Police create timeline in shooting death of UnitedHealthcare CEO
Police are using surveillance video and facial recognition to identify and track down the shooter involved in the UnitedHealthcare CEO’s death.
The person waiting for United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson calmly approached him outside a Midtown Manhattan hotel, video shows. The shooter raised a gun and fatally shot Thompson at close range.
Even as the weapon appeared to jam, the shooter remained composed, standing over Thompson and firing again before walking away, leaving behind bullet casings inscribed with messages, multiple news outlets reported. The killer hasn’t yet been identified by authorities and is still at large.
Experts told USA TODAY these details provide investigators key clues about who the man is ‒ and how tough it will be to catch him.
Could the killer be a paid assassin?
There’s some evidence to support that, said Michael Alcazar, a professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice at the City University of New York. The more Alcazar sees video footage of the shooting, the more he believes the shooter may have been a professional.
“It looks like this guy may have had some experience, and I’m sure investigators are entertaining the possibility,” added Alcazar, a former detective with the New York City Police Department. “It definitely crossed my mind.”
He said the shooter’s choice of what appears to be a bolt-action pistol indicates he had an objective: “If this guy wanted to assassinate someone, that’s a very specific weapon that just needs one shot,” Alcazar said. “If that’s indeed the weapon (the weapon used in the shooting has not yet been recovered) and he specifically selected that, it shows confidence.”
Others aren’t so sure.
“I would lean toward not,” said David Carter, a professor of criminal justice at Michigan State University and director of the university’s Intelligence program. “On the one hand, from the behavior I saw in videos of the shooting, it might indicate he was a paid professional. He seems collected, calm, he’s not overtly rushing.”
But, added Carter, whose expertise is in violent crime control, counterterrorism and law enforcement intelligence, a professional would have made sure in advance that the weapon he planned to use was in proper working order and wouldn’t jam, something which appeared to have happened.
“A paid assassin would use a revolver, which is more reliable and has no cartridges, or he would pick up the cartridges,” Carter said.
Could revenge be a motive?
The cartridges that were left behind, Carter observed, might also indicate a motive that leans more toward a personal grudge than a professional hit: Multiple outlets reported, citing police sources, that the words “deny,” “defend” and “depose” were etched into bullet casings recovered from the scene.
“There is no reason someone who’s a paid killer would do that,” said Carter, “because that’s evidence, and it’s unique evidence.”
The shooter appears calm because, Carter speculated, “This is about revenge: ‘I am thinking revenge, and I am basking in that revenge.'”
How hard will it be to catch the shooter?
Carter said investigators have their work cut out for them, since surveillance video, cell phone activity, facial recognition technology and other digital and electronic evidence, while helpful, will also be voluminous in a place like Midtown Manhattan and going through it all will be “tremendously labor-intensive.”
He said that while the shooter does seem to have experience with weapons, “that could be literally hundreds of thousands of people,” including military and law enforcement personnel or veterans, hunters or gun hobbyists.
The shooter seems to have taken steps to plan the attack and conceal his identity, Alcazar noted, using a fake ID, wearing a face mask and staying at a hostel, not renting a car but instead fleeing the scene first on foot and then on a bike.
Carter and Alcazar both believe the shooter, whether a professional assassin or a person out for revenge or with some other motive, will be caught.
“He seems to have been very meticulous,” both in planning and in his escape, Alcazar said. “So when they’re processing the scene and gathering surveillance and evidence, (law enforcement) will have to be just as meticulous.”