UnitedHealthCare CEO Brian Thompson Assassinated In Manhattan

https://www.cnbc.com/2024/12/04/unitedhealth-cancels-investor-day-after-reports-of-executive-shot-in-manhattan.html

The suspect is described as using a firearm with a silencer, a person familiar with the matter said.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/unitedhealthcare-ceo-brian-thompson-shot-dead-gunman-bullet-casings-rcna182975

Words found on shell casings where UnitedHealthcare CEO shot dead, senior law enforcement official says
Brian Thompson, 50, was killed in a “premeditated, preplanned targeted attack,” police said.
By Tom Winter - December 5, 2024

Shell casings found at the scene where the UnitedHealthcare CEO was shot dead by a masked gunman in front of a busy New York hotel had the words “deny,” “defend” and “depose” written on them, a senior New York City law enforcement official briefed on the investigation confirmed to NBC News on Thursday.

Brian Thompson, 50, was killed in a “premeditated, preplanned targeted attack” outside the New York Hilton Midtown on Sixth Avenue in the heart of Manhattan, police said.

He was on his way to speak at UnitedHealth Group's investor conference when the gunman who had been lying in wait for several minutes approached from behind and fired at least once into his back and at least once in the right calf, Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch told news conference Wednesday.

Police say they don't yet know the motive of the gunman, who they say is still at large.

ABC News was the first to report the words written on the bullet casings.

Thompson did not travel with any personal security detail despite known threats against him.

“There had been some threats,” Thompson’s wife, Paulette Thompson, told NBC News on Wednesday. “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.”

Security video showed Thompson, dressed in a blue suit, walking down the street. The gunman approached him from behind and opened fire, it showed. Thompson stumbled forward as a witness ran to safety. The gunman continued to fire as Thompson fell to the ground, the video showed.

"The shooter then walks toward the victim and continues to shoot. It appears that the gun malfunctions as he clears the jam and begins to fire again," Chief of Detectives Joseph Kenny said.

Thompson was pronounced dead at Mount Sinai West.

The assassin's pistol did not malfunction.  Ultra silent pistols are normally equipped with a slide lock to suppress the clatter of slide reciprocation.  These pistols require manual operation, something not shown in the movies.  You can see a typical slide lock illustrated on the U.S. Navy Mk 22 "Hush Puppy" widely issued during the Second Vietnam War:

https://www.reuters.com/world/us/new-york-police-hunt-man-who-killed-unitedhealth-executive-2024-12-05/

The words "deny," "defend" and "depose" were carved into the shell casings found at the scene, police sources told ABC and the New York Post. Reuters has not independently verified that information. The words mirror the title of a book critical of the insurance industry published in 2010 titled "Delay Deny Defend."

https://delaydenydefend.com/book/

This assassination has produced some really wicked, nasty comments online.  Much of it directed at the health insurance industry:

https://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/5025499-united-healthcare-ceo-killing-industry-tension/

The Memo: Killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO uncorks anger at insurance industry
By Niall Stanage - December 6, 2024

The killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson on a Manhattan street is the latest moment to shine a light on the tensions roiling American life.

On social media in particular, some users gloated about the killing — a reaction they framed as rooted in their enmity for the health insurance industry. That, in turn, brought rebukes from others who condemned those responses inhumane, especially in the circumstances.

But in between those two poles, the furor was a reminder of two truths.

First, there is a widespread perception that health insurance companies are characterized by avarice and callousness. Second, there is a danger of such simmering anger boiling over into violence, especially at a moment when society at large is in such a febrile state.

For example, a national poll a year ago found that almost 1 in 4 Americans agreed with the statement that “true American patriots may have to resort to violence in order to save our country.”

These cross-currents are clashing in the Thompson death amid a situation where much remains unclear.

For now, the motive is unknown, as is the identity and whereabouts of the gunman.

The insurance company CEO, aged 50, was fatally shot early Wednesday morning as he arrived for the company’s investor conference in a Hilton hotel in Midtown Manhattan.

Security camera footage released from the scene shows a gunman, wearing a hooded jacket and a backpack, fire at Thompson from behind. The attacker was reportedly proficient enough with firearms to clear a jam in his gun before resuming shooting at the executive.

The footage shows the killer appear relatively calm, not seeming to panic as Thompson crumples, and only breaking into a slight jog while crossing the street to leave the scene.

Shell casings at the scene had words written on them with marker, according to The Associated Press, said to have included “Depose,” “Deny” and “Defend.”

Those terms are often used to describe health insurance companies’ tactics to avoid paying out claims for medical treatment. A 2010 book critical of the industry by Jay Feinman was titled “Delay Deny Defend” and was subtitled, “Why Insurance Companies Don’t Pay Claims and What You Can Do About It.”

In one macabre side effect of the killing, the book appears to be experiencing a minor sales surge, with different editions occupying the top four spots on Amazon’s list of “business insurance” bestsellers Thursday evening.

The killing of Thompson, whose annual compensation package exceeded $10 million, drew instant, sardonic comment from some social media users.

“Thoughts and sympathy today to all of those who have lost loved ones, because they were denied insurance claims by #UnitedHealthcare,” wrote on such user.

Another posted a mock logo for the company featuring crosshairs, along with the question, “Do you think I’d get sued if I made this as a shirt.”

Yet another wrote, “it’s hard to find sympathy for a CEO of one of the worst health care companies in the world … They eat off your family members grave.”

It wasn’t all random comment from otherwise anonymous individuals, either.

Anthony Zenkus, a senior lecturer in social work at Columbia University, wrote on the social platform X, “Today we mourn the death of United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson, gunned down…. wait, I’m sorry — today we mourn the deaths of the 68,000 Americans who needlessly die each year so that insurance company execs like Brian Thompson can become multimillionaires.”

As of Thursday evening, Zenkus’s post had been liked 84,000 times and retposted 11,000 times.

Those kinds of sentiments spurred a counterreaction.

Billy Binion, a reporter for libertarian publication Reason, wrote on X that it was “vile” people seemed to be “gleefully celebrating a dad of two getting shot to death.”

Robert Pondiscio of the conservative American Enterprise Institute wrote on the same site that the online response to Thompson’s killing “marks a new and ominous low for social media.”

The broader context that feeds the reaction of Thompson is worth emphasizing.

Asked in a KFF poll earlier this year about who was responsible for high health care prices, 97 percent of registered voters said insurance companies bore “a lot of blame” or “some blame.”

The broader health insurance industry often acts in such a way as to seem to validate the views of its harshest critics, too.

On Thursday, a different insurance company, Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield, abandoned a proposed policy change that would have limited reimbursements for anesthetic during surgeries.

Critics condemned a proposal they said would have left patients bearing some of the cost of their own anesthesia, though the company insisted there had been “significant widespread misinformation” about what exactly it was proposing.

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul (D), who had expressed opposition to the change, celebrated Thursday saying, “We pushed Anthem to reverse course and today they will be announcing a full reversal of this misguided policy.”

The whole issue of health care, and the profits that come with it, continues to be an angry fissure in public debate.

A February report from KFF found Americans owe “at least $220 billion” in medical debt, and that about 3 million people have debts of more than $10,000.

According to AP, the business over which Thompson presided took in $281 billion in revenue last year.

The shots that killed Thompson are resonating across a national landscape where visceral tensions are running high.

The suspect in the UnitedHealthcare CEO shooting, Luigi Mangione, called the Unabomber Ted Kaczynski an "extreme political revolutionary," according to a Goodreads review he left on Ted Kaczynski's manifesto.

https://www.lawyerherald.com/articles/61256/20241209/united-healthcare-ceo-assassin-luigi-mangione-brian-thompson-gun-man-history-healthcare.htm

Alleged Brian Thompson Assassin Luigi Mangione Had History Volunteering in Healthcare
By Tristan Balagtas - December 9, 2024

Authorities identified the person of interest as Luigi Mangione, who was stopped by police while traveling by bus through Pennsylvania, law enforcement officials told CNN. He purportedly had a gun suppressor and several fake IDs on him.

The person of interest taken into custody in connection with the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson had a history of volunteering in healthcare, according to social media.

Luigi Mangione, 26, spent five months as an activities volunteer with Lorien Health Systems in Maryland in 2014, according to his LinkedIn profile.

At the time, Mangione was a student at an all-boys preparatory school in Baltimore. He would later go on to be named high school valedictorian two years later.

Mangione, 26, of Towson, Maryland, was taken into custody Monday while eating at a McDonald's in Altoona, Pennsylvania, after a customer recognized him and called 911, police said, according to CNN.

Authorities identified the person of interest in the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson as former Ivy League student Luigi Mangione. NYPD

He has not been charged in connection with the shooting, but was brought in on gun charges.

Upon being taken in for questioning, Mangione was allegedly found with a manifesto on his person, criticizing healthcare companies for putting profits over patients, police said.

"We don't think there's any specific threats to other people mentioned in that document, but it does seem that he has some ill will towards corporate America," NYPD Chief Joseph Kenny told reporters at a Monday press conference, confirming Mangione was in custody, according to the network.

It's law enforcement's belief he acted alone.

In the manifesto, Mangione reportedly wrote: "These parasites had it coming" and "I do apologize for any strife and trauma, but it had to be done," a law enforcement official told the outlet.

He also had a ghost gun and the same fake ID he used to check into a New York City hostel in November, said police.

Thompson, 50, was in New York City for the company's annual investors meeting Wednesday when he was ambushed by a masked shooter who fired off several rounds into his back and leg, leaving him mortally wounded.

He was pronounced dead at a hospital.

At the crime scene, investigators recovered live 9mm rounds and three discharged casings engraved with words "deny," "depose," and "defend," as reported by the New York Post. The words appear to allude to the title of Jay Feinman's book "Delay, Deny, Defend," which criticizes the practices of insurance companies.

Mangione has no prior criminal record, police said.

He graduated from the University of Pennsylvania with a Masters in Computer Science in 2020. He currently works as a Data Engineer for TrueCar, Inc., and lives in Honolulu, Hawaii, according to his LinkedIn.

Alleged Brian Thompson assassin Luigi Mangione had a manifesto on his person when he was arrested in Altoona, Pennsylvania.  The media suppressed it, but liberal blogger Ken Klippenstein got a copy and made it available to the public yesterday.  Klippenstein's copy has since been verified, off the record, by authorities:

https://www.kenklippenstein.com/p/luigis-manifesto

Exclusive: Luigi's Manifesto
Read the manifesto the media refused to publish
By Ken Klippenstein - December 10, 2024

I’ve obtained a copy of suspected killer Luigi Mangione’s manifesto — the real one, not the forgery circulating online. Major media outlets are also in possession of the document but have refused to publish it and not even articulated a reason why. My queries to The New York Times, The Washington Post, CNN and NBC to explain their rationale for withholding the manifesto, while gladly quoting from it selectively, have not been answered.

I’ll have more to say on this later — on how unhealthy the media’s drift away from public disclosure is — but for now, here’s the manifesto:

“To the Feds, I'll keep this short, because I do respect what you do for our country. To save you a lengthy investigation, I state plainly that I wasn't working with anyone. This was fairly trivial: some elementary social engineering, basic CAD, a lot of patience. The spiral notebook, if present, has some straggling notes and To Do lists that illuminate the gist of it. My tech is pretty locked down because I work in engineering so probably not much info there. I do apologize for any strife of traumas but it had to be done. Frankly, these parasites simply had it coming. A reminder: the US has the #1 most expensive healthcare system in the world, yet we rank roughly #42 in life expectancy. United is the [indecipherable] largest company in the US by market cap, behind only Apple, Google, Walmart. It has grown and grown, but as our life expectancy? No the reality is, these [indecipherable] have simply gotten too powerful, and they continue to abuse our country for immense profit because the American public has allwed them to get away with it. Obviously the problem is more complex, but I do not have space, and frankly I do not pretend to be the most qualified person to lay out the full argument. But many have illuminated the corruption and greed (e.g.: Rosenthal, Moore), decades ago and the problems simply remain. It is not an issue of awareness at this point, but clearly power games at play. Evidently I am the first to face it with such brutal honesty.”

Today's Morning Brew reports a congressional response.

Bipartisan lawmakers seek to break up the healthcare industry. Specifically, legislation in the House and the Senate targets conglomerates like UnitedHealth Group, CVS Health, and Cigna—health insurers that each also own a pharmacy benefits manager (PBM) and a pharmacy business. PBMs act as go-betweens that price drugs. If the legislation passes, the big companies would have three years to divest their pharmacies. Sen. Josh Hawley, who is cosponsoring that chamber’s bill with Sen. Elizabeth Warren, said the legislation would “stop the insurance companies and PBMs from gobbling up even more of American healthcare and charging American families more and more for less.”—HVL

The GiveSendGo page on behalf of Luigi Mangione's defense fund has raised $ 324,855 of their $ 500,000 goal:

https://www.givesendgo.com/legalfund-ceo-shooting-suspect

The GiveSendGo page on behalf of Luigi Mangione's defense fund has now raised $ 518,951 of their doubled $ 1,000,000 goal:

https://www.givesendgo.com/legalfund-ceo-shooting-suspect