Manhunt for UnitedHealthcare Gunman Now National: Live Updates

During an interview with WABC on Sunday, Mayor Eric Adams indicated the search for the gunman is progressing as the manhunt continues into a new week.

“As I say, the net is closing and closing,” Adams said. “This was an extremely challenging investigation. A fully masked person. The amount of detective work it took to put the pieces together – we feel we’re getting closer and closer,” he said.

Taken during his cab ride shortly following the shooting, though his face was obscured by a surgical-style face mask in both images:

NBC New York also reports that police divers searched a pond in Central Park on Saturday.

A Tommy Hilfiger jacket and Monopoly money, but no murder weapon — or anything else. That’s what law enforcement sources say investigators found inside the backpack police recovered from Central Park on Friday, per ABC News.

The NYPD believes it is making good progress toward identifying the suspect but, as of Saturday evening, no identification has been made, sources told ABC News. …

The bus the suspect is believed to have boarded out of the city made six or seven stops, and investigators have followed leads in multiple states, the sources said.

An important point from Harry Enten at CNN:

With the killer now likely somewhere other than New York City, the FBI will be playing a larger role. Notes the New York Post:

The FBI had joined the investigation into the brazen murder of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson outside of a luxury Manhattan hotel, the bureau confirmed Friday. … “The FBI is assisting the NYPD with the investigation,” a bureau spokesperson said. The FBI put out a wanted poster Friday night of surveillance images of the suspect previously released by the NYPD and are offering up to a $50,000 award for information leading to an arrest and conviction in the case.

Sarah Jones writes that the shooting was inevitable:

UnitedHealthcare does not pull a trigger and shoot its victims in the street. Instead, they suffer and may die of cancer, or of heart disease, or of some other treatable condition. Yet insurance companies like it bear some guilt nonetheless. A 2023 survey by the American Medical Association found that 9 percent of physicians blamed prior authorization — the requirement that a health-insurance company approve a treatment or prescription — for at least one patient’s disability or even death. Another ProPublica story documented the case of Forrest VanPatten, who died from complications of cancer after his insurance company refused to cover a treatment that could have extended his life. In reckoning with the murder of Brian Thompson, we must reckon, too, with its seeming inevitability: with all the choices that brought us here.

When democratic norms fail and justice feels unattainable, people will reach their limit. Some will file a lawsuit. Others will make jokes on social media. And in this country, overrun with guns and violence, a few will resort to deadlier means. Thompson’s death was preventable, as so many American deaths are. Until our political class concludes that life is more valuable than profit, there will be blood — if not in the streets, then in our hospitals and homes. Something has to give, and soon.

Police have been searching for the shooter’s grey backpack, which he was no longer seen carrying in surveillance footage after exiting Central Park on Wednesday. NBC New York reports they may have finally found it:

According to two senior law enforcement officials, a gray bag was found in Central Park that investigators are examining to see if it is the same bag the suspected shooter carried. CRC officers discovered the bag while searching the area of the park where the suspect was seen fleeing on a bicycle, per senior law enforcement officials. The bag will likely be taken unopened to a lab to see if it is linked and whether anything inside can help lead to a suspect. The New York City Police Department implemented the use of drones to help their search, officials said.

The New York Times has more:

Crime scene technicians photographed and collected evidence in the undergrowth late Friday afternoon as they searched for the distinctive bag the gunman had worn early Wednesday morning. They were also searching for the weapon he used: a pistol that appeared to be fitted with a silencer. …

The technicians entered a wooded area in the southern end of the park to photograph and collect evidence, including what appeared to be clothing and a heavy object … It was unclear if the items were connected to the gunman, but the location was along what might have been a potential escape route as he cycled through Central Park after the shooting early Wednesday morning.

Per CNN, NYPD Chief of Detectives Joseph Kenny said Friday that the shooter was seen in video surveillance footage entering an uptown bus terminal on Wednesday, but never exiting:

Kenny said officers are conducting a “very, very extensive video canvas.” They are reviewing footage from around the Hilton hotel, where the shooting occurred, to uptown Manhattan.

He said the suspected gunman rode on a bike from the shooting scene to Central Park. The person then exited the park around 77th Street, still with the bike, Kenny said. Footage later shows him walking at 86th Street and Columbus Avenue, according to Kenny, before he gets in a cab that takes him to a Port Authority bus station near 178th Street and Broadway.

“Those buses are interstate buses. That’s why we believe he may have left New York City,” he said, adding that police are working to figure out which bus the person may have gotten on.

Kenny said authorities have video of the suspect entering the station, but “we don’t have any video of him exiting, so we believe he may have gotten on a bus,” he later added.

Kenny also said that it was very clear that the gunman had planned his attack on Thompson. He was seen on surveillance video “walking and wandering around the hotel area before he committed this act … He knew what time the victim was going to be walking by. He knew what hotel this conference was going to be in.”

Law enforcement sources have told the New York Post and Times that investigators were able to pull DNA evidence from a water bottle they believe the shooter bought at Starbucks and later dropped.

Investigators determined person who made the purchase, of a modernized spy gun, was not the suspect, a law enforcement official told the New York Times.

Jeff Wise spoke with Matthew Dumpert, an enterprise security manager:

What have the calls been like since the shooting? What are your clients saying?

There’s been a real steady flow of phone calls, emails, and text messages from our clients wondering, “What does this mean? Is this a new evolution, or is this just an expansion of the existing threat environment? What do we need to do?” People are recognizing that in corporate America, life is very different than it was two days ago.

Why is it different?

A lot of executives’ eyes have been opened to the notion that even if you think you’re flying under the radar, there could be individuals or groups out there conspiring against you. To see this attack unfold in such a cold and clinical manner, it rocks the soul. It really captured how vulnerable we are as individuals.

Has there been a change in the environment?

Over the last several years, there’s been a noticeable increase in threats against executives, high-net-worth individuals, and political leaders. There’s been a confluence of a lot of things. There have been macroeconomic factors. We have dealt with COVID globally. We have regional unrest in lots of areas around the world. We have supply-chain disruptions and increased prices for household goods. All of these things are putting pressure on people. In parallel, we see people who are otherwise law-abiding being pushed to the brink and lashing out because they harbor a grievance that their victims might not know anything about.

It was remarkable how much fury this story unleashed at the health-care system. Are there certain industries where you have to tell your clients, “You guys have to be extra careful because people don’t like you?”

Health care is at the top of the list. It’s emotionally charged. When people are engaging with the health-care system, it’s not usually on their best day. In the threat-management industry, we talk about red-flag indicators that can indicate if somebody might be traveling along the pathway toward violence. These include financial hardship, the loss of a loved one, degradation of health, the potential loss of a home. A lot of the time, when people intersect with the health-care system, four or five of these things are already stacked up against them.

Read the rest here.

He was reportedly seen in surveillance video footage leaving Central Park on Wednesday following the shooting, but without the backpack he had with him. Police have not yet found the backpack.

As the hunt for Thompson’s killer enters a third day, more details have emerged about his travel into the city. Police sources say that the shooter arrived in New York City on November 24 on a bus that originated in Atlanta, per ABC News. However, it’s not yet known where the unidentified assailant originally boarded.

In my new post, I spoke with some of the people who aren’t all that upset that the the CEO of UnitedHealthcare was killed:

Another on Reddit said, “I hope he still gets an ambulance bill that UHC refuses to pay.”

UnitedHealth Group’s Facebook post sharing its statement on Thompson’s death received more than 46,000 reactions, with about 41,000 of respondents clicking the platform’s “haha” option displaying a laughing emoji.

For many, Thompson’s death has been a means to vent and commiserate over the state of American health-care, and the insurance industry specifically, pitting multi-billion-dollar corporations against patients who often have to fight to get even routine procedures covered — if they aren’t denied outright.

Along with patients, health-care providers tangle daily with insurance companies and they were not immune from the same feelings. A post discussing the shooting on Reddit’s nursing community subreddit prompted a deluge of dark jokes. “I would offer thoughts and prayers but I’m gonna need a prior authorization first,” one user wrote.

Read the rest here.

According the New York Post’s sources, the NYPD recovered a burner cell phone that the suspected shooter used near the crime scene as well as a water bottle he bought at Starbucks and later discarded. (The New York Times reports that investigators don’t yet know if the phone was a burner or not.)

Police have also determined that a New Jersey ID the suspected shooter used to check in for a bed at an Upper West Side youth hostel was fake, per the Post.

In surveillance footage taken before and during the shooting, the suspected gunman was wearing a Peak Design V1 Everyday Backpack, as numerous fans of the brand, which primarily makes bags and other gear for photographers and travelers, quickly noticed on Wednesday. A bunch of people also messaged the brand’s CEO and founder, Peter Dering, to make that connection — and when he called into the NYPD’s tip line to confirm what kind of bag it was, the person he spoke with said they had already received numerous other tips identifying the bag. Since it’s the first-generation design of the backpack, it was likely sold between 2016 and 2019, he told the New York Times.

The New York Post reports that investigators are exploring the theory that the gunman used a modernized version of a WWII spy gun in the attack:

The gun used by the shooter in Wednesday’s shocking Midtown slaying appears to match a B&T VP9, an update of the Welrod pistol — a suppressed firearm developed in the Second World War, sources told The Post. A recent purchase of the gun by the Connecticut-based gunmaker is an investigative lead in the manhunt for the killer, who used an apparently silenced pistol, sources said. But the killer’s gun has not yet been recovered, so the link to the rare firearm is only a lead at this point, according to sources.

CNN’s John J. Miller reports, “The heads of major health-care concerns and their security departments were adding people, security details, precautions, mail screening — across the country.”

It’s still not clear why Brian Thompson didn’t didn’t have security protection at the time he was shot, also per CNN:

A spokesperson for UnitedHealth declined to provide details about security related to Thompson or why the security team wasn’t with him Wednesday morning. But a former senior security director at another major insurance company told CNN that it can often be difficult to get executives to accept security, even when there are threats.

“We had a robust executive protection team,” he said. “We had many threats from disgruntled members dissatisfied with their coverage, particularly those whose prescriptions…expired and would not be refilled. This shooting may have been random, but there could certainly have been someone who had motivation. It is often difficult to rein in CEOs who expect freedom to act on their own without a protective detail following them around everywhere.”

“We feel that we’re moving at a steady pace, and we’re going to have someone apprehended,” the mayor said on Thursday, citing a morning briefing he received on the case. He also commented on how uncommon it was for a shooter to use a suppressor. “In all of my years of law enforcement, I have never seen a silencer before, and so that was really something that was shocking to us all.”

The Wall Street Journal reports:

Dozens of security chiefs from large U.S. companies met on a call Wednesday to discuss security protocols. One security adviser, Global Guardian CEO Dale Buckner, said he fielded calls from multiple companies looking to send armed guards to accompany executives attending conferences in New York and other U.S. cities this week.

Those who advise companies on security issues say threats against executives are rising, fueled by social media, a fraught political environment and broader resentment toward corporate America and big business. 

“The environment is explosive right now,” said former Boston Police Commissioner Ed Davis, who now consults with large companies on how to mitigate security risks. “The threats are evolving and getting more violent.” …

Just over a quarter of S&P 500 companies provided personal security services beyond working hours and locations as a perk to top executives in 2023, the latest year available, according to data from Equilar. About 13% provide security services to executives other than the CEO.

Police have reportedly focused on at least two locations on the Upper West Side, where the suspect may have been prior to the shooting.

The lobby of the HI New York City Hostel on Amsterdam Avenue matches the surveillance images police shared of the suspect. He reportedly checked out of the hostel on Wednesday morning after staying in a shared room with two other people.

They say this person is “wanted for questioning.” Police did not say where or when these images were taken:

It will take some time for investigators to leverage New York’s massive network of cameras to zero in on the shooter’s movements, as one expert tells the New York Times:

“It’s never as speedy as you would want it to be or like they show on TV,” said [Brittany] Blair of K2 Integrity. “Those investigations are extremely tedious,” said Ms. Blair, who is a former director of intelligence operations at the Cook County Sheriff’s Office in Chicago. “It takes analysis of tens of thousands of hours of footage from all different camera sources.”

Even with New York’s level of technology and surveillance, the police must rely on investigators who are keen observers and can identify someone by looking at their shape and movements, Ms. Blair said. And the public remains a critical ally of the police, who distribute images and descriptions of suspects in the hope that someone will help identify them, she said.

“There is no magic button you can press to immediately identify someone like this,” Ms. Blair said. “But,” she added, “of all the places in this country to commit a crime like this, Manhattan would be the dead last location on my list.”

The gunman has been described as a light-skinned man wearing a cream-colored jacket and black face mask and carrying a gray backpack, according to the New York Post. Law-enforcement sources tell CNN the shooter was waiting outside the hotel for Thompson for at least ten minutes and was 20 feet away from him when he opened fire. After the shooting, the gunman ran through an alleyway and at one point used a bike to escape.

NYPD chief of detectives Joseph Kenny said that the gunman had arrived at the hotel on foot five minutes before Thompson did and that the gun appeared to jam temporarily as it fired. At the scene, police recovered three live 9-mm. rounds and three discharged shell casings. Kenny also confirmed that a cell phone was found in the alleyway where the shooter fled and that it’s currently being analyzed.

The NYPD has released images of the alleged gunman and is offering a $10,000 reward for any information leading to his capture. “The full investigative efforts of the New York City Police Department are well underway, and we will not rest until we identify and apprehend the shooter in this case,” Police commissioner Jessica Tisch said Wednesday:

In the most recent photos released by the department, the gunman can be seen in a nearby Starbucks prior to the shooting. CBS News reported Thursday that police are examining “forensic evidence” from the store for both fingerprints and DNA.

ABC News reported late Wednesday that the recovered bullet casings had the words deny, defend, and depose written on them, which might be a reference to how insurance companies respond to claims from patients.

Police first responded to a 6:46 a.m. 911 call reporting a person shot at the Hilton hotel on Sixth Avenue. Officers arrived minutes later to find Thompson with multiple gunshot wounds to his back and leg. He was transported to Mount Sinai West in critical condition and later pronounced dead. He was reportedly at the hotel to attend UnitedHealth Group’s annual investor conference, which was slated to begin that morning. (The conference was subsequently canceled.)

Police commissioner Jessica Tisch confirmed many of the previously reported details during a mid-morning briefing, calling the shooting a “brazen, targeted attack.” She said the shooter appeared to be “lying in wait for several minutes” and fired several shots from behind as Thompson reached the hotel. “The suspect fled first on foot and then on an e-bike and was last seen in Central Park on Center Drive,” Tisch said.

Though initial reports indicated that the shooter fled on a Citi Bike, a representative from Lyft said that authorities have confirmed that its bikes were not involved in the incident, per NBC News.

The New York Post obtained graphic surveillance footage that depicts the moment of the shooting. In the short clip, Thompson can be seen walking when another person comes up from behind and fires at him, causing Thompson to stumble. A bystander can be seen fleeing the scene once the shooting begins.

According to his work biography, Thompson, 50, joined UnitedHealth Group in 2004 and served in senior roles with the company’s various businesses before being named CEO of UnitedHealthcare, the company’s insurance arm, in 2021. Based in Minnetonka, Minnesota, UnitedHealth Group is one of the world’s largest companies, ranking at No. 8 on Fortune’s Global 500 list in 2024.

The Associated Press reports that Thompson kept a low profile for his high-level job. He was a University of Iowa alumnus and had started out as a certified public accountant. Earlier this year, The Wall Street Journal reported that the Justice Department had opened an antitrust investigation into UnitedHealth Group, looking into the company’s varied industry acquisitions. It was later reported by Bloomberg that several of the company’s executives, including Thompson, exercised stock options and sold shares before the federal inquiry became public, raising questions about whether the sales were made with prior knowledge of the investigation. UnitedHealth Group’s stock dropped following the news of the Justice Department probe.

Police said they’re currently interviewing Thompson’s family and friends to determine if any threats had been made against him or if he had any known enemies. In an interview with NBC News, Thompson’s wife, Paulette, said her husband had received threats due to his work. “There had been some threats,” she said. “Basically, I don’t know, a lack of coverage? I don’t know details. I just know that he said there were some people that had been threatening him.”

In a statement, UnitedHealth Group wrote that they were “deeply saddened and shocked at the passing of our dear friend and colleague.”

“Brian was a highly respected colleague and friend to all who worked with him. We are working closely with the New York Police Department and ask for your patience and understanding during this difficult time. Our hearts go out to Brian’s family and all who were close to him,” the statement read.