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

We are learning a lot about the three Luigi Mangione superfan girls who have captivated the press outside his legal hearings.  Luigi Mangione fandom is a severe mental illness which will plague all health care executives in the coming years.  They are going to need serious executive protection units which will be paid for by your health care insurance premiums.

The New York Post did some digging and discovered at least one major surprise:

https://nypost.com/2026/05/23/us-news/ghoulish-mangionista-groupie-is-healthcare-execs-spawn/

Ghoulish Luigi Mangione superfan exposed as daughter of senior healthcare exec at CVS Health
By Sonya Gugliara and Gabrielle Fahmy - May 23, 2026

One of the ghoulish Luigi Mangione fangirl “journalists” is herself the relative of a health care insurance executive, The Post has learned.

Lena Weissbrot, a member of the twisted trio hopelessly devoted to the accused assassin of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, is the daughter of Reina Natero, who oversees prescription drug insurance coverage rules at CVS Health, according to a review of public records and Natero’s online resume.

Natero, 57, a trained pharmacist, has worked for big pharma for more than two decades, according to her LinkedIn profile.

Weissbrot, 32, unleashed her fury at the healthcare industry Monday, when she coldly proclaimed outside the New York State Supreme Court where Mangione is on trial that Thompson’s grieving kids “are better off without him.”

Natero meanwhile is the lead director of medical affairs for the Formulary Clinical Analysis team at CVS Health, where she’s worked since October 2021.

She formerly held director roles at insurance companies Centene, WellCare and Providence, and kicked off her career making drugs for Bayer Healthcare, per her LinkedIn profile.

The Portland, Oregon, resident was listed as a speaker at prestigious Professional Society for Health Economics and Outcomes Research 2026 conference, and was wedded to David Weissbrot, according to a marriage certificate, though no professional information could be gleaned about him.

Weissbrot herself obtained a coveted Fullbright-MTV fellowship in 2015 after she graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Florida State University, where tuition costs $6,500, when the family lived in the Sunshine State.

The grant sent her to study “South African artists identifying as feminists who use Hip-hop music as a form of activism” at Rhodes University in South Africa, where international tuition and residence is $10,500.

“This has become an archetype at this point, when activists become defined as the ‘anti’ of what their parents were,” Stu Smith, an investigative analyst with conservative think tank The Manhattan Institute, told The Post. “There’s no self-awareness.”

Weissbrot, a game developer, rapper and maker of erotic art who goes by Fellatia G, made a splash Monday when she and two other fan girls got City Hall-approved press passes to cover a pretrial hearing for Mangione.

The shocking revelation comes as The Post discovered a music video she wrote and starred in posted on Vimeo in June.

The trio made a splash Monday when they got City Hall-approved press passes to cover a pretrial hearing for Mangione.
“The CEO’s a parasite and now they getting shot up,” she mocked as guns and guillotines flashed on the screen.

“While I’m looking cuter, you be looking deader, the kind of hit that makes you wish for universal healthcare,” the bikini-clad self-proclaimed rapper shamelessly ang in her disturbing “Toolie Toolie” video.

She rallied Mangione “copycats” to “put billionaires in body bags” during the 1:40-minute clip where she wore a green beret with an “L” on it – and which included a disclaimer that she doesn’t “promote, condone or endorse violence.”

“Uzi, uzi, toolie, toolie, blicky, blicky, chopper. I’m mogging like a model but I whack them like a mobster.”

Contacted by The Post, Weissbrot, whose full name is Lena Natero Weissbrot, denied Reina Natero was her mother but dodged follow up questions about the relationship when confronted with the records, only claiming her mother was unemployed and that they were “rather estranged.”

“That’s not my mom,” she wrote in an email, promising to “assemble the information,” about her mother, but never followed up.

By the next morning, Natero edited her LinkedIn profile to remove her last name.

Natero was listed as Weissbrot’s mother in public records, and the two are the only in the United States to hold their respective names. They lived at the same address in Saint Petersburgh, Florida, Weissbrot’s hometown, before she went off to college in Tallahassee in 2012, according to records.

Natero and David Weissbrot got married in March 1993, according to the certificate, five months before the Mangionista was born.

Multiple calls to Natero and David Weissbrot went unanswered.

Another Mangionista, Abril Rios – the content creator for the Hot Girls 4 Zohran campaign to boost the socialist – also has capitalist bonafides.

The nepo-baby grew up in a stunning $1 million home in the idyllic suburb of Hopewell, New Jersey, and was a child model-actress, according to her IMDb and LinkedIn pages.

Rios, 27, jet-sets around the world, studying at the University of Amsterdam and even scoring a modeling stint in Seoul, South Korea, according to her social media pages.

She has worked on visual effects for Netflix shows including “The Witcher” in London in 2019, according to LinkedIn.

It seems like she may have gotten a boost from her award-winning stepdad, Julian Parry, who was special effects supervisor for the dark fantasy franchise.

Parry lives with the blond Mangionista’s mother in a house in Princeton, according to records. The couple is pictured on social media together, with mother Monica Martinez adopting her beau’s surname on her Facebook profile.

Neither returned calls, and Rios lashed out at The Post for calling to seek comment from her relatives and her and went on a bizarre rant accusing the paper of somehow having caused her to lose her housing.

“I’ve never taken a dollar from my parents since I was 17 years old. You should genuinely be ashamed of yourself,” she lambasted in an email.

Her biological father meanwhile, Andres Rios, rakes in at least $280,000 as the Chief Enterprise Security Architect at Valley Bank, according to his LinkedIn profile and Glassdoor estimate.

The third Mangionista, Ashley Rojas, 24, a native New Yorker, had a sales associate floor job at Banana Republic and worked a baker at Whole Foods until last year, and is currently earning a Modern Journalism certification from NYU, according to her LinkedIn.

“F–k Brian Thompson,” she said in front of the courthouse this week. “That’s all I want to say. F–k Brian Thompson. F–k his mom.”

Smith called the trio “incredibly cruel.”

“I’m certainly open to independent journalists getting a fair shot, but who is a propagandist — and arguably in love with Luigi — versus a voice that can provide some non-biased commentary and make a strong argument?” he said.

The photos in The New York Post article are an information trove of their own.

A psychiatric defense on behalf of the killer is planned in court:

https://nypost.com/2026/06/17/us-news/luigi-mangione-will-argue-a-psychiatric-defense-in-state-trial-for-united-healthcare-ceo-murder/

Luigi Mangione to mount eyebrow-raising psych defense in state trial for United Healthcare CEO murder
By Kyle Schnitzer, Priscilla DeGregory and Ben Kochman - June 17, 2026

Luigi Mangione will use a psychiatric defense at his upcoming trial in the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, a Manhattan judge revealed at a bombshell hearing Wednesday.

Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Gregory Carro said Mangione’s lawyers will argue that he was in the throes of an “extreme emotional disturbance” and experienced a “profound loss of self control” when he gunned down Thompson on a Midtown sidewalk in December 2024.

The eyebrow-raising legal gambit would knock the charge down to manslaughter instead of murder — carrying less prison time — if jurors buy it.

Carro said Mangione’s attorneys must reveal more details to Manhattan prosecutors by Thursday about the specifics of their mental health defense at the upcoming Sept. 8 trial.

“They need to know what malady this defendant suffers [from], and how that triggered extreme emotional disturbance at the time of the occurrence,” the judge said.

Prosecutors will likely counter Mangione’s defense strategy by stressing the many steps he allegedly took to plan the cold-blooded murder, including lying in wait for Thompson for an hour outside the Hilton hotel where UnitedHealthcare was holding its annual investor conference.

Jurors will also see Mangione’s notebook in which the accused killer mused about killing a health insurance CEO to draw attention to what he dubbed a “parasitic” industry.

Cops found the red journal, zip ties and rolls of duct tape inside the privileged anti-capitalist’s backpack when they nabbed him while he was having breakfast at an Altoona, Pa. McDonald’s after a dramatic five-day manhunt.

Police also found a partially 3D-printed pistol — the alleged murder weapon — in Mangione’s belongings, authorities said.

Mangione, who had allegedly been staying in an Upper West Side hostel using a fake name, escaped from the scene of the caught-on-camera West 54th Street killing on an electric bike, riding through Central Park, where he left behind a bag full of monopoly money, court papers state.

He then allegedly hopped into a taxi and was dropped off on West 178th Street in Washington Heights, before fleeing the state by train to Pennslyvania.

Experts polled by The Post Wednesday were split on whether the legal strategy would be successful.

“I think a jury is going to have a difficult time with this,” said Heather Cucolo, a criminal law professor at New York Law School.

“He had the materials, he had had had a plan, had to put everything together. All of that is going to cut against what I think jurors, laypersons are generally going to believe,” Cucolo said.

But defense attorney Ron Kuby called the psych argument “sort of the perfect defense” — and added that it would allow Mangione’s defense team to highlight the perils of the healthcare system as part of their case.

“You need to make the jury want to find in your client’s favor,” Kuby told the Post. “One way to do that is to present your client in a sympathetic light, and another way is portraying the dead person as someone who was complicit in his own destruction.”

Mangione has pleaded not guilty in parallel state and federal cases to charges of fatally shooting Thompson, a 50-year-old father-of-two, from close range on Dec. 4, 2024 in the shocking daytime assassination.

A mountain of physical evidence ties Mangione to Thompson’s execution, including his DNA recovered from a cellphone, water bottle and piece of gum discarded by the masked gunman fleeing the scene, prosecutors have said.

Bullet casings recovered from the scene had the words “delay” and “deny” etched into them, echoing a phrase that insurance industry critics say companies use to describe trying to avoid paying out claims.

Mangione faces life in prison if convicted of murder in the state case, or a maximum of 25 years if the charges are reduced to manslaughter.