I heard he climbed down into the sewers, put his signature hockey mask back on and is sheltering with some young adult martial arts reptilians.
There's a lot of people getting on and off a bus at any given time. They also probably didn't know he used a bus until later. They probably used CCTV cameras to track where he went, but they'd have to do that individually after they found out what happened. He was probably well out of the city before they knew. There's really nothing they could do except maybe lock the whole city down while they search, but that's not going to happen.
I wonder who was next in line to be CEO at that outfit? Seems like a great setup to use a hired, trained hit man along with some inscribed bullets to make it seem like a political asassination. In other words, if maybe this wasn't revenge: who all would benefit from this CEO's demise?
Oh shit! We calling him "the adjuster" now!?
Damn straight we are. He's a national hero.
Ah, so you are an optimist. What changes to health insurance/health care do you believe will occur in the next year due to this? I believe in 2 weeks people will be bored and worried about something else, but I'd be curious to know what you foresee.
No fucking way. Because the insurance companies won't let them!
For fucking decades from now whenever someone gets screwed over by a health insurance company (which happens to probably hundreds of thousands every day) they're going to think of this situation.
The killer has proven there's an effective means for even poor people to institute change!
But what outcomes will be different? If the new CEOs sweat a bit and continue denying claims at the new rate, what's the difference? What actual impact to the people that pay health insurance will occur?
It is wild that he was there minutes before CEO walked by, considering the meeting was later and CEO went early. Makes it sound like a more sophisticated operation.
Good on him.
it sure would be funny if someone photoshopped out his face in the I.D. photos and started publishing them as though it were his real face. It could make for great satire.
Ok. Anyways what do you think of the upcoming football match?
Did you see that ludicrous display last night?
What was Wenger thinking sending Walcott on that early?
Sometimes when my iron gets low I want to take bites out of mud.
Grass tastes bad
No jumping in the sewer!!!
Good.
Just ask his sister Maggie where he bought his bunker with his Donnie Darko money... Nobody? Not one fucking mention he looks exactly like him??
I mean, it certainly was the first thing that popped to mind. But no, I didn't mention it.
Omg ty!
Anyone watch Saw VI recently? Just curious.
I wonder if he is terminal and pulled the trigger on some recompense for his denial of treatment.
Nope; how many of those god damn movies do they need to make? How does Jigsaw keep coming up with new methods of torture?
Finding new ways to torture other humans is like a specialty of humans my guy
I don't know. I stopped watching with The Final Chapter. And then they came back with 3 or 4 more after that.
VI involved health insurance executives who are directly responsible for countless deaths going through the "games".
I just watched a compilation of all the deaths a few months back. That's all you really remember afterwards anyway (first movie excluded, which was actually pretty good)
Who the heck is Denny? And why is he deaf?
Denny is a person who knew how to make waffles. Waffles that fall from above, because of deaf ears.
I donno what the pose Denny did to get that guy deffened like that. But he should have better spelling on the next one. I'm calling him Pete. Look Pete, c'mon man carry a dictionary with you. You can't be heroing evil dwers and expelling eberithin allgrong laik DAT!
I wish people would stop posting his photo. This is just helping the police to find him. I'm downvoting all posts with his face.
I'm sure that if people stop posting the photo the police are going to forget that they have a photo of his face.......
I am going to assume you are high or were under the influence of something when you posted this.
You're meaning to tell me that you think that somehow just the police having a photo is enough to catch the guy? You don't think they need the help of other people for tips in finding him? Kindly explain the reward then..
Why make their job any easier than it needs to be?
Explain a $10k reward that is being advertised with the picture that you're trying to say shouldn't be posted? Stop being ridiculous. Are you being serious? You're just trolling right?