By Wealthy McKay and Luc Cohen
NEW YORK (Reuters) -New York police launched new photographs on Thursday displaying the face of the person suspected of gunning down UnitedHealth govt Brian Thompson in Midtown Manhattan, with the shooter nonetheless at giant almost 36 hours after authorities launched a citywide manhunt to trace him down.
Thompson, the CEO of UnitedHealth’s insurance coverage unit, was shot from behind early on Wednesday morning in what police described as a focused assault by a masked assailant. It got here simply earlier than the corporate’s annual investor convention on the Hilton on Sixth Avenue.
The phrases “deny,” “defend” and “depose” have been carved into shell casings discovered on the scene, police sources instructed ABC and the New York Submit. A New York Metropolis Police Division spokesperson wouldn’t touch upon the report.
The phrases evoke the title of a e-book important of the insurance coverage business revealed in 2010 titled “Delay Deny Defend: Why Insurance coverage Corporations Do not Pay Claims and What You Can Do About It.” The creator, Jay Feinman, a professor emeritus at Rutgers College Legislation College, wrote, “Sorry, no remark” in an e-mail when contacted by Reuters.
Authorities launched new photographs with a transparent view of the suspect’s face on Thursday, a day after publishing photographs that confirmed his face partially obscured by a ski masks, and have requested the general public’s assist in finding him. Police have additionally searched a hostel on Manhattan’s Higher West Facet the place the suspect is believed to have been staying, CNN reported.
Police haven’t publicly recognized a motive, however Thompson seems to have been intentionally focused, in accordance with investigators.
Safety video confirmed the shooter behind Thompson, 50, elevating his handgun and firing at his again. Police stated the gunman arrived outdoors the resort a number of minutes earlier than Thompson and waited for him to stroll previous earlier than firing, ignoring different passers-by.
The suspect, sporting a hooded sweatshirt and the ski masks and sporting a grey backpack, fled on foot earlier than mounting an electrical bike and using into Central Park, police stated.
Police revealed quite a few pictures of the suspect taken from video cameras within the space, together with one with the gun raised and pointed towards Thompson and one other of the suspect fleeing on the e-bike.
The town has the some of the superior surveillance programs of any main U.S. metropolis, largely constructed after the Sept. 11, 2001 assaults, stated Felipe Rodriguez, a former NYPD detective sergeant who’s now an adjunct professor at John Jay Faculty of Legal Justice in New York.
There are literally thousands of cameras in New York and all feeds may be monitored in actual time in addition to reviewed for earlier footage, aided by facial recognition software program.
“It is referred to as the real-time crime heart: actionable intelligence may be relayed to the responding officers within the discipline,” Rodriguez stated.
‘EXTRAORDINARY PERSON’
UnitedHealth is the most important U.S. well being insurer, offering advantages to tens of hundreds of thousands of People, who pay extra for healthcare than folks in some other nation. Thompson, a father of two, joined UnitedHealth in 2004 and have become the CEO of UnitedHealthcare, a unit of UnitedHealth Group (NYSE:), in April 2021.
The corporate has been grappling with the fallout from a large information hack of its Change Healthcare (NASDAQ:) unit that gives know-how for U.S. healthcare suppliers, disrupting medical take care of sufferers and reimbursement to docs for months.
“Our hearts exit to Brian’s household and all who have been near him,” the corporate stated in a press release.
In a video despatched to workers on Wednesday, UnitedHealth Group CEO Andrew Witty introduced Thompson’s loss of life, calling him a “really extraordinary particular person.” At its headquarters in Minnetonka, Minnesota, the corporate lowered flags on campus to half-staff, a spokesperson instructed Reuters.
Thompson’s spouse, Paulette, instructed NBC Information on Wednesday that he had been receiving threats associated to his job however stated she didn’t know the main points.
“Brian was an extremely loving, beneficiant, proficient man who really lived life to the fullest and touched so many lives,” she stated later in a press release. “Brian was an extremely loving father to our two sons and might be vastly missed.”
Police in Maple Grove, Minnesota, the place Thompson lived, investigated a bomb menace concentrating on his house on Wednesday night, greater than 12 hours after he was killed.
Police searched two residences with assistance from the Minneapolis Police bomb squad however discovered no suspicious units, the report stated. In a press launch, the police division stated the menace appeared to have been a hoax.
The killing has prompted some medical health insurance corporations to reassess the dangers to their executives.
