Police Search For Gunman Who Killed UnitedHealthcare CEO: Live Updates

The gunman who shot and killed UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson outside a hotel in Manhattan on Wednesday is still at large.
Police have released several still images taken from surveillance video footage of a man they have identified as a “person of interest” in the case. Law enforcement authorities have said they believe Thompson’s killing, which occurred while he was in New York City for an investor event, was a “premeditated, preplanned, targeted attack.”
Follow along below for the latest updates:
Police in New York City have found a backpack they believe was worn by the suspect who shot and killed UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson in Manhattan on Wednesday.
Police found the backpack in Central Park near a merry-go-round after a prolonged search, according to CNN. Its contents weren’t immediately known.
The suspect is still at large, and likely fled the city by bus.
News — @JohnMillerCNN says police have found the suspect’s backpack during their second search of Central Park tonight. It was near the merry-go-round.
The person suspected of shooting Brian Thompson is believed to have left New York City on a bus following the attack, police told CNN citing surveillance footage.
The masked man was seen exiting Central Park around 77th Street with a bike following the early-morning shooting. He then took a cab to a Port Authority bus center near the George Washington Bridge, police commissioner Jessica Tisch told the network.
“We have video of him entering the Port Authority Bus Terminal. We don’t have any video of him exiting so we believe he may have gotten on a bus,” she said.
The buses that go into and out of the terminal are interstate buses, which is why he’s believed to have left the city, she added.
DNA evidence linked to the CEO’s shooting has been found and taken to a lab for testing, The New York Times and CNN reported.
A discarded water bottle and a discarded cell phone, both allegedly used by the suspect, were sent to the city’s Office of the Chief Medical Examiner on Friday to see if the items may contain viable DNA evidence, including skin cells, CNN reported citing a senior law enforcement official.
If any DNA collected does belong to the suspect, he wouldn’t necessarily need a prior criminal history for police to identify him, however.
The DNA would likely be put through a national criminal database to be compared to other samples taken from convicted offenders, as well as samples collected from other crime scenes, as the Justice Department’s website explains.
The FBI’s DNA database, called the Combined DNA Index System, contains DNA profiles collected at the local, state, and national level. Running DNA through the system could result in a strong DNA match or a partial match. A partial match is still helpful as it could identify a close biological relative of the offender.
“Currently all 50 states and the federal government have laws requiring that DNA samples be collected from some categories of offenders,” the Justice Department’s website states.
But DNA could also be matched thanks to the millions of voluntary DNA submissions given to popular genetic screening companies, though several of those companies stress that the process isn’t easy.
Ancestry.com’s website states that it will only comply with law enforcement requests that, at a minimum, are accompanied by a valid court order or search warrant.
Since January 2020, the company reports having received just four DNA database requests, which it said were all challenged and ended without DNA data being shared.
23andMe’s policy also states that it will only respond to legal requests that include court orders, subpoenas, search warrants or some other legally valid request. “To date we have not released any customer information to law enforcement,” the company’s website states.
Family Tree DNA’s website states that it will allow law enforcement access its database if they’re trying to identify a perpetrator or suspect in a violent crime or attempted violent crime, or if there’s a “present an ongoing threat to public safety or national security.” Such requests must be made through valid, legal requests.
The man suspected of shooting Brian Thompson arrived in New York City two weeks ago via a Greyhound bus from Atlanta, multiple outlets reported citing police sources.
The suspect arrived at Manhattan’s Port Authority bus terminal on Nov. 24, and sometime after he checked into a hostel on the Upper West Side, according to reports by The New York Times, The New York Post, and ABC News.
Though his bus originated from Atlanta, it’s not confirmed where the suspect boarded it.
Thompson’s former bodyguard told CNN that he’s baffled over why the former insurance CEO was without personal security when he was fatally shot, saying it’s “highly unusual” for someone of his status to be alone.
“It’s baffling to be honest with you,” Philip Klein, who said he protected Thompson in the 2000s, told the network.
Klein said it may have been Thompson’s personal choice to not to have security, which some people want due to a desire for space, or he said UnitedHealth declined to provide security, which Klein expressed skepticism of.
Had he been working for Thompson during his New York visit, he said there would have been 10 agents around him “at the minimum.”
A security team would have been standing outside his hotel and Thompson would have left the the building through a back entrance and would have traveled with a motorcade, not on foot, Klein said.
In the case of the shooter, Klein said the suspect appeared well prepared.
“I believe this man had his schedule. I think this man knew his movements,” Klein said, while pointing to the time of the shooting, around 6 a.m., as also noteworthy.
The shooting took place during a shift change by the NYPD, he said, “so there’s not a lot of street officers on the street at that point in time.”
The shooter was also well-armed, with a silencer that helped him avoid detection. He also knew how to react when his gun jammed, Klein said.
UnitedHealth Group says the company is heartbroken and “touched by the huge outpouring of kindness and support” following Thompson’s shooting death.
“So many patients, consumers, health care professionals, associations, government officials and other caring people have taken time out of their day to reach out. We are thankful, even as we grieve,” the insurance giant said in a statement Thursday.
The company asked for his family’s privacy and said that it is focusing on ensuring the safety of its employees and helping law enforcement “bring the perpetrator to justice.”
Some major health insurers appear to have removed identifying details of their leadership teams from websites in the wake of the shooting.
404 Media found Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield’s page of executives is currently redirecting to a broad “About Us” section. Other major insurers — including Caresource, Medica and Elevance Health — have also taken down individual pages for their executive team, the site found.
According to reports from the New York Times and CBS News, the suspected gunman used a fake ID with a fake name to check into a hostel on Manhattan’s Upper West Side.
The Times, citing a law enforcement source, also reported the suspect had been in the city for 10 days prior to the shooting.
Brian Thompson led one of the biggest health insurers in the U.S. but was unknown to millions of people his decisions affected.
Then Wednesday’s targeted fatal shooting of the UnitedHealthcare CEO on a midtown Manhattan sidewalk thrust the executive and his business into the national spotlight.
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 U.S. 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 state-and federally funded Medicaid programs.
Read more here.
CBS News and The Washington Post have obtained footage that appears to show the suspected gunman exiting a subway station in Manhattan roughly a half hour before the shooting occurred.
New video obtained by CBS News appears to show the suspect who shot and killed UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson walking out of a Midtown subway station at around 6:15 a.m., half an hour before the shooting. The surveillance footage was taken from a store on 6th Avenue. pic.twitter.com/L95tjKGT75
The wife of slain UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson revealed to NBC News shortly after his fatal shooting that he’d been receiving threats.
“Yes, there had been some threats. … I don’t know details,” his wife, Paulette Thompson, told the network after her husband was shot in New York City on Wednesday morning. “I just know that he said there were some people that had been threatening him.”
She believed the threats had to do with “a lack of coverage” ― ostensibly referring to UnitedHealthcare, one of the nation’s largest health insurers, denying some insurance coverage.
Read more here.
A police official told CNN that the suspected gunman pulled down his mask and exposed his full face on camera while apparently flirting with an employee at his hostel.
“Among the interviews they’ve been conducting, law enforcement interviewed a female employee at the hostel who said, at one point, she asked the then masked man to lower his mask while flirting with him — which is when the photos released by the New York Police Department today were captured, the official said,” the network said.
UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson was facing a lawsuit accusing him and other executives of insider trading related to an ongoing Justice Department investigation before he was fatally shot outside a New York City hotel on Wednesday.
Thompson, 50, was one of three UnitedHealth Group executives named in a class action lawsuit filed in May that accused them of dumping millions of dollars worth of stock while the company was the subject of a federal antitrust investigation, which investors say wasn’t immediately disclosed to shareholders.
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The CEO of UnitedHealthcare has been fatally shot in New York City in what police said was a “pre-planned, targeted attack.”
Brian Thompson, 50, was shot outside the Hilton hotel in Manhattan’s Midtown shortly before 7 a.m. on Wednesday, the New York City Police Department confirmed at a press conference late Wednesday morning. The New York Post had been the first to report Thompson was the victim.
Read more here.
The man who gunned down Thompson used ammunition emblazoned with the words “deny,” “defend” and “depose,” two law enforcement officials told The Associated Press. It’s a message that echoes the phrase “delay, deny, defend” – a critical phrase commonly used to describe the tactics insurance companies use to deny paying claims.
The revelation may further fuel suspicion that Thompson’s shooting had to do with his company’s practices. Shortly after his death, his wife told NBC News that he’d been receiving threats and that they may have had to do with “a lack of coverage.”