Many are wondering whether the UnitedHealthcare CEO killer was a professional hitman after video of the assassination was made available online. Brian Thompson was brazenly killed on Wednesday morning outside of a Manhattan hotel by a hooded suspect, who still remains at large at the time of writing. The masked gunman is seen in surveillance footage shooting Thompson in the back and calf using a firearm with what looks to be a silencer, before fleeing on foot and then on an electric bike. Here’s whether experts believe Thompson’s murder was a professional hit.
Is Brian Thompson’s shooter a professional hitman?
The killer of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson is not a professional hitman, according to various experts from NYPD detectives to bounty hunters, given early details of the murder.
The current working theory among NYPD detectives, per ABC News, is that the murder was not a professional hit because the killer made too many “mistakes.” This includes him taking a cellphone to the scene of the crime and firing shots that were “too far” from the victim. That said, this does not mean that the killer doesn’t have experience handling a gun, nor does this rule out the assassin being a gunman-for-hire.
Still, it’s “unlikely” that the shooter was hired, says professor Dennis Kenney at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in an interview with Slate. With his experience studying contract killings and hitmen, he believes that the shooter has “a particular grudge that has access to inside information to know where to be and when to be there.”
Retrieved shell casings from the scene had the words “deny,” “defend,” and “depose” written on them. CNBC News relates these words to a 2010 book entitled “Delay Deny Defend” with the subtitle “Why insurance companies don’t pay claims and what you can do about it,” which possibly points to a motive.
In addition, Kenney says that a professional hitman would prefer not shooting a target in broad daylight and “do something less public with limited exposure.” He points out that Thompson was not on his usual routine, as he was in the city for a conference for UnitedHealthcare investors, and a professional hitman would rather choose a place where the target’s guard is down and the shooter’s exposure is minimized. Choosing a place in midtown Manhattan where there are many cameras would not be the ideal location for a hit.
Also, photos of the shooter’s face without a mask at the HI New York City Hostel on Manhattan’s Upper West Side were released by the NYPD. This is something that a professional would attempt to prevent due to a high amount of risk. One of the only mitigating factors for this would be if a supposed contract for the killing was highly time-sensitive, but Kenney does not think this is the case.
Former NYPD inspector Paul Mauro, speaking in a segment on Fox News, reminds people “to just be mindful of the fact that professional hitmen primarily exist in the movies.” In general, he is “skeptical” that the shooter was a professional as well. Various sources told the outlet that the weapon looked like a bolt-action suppressed pistol called a “Welrod” that requires manual cycling after each round is fired and thus a “top choice by pros for up-close, quiet work.”
Bounty hunter Zeke Unger, who is a liaison to the US Marshals, told CNN he believes the suspect is not a professional killer either. This is because of “his mannerisms and by the failure of the weapon,” particularly the malfunction of the weapon with the noise-suppression unit. This refers to the apparent jamming of the firearm in the video. In his opinion, the murder had signs of a “revenge shooting.”
