The hunt for the suspect in the killing of Brian Thompson, the CEO of UnitedHealthcare, has entered a second day – and New York police issued a fresh image clearly showing the face of a man they are looking for in connection with the shooting.
Thompson, who ran one of the the US’s largest health insurers, was fatally shot on Wednesday in midtown Manhattan. Shell casings found at the scene reportedly had the words “deny”, “defend” and “depose” written on them.
Here’s what we know about Thompson, the shooting and the suspect so far:
How did the shooting unfold?
Brian Thompson was shot outside a midtown Manhattan hotel at about 6.45am local time. He had been due to speak at a conference in the city on Wednesday.
Surveillance footage showed a person believed to be the shooter making a phone call near the hotel at about 6.30am ET. According to police, the suspect appeared to be waiting for the UnitedHealthcare CEO for several minutes.
Officials said he approached Thompson from behind and shot him in the back before moving toward the victim and continuing to shoot. Ultimately, Thompson was shot in the back and at least once in the calf.
Authorities said the shooter’s gun appeared to malfunction, and he cleared the jam before firing again and fleeing northbound into an alleyway between 54th Street and 55th Street. The shooter then continued to walk westbound to the Avenue of the Americas, where he got on to an electric bike and rode northbound towards Central Park.
Police noted that they were working to gather information about the ebike, specifically its GPS tracker.
Video footage of the shooting showed that the suspect was “proficient in firearms” and able to clear a jam in his gun in the midst of the attack, police said.
Police were not able to determine from the video that they currently have access to whether a silencer had been used.
Police say they recovered three live 9mm rounds and three discharged 9mm shell casings.
Officers recovered a cellphone near the scene of the shooting and are conducting forensic analysis to see whether it is connected to the victim or the suspect.
What do we know about the suspect’s whereabouts?
On Thursday, NYPD released new images of the suspect. They were taken by security cameras at a hostel on the Upper West Side neighborhood of Manhattan where police think the suspect stayed.
In previous images issued the suspect was wearing a mask. But late morning on Thursday, police posted photographs showing a young man smiling and one of the same person looking more serious, with the hood of his coat up.
The suspect remained at large while investigators scrambled to find out his identity and as police continued to comb through a vast network of private and public surveillance cameras.
Law enforcement deployed drones and dogs in addition to sifting through data related to public-use electric bikes. Among clues discovered were a cell phone, video footage of the suspect and shell casings from bullets found at the scene with the words “deny”, “defend” and “depose”.
What do we know about the motive?
In short, not that much yet. New York’s police commissioner, Jessica Tisch, called Thompson’s killing a “brazen targeted attack” that “does not appear to be a random act of violence”.
“I want to be clear at this time: every indication is that this was a premeditated, pre-planned, targeted attack,” she said.
However, the motive for the shooting remains unclear. Police are searching for the gunman and offering up to $10,000 to anyone with information regarding Thompson’s death.
Who was Brian Thompson?
Brian Thompson was 50, lived in Minnesota and had been UnitedHealthcare’s CEO since 2021. A father of two, Thompson lived in a suburb of Minneapolis, about a 20-minute drive from the company’s headquarters.
He was in New York for the annual UnitedHealthcare investor conference scheduled to take place on Wednesday morning.
An alumnus of the University of Iowa, Thompson joined the company in 2004 from accountancy giant PricewaterhouseCoopers. He was named chief executive officer for UnitedHealthcare in April 2021 after serving in several other roles, most recently as chief executive officer of UnitedHealthcare’s government programs business.
Before this role, he had served as CEO of UnitedHealthcare government programs including Medicare and retirement, and community and state.
Had Thompson been receiving threats?
In a phone call to NBC News, Thompson’s wife, Paulette, said: “There had been some threats. 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.”
While she did not elaborate on “lack of coverage” to the network, the comment comes in the wake of backlash that UnitedHealthcare has experienced about its insurance coverage. Earlier this year, protesters were arrested outside the company’s headquarters in Minnesota, and were reportedly there in an effort to shed light on the organization’s alleged “pattern of improper coverage denials”.
• This article was amended on 4 December 2024 to correct that Brian Thompson was shot in the back and the calf, not in the chest as an earlier version said.
