UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson Shot and Killed in Midtown Manhattan
December 4th, 2024Update: “Delay, Deny, Defend” Written on Casings
Via: Daily Mail:
The words scrawled on the bullets used to kill UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson closely resemble the title of a book criticizing insurance companies and the tactics they use to deny claims, it has been revealed.
Health insurance boss Brian Thompson, 50, was shot in the back and calf early on Wednesday by a masked man who appeared to be waiting for him outside the Hilton hotel in Manhattan, before succumbing to his injuries in hospital.
Detectives investigating the shooting reportedly found shell casings with the words ‘depose’, ‘deny’ and ‘defend’ inscribed on them.
They are now working to determine what the words mean and if they could possibly hint at a motive for the slaying of the 50-year-old.
Curiously, the messages bear similarity to the title of a 2010 book on ‘why insurance companies don’t pay claims and what you can do about it’, called ‘Delay, Deny, Defend’.
Critics allege the tactic is used by insurance companies to ‘ensure your claim is either never paid or paid at a rate far below what you deserve’.
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UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson was facing a DoJ investigation and lawsuit:
UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson was accused of insider trading and fraud before he was assassinated on Wednesday in Manhattan.
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Last year the DoJ launched a probe into whether the private company of the nation’s biggest insurer, led by Thompson, was unfairly restricting competitors and running a monopoly.
In May, the City of Hollywood Firefighters’ Pension Fund initiated a complaint against Thompson and other executives, accusing the CEO of failing to tell investors about the federal probe before he unloaded over 31 percent of his stock, taking in $15.1 million in proceeds.
In legal documents, the fund said Thompson and other company execs sold over $117 million worth of UnitedHealth common stock during the four-month period when insiders knew about the federal antitrust investigation but the public did not.
The California Public Employees’ Retirement System, America’s largest state public pension fund, then joined that complaint in October and filed an amendment seeking a jury trial against the UnitedHealth execs including Thompson.
The Wall Street Journal reported in February that federal investigators had been interviewing healthcare industry representatives in sectors where UnitedHealth competes, including doctor groups.
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The WSJ also reported that the DOJ was examining the company’s Medicare billing practices to see if doctors are aggressively characterizing their patients illnesses to wrongly increase payments from the government.
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United is the biggest health insurer by market share in America. The company has been the subject of frequent protests by activists for allegedly systematically denying care for patients.
Also, UnitedHealth uses faulty AI to deny elderly patients medically necessary coverage, lawsuit claims:
The families of two now-deceased former beneficiaries of UnitedHealth have filed a lawsuit against the health care giant, alleging it knowingly used a faulty artificial intelligence algorithm to deny elderly patients coverage for extended care deemed necessary by their doctors.
The lawsuit, filed last Tuesday in federal court in Minnesota, claims UnitedHealth illegally denied “elderly patients care owed to them under Medicare Advantage Plans” by deploying an AI model known by the company to have a 90% error rate, overriding determinations made by the patients’ physicians that the expenses were medically necessary.
“The elderly are prematurely kicked out of care facilities nationwide or forced to deplete family savings to continue receiving necessary medical care, all because [UnitedHealth’s] AI model ‘disagrees’ with their real live doctors’ determinations,” according to the complaint.
Many stories about this murder, including the one below, indicate that the suspect was experiencing a weapon malfunction.
Update: Police Think Murder Weapon Might Be Bolt Style Handgun
Via: New York Post:
Cops are probing whether the weapon used to kill United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson was a “veterinary” gun commonly used to euthanize animals, an NYPD official said.
The murder weapon used in the assassination of Thompson “appears to be a larger handgun” similar to the style of a veterinary gun, NYPD Chief of Detectives Joseph Kenny said.
“It’s a weapon commonly used on farms and ranches. If an animal has to get put down, the animal can be shot without causing a loud noise,” Kenny explained Friday.
The weapon is believed to be a modernized version of a World War-II style gun called a Welrod, sources said. Modern versions of the firearm are known as VP-9 or Station 6.
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Update: Locked Slide / Bolt Style Weapon WAS NOT Used
Newly released photographs of the crime scene show unfired cartridges on the sidewalk, which means that a conventional semiautomatic handgun was malfunctioning. In the process of trying to cycle the weapon, the suspect caused unfired cartridges to drop free of the weapon and onto the sidewalk.
That may not be the case.
There are highly suppressed handguns that require manual cycling.
See:
Hush Puppy Slide Locked Weapons:
Via: Fox:
Newly obtained video shows the moment UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson was shot and killed at close range in midtown Manhattan Wednesday morning, outside the Hilton Hotel.
In the chilling video obtained by Fox News Digital, Thompson is seen walking down a New York City sidewalk when a masked man wearing a black hoodie sweatshirt and a backpack walks up behind him and raises a handgun with glove-covered hands.
The culprit fires off several shots. At one point, the gun appears to jam. The assailant then appears to smack the gun on the side while walking toward the victim, who is attempting to get away.
As he gets closer to Thompson, the man appears to continue to struggle with the pistol, possibly firing off one more round at the victim who appears to be struggling to move.
Saw the following on an X post. Sorry, I can’t remember the source:
“On February 21, 2024, UnitedHealth discovered a cybersecurity breach.
On the same day, Nancy Pelosi made her second purchase of call options in Palo Alto Networks, a cybersecurity company that was later chosen to investigate the breach.
UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson was k*lled by a masked gunman today in the middle of a federal investigation led by the US Department of Justice.”
One for the professional hit man’s hall of fame.
So many people are online not regretting his actions that it’s almost embarrassing. They assume it was revenge.
Remember Bonnie and Clyde, who robbed banks early in the Great Depression? They were celebrities till they had killed too many ordinary people. The big bankers who caused it were never touched. They went on to fund WWII on all sides and get even bigger.
If it was an official hit, I do not think they would have gone with this anti-insurance company story. The rich only think of the rich, they would not go with a cover story that stokes hate against the rich. That much is certain.
Also, look up Cory Doctorow book, Radicalized. One of the 4 novellas is this exact same scenario – people whose loved ones die because of denied coverage start murdering health execs.
Another of the stories is a rich banker retreating to his survival bunker when shit hits the fan, and eventually shit hits his fan in a darkly funny way too.
Recommended, it is a good book.
In an era when cover-up stories are a dime a dozen, if you want yours to be believed, you should include some anti-big business or anti-govt or anti-rich people parts to obscure your true intentions. Maybe half the online comments that praise the shooter or diss the ins.companies are written by the cover-up guys to make us think our peers accept the narrative, therefore we should too.
But they overdo it with the coincidences and clues. It reminds me of how Biden was put out there over and over to look so bad that even the most loyal would not vote for him. And his replacement looked almost as bad. Both talked gibberish! (She didn’t fall down, though; too awkward and embarrassing for a woman in high heels.)
Isn’t it amazing, or at least curious, that so much of what we see happening around us was shown us in fiction first? There has long been a theory that the artistic imagination actually can predict the future, although the artist may not be aware of what his imagination is getting at.
Maybe that’s one reason why they want to replace all hard copy with electronics, so they can erase these hints from it.