Inscription On Bullets, Fake ID, New Video Deepen Mystery Over UnitedHealthcare CEO Shooter

UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson’s shooter, still at large, possibly left a message on the bullets fired at the executive on December 4 in New York.

The Associated Press quoted a law enforcement official and reported that the words “deny”, “depose”, and “defend” were written on the ammunition in permanent marker. According to the New York Post, the texts were found on the bullets left behind by the masked assassin.

The words are possible attacks on the health insurance industry, in which Thompson was one of the most powerful leaders — and strikingly similar to a book condemning the business.

The book, critical of the insurance industry, was published in 2010, and titled “Delay Deny Defend: Why Insurance Companies Don’t Pay Claims and What You Can Do About It”, news agency Reuters reported.

Police are looking at possible ties to the book, as well as more general references to the health industry, as a potential motive, the report quoted sources as saying. The police recovered three live 9-millimeter rounds and three discharged casings in front of the Hilton Hotel on Sixth Avenue, where Thompson, of Minnesota, was set to host an investors’ conference that morning, according to the report.

The assailant remains at large nearly 36 hours after authorities launched a citywide manhunt to track him down.

THE ATTACKER TOOK A BUS
The report further claimed that the shooter arrived in New York City on an interstate Greyhound bus in November. He reached the Port Authority bus terminal in Manhattan on November 24 after it set off from Atlanta, Georgia.

Thereafter, he checked into the HI New York City Hostel on the Upper West Side. Later, he stayed at the Hilton Hotel in Midtown, outside which he shot dead Thompson. Quoting sources, the report claimed the attacker checked out of the HI New York City Hostel for a night and returned in an Uber a day later on November 30.

He then rebooked a room using a fake New Jersey ID.

ATTACKER’s PHOTOS FROM HOTEL LOBBY
Images obtained from a CCTV video showed the attacker’s face without a mask for the first time. The images matched the lobby of the HI New York City hostel, including its black-and-white checkered floor and a distinctive bench in the shape of a semi-circle, the Associated Press reported.

The gunman only pulled down his mask because he was “flirting” with the receptionist when she asked to see his face, according to the New York Post. A day before, the police department released some of the images of the shooter while he was at a nearby Starbucks before shooting Thompson dead.

The water bottle and protein bar wrapper he had purchased from the outlet were later recovered from a trash can in the vicinity of the killing. The pieces of evidence had been sent to the city’s medical examiner for expedited fingerprint testing.

Additionally, the investigators were also looking into whether the suspect had pre-positioned a bike as part of an escape plan, AP reported.

ANOTHER CCTV VIDEO OF BRIAN THOMPSON’s ATTACKER
In a video shared by The New York Times, the attacker could be seen arriving at the scene nearly 10 minutes before the incident.

UNITEDHEALTHCARE CEO SHOT DEAD: WHAT WE KNOW SO FAR
Brian Thompson, the CEO of UnitedHealth’s insurance unit, was shot from behind early on the morning of December 4 (local time), in what police described as a targeted attack by a masked assailant. The motive of the killing was yet to be known. However, Thompson appears to have been deliberately targeted, according to investigators.

Security video showed the shooter behind Thompson raising his handgun and firing at his back. Reuters quoted the police and stated the gunman arrived outside the hotel several minutes before Thompson and waited for him to walk past before firing, ignoring other passers-by.

Joseph Kenny, the NYPD chief of detectives, told AP that the shooter wore a black face mask, black-and-white sneakers and a distinctive grey backpack, as seen in the images from CCTV videos. After the assailant began to fire, his 9 mm pistol jammed but he quickly fixed it and kept firing, Kenny said, another sign of the shooter’s professionalism.

WHO WAS BRIAN THOMPSON?
Brian Thompson led one of the biggest health insurers in the United States but was unknown to millions of people his decisions affected. Thompson, who was 50, had worked at the giant UnitedHealth Group Inc for 20 years and run the insurance arm since 2021 after running its Medicare and retirement business.

As CEO, Thompson led a firm that provides health coverage to more than 49 million Americans — more than the population of Spain. United is the largest provider of Medicare Advantage plans, the privately run versions of the US government’s Medicare program for people age 65 and older.

The company also sells individual insurance and administers health insurance coverage for thousands of employers and federally funded Medicaid programs.

The business run by Thompson brought in $281 billion in revenue last year, making it the largest subsidiary of the Minnetonka, Minnesota-based UnitedHealth Group.His $10.2 million annual pay package, including salary, bonus and stock options awards, made him one of the company’s highest-paid executives, according to AP.

The killing has prompted some health insurance companies to reassess the risks to their executives.