Although the gunman wanted in the murder of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson has not made it easy for the NYPD to track him down, experts said Friday that he left behind some confusing indications that might help them apprehend him.
Investigators have yet to publicly identify the gunman who ambushed the 50-year-old insurance executive early Wednesday, despite the fact that he fired the fatal shots in a busy area of Manhattan where numerous security cameras are present and that he revealed his face at the hostel where he is thought to have stayed prior to the shooting.
Michael Alcazar, a former NYPD detective and current adjunct lecturer at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice, said that he has benefited from the period of time before the shooter’s picture was made public.
Alcazar told NBC News, “This guy had a day to get away right off the bat.”
However, since we have his picture, I can virtually assure that cops have received reliable information about his identity from Crime Stoppers or another party attempting to obtain reward money. They very likely already know a great deal more about him than they are disclosing to the public.
According to retired NYPD Detective Jillian Snider, “that might be the lead the NYPD needs,” she told MSNBC.”This individual has recognizable features. He’s grinning.
Earlier, veteran NYPD investigator Tom Verni told MSNBC’s Jose Diaz-Balart that since “his face is being plastered” on news websites nationwide, it would not be long before the gunman is apprehended or recognized. Furthermore, he did not rule out the possibility that the murderer was still in New York City.
“In a city like New York City you can disappear in a crowd,” Verni stated.
Later, they thought the culprit had fled New York City, according to NYPD Chief of Detectives Joseph Kenny. He claimed that they had video of him getting into a taxi and traveling to a Port Authority bus terminal close to Broadway and 178th Street.
Kenny stated, “Those buses are interstate buses.” We think he might have fled New York City because of this.
According to Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch, Thompson was shot and killed outside the New York Hilton hotel in midtown Manhattan in what seemed to be a planned, premeditated targeted attack. Tisch stated at a news conference following the fatal shooting that the gunman approached from behind and fired multiple bullets when he was en route to speak at UnitedHealth Group’s investment meeting.
According to Tisch, the shooter had been “lying in wait for several minutes” before starting to fire.
Surveillance camera footage captured Thompson’s last moments, as the shooter approached him from behind and started shooting. According to the video, he kept shooting as Thompson hit the pavement.
The shooter arrived at the area approximately five minutes before to the shooting, according to the police. At Mount Sinai West Hospital, Thompson, a Minnesota resident, was declared dead.
According to Tisch, the shooter escaped first on foot and then on a rental bike. Central Park is where we last saw him.
Police disclosed on Thursday that shot casings discovered at the crime scene bore the phrases “deny, defend, and depose” inscribed on them, raising the possibility of a murder motive.
Thompson’s wife told NBC News that her late husband had received threats, and UnitedHealthcare has been plagued by complaints from hundreds of disgruntled consumers over the years. There was no security detail accompanying him.
Payback may be a motivation, according to Alcazar, but he saw a few other things in the video as well.
“Initially, I thought it might be a guy with a vendetta of some kind and it still may be, given the words that were found on the shell casings,” Alcazar stated. However, there is also a sense of confidence in the video. He fires. He then handles the situation coolly and resumes shooting when it looks like his gun has jammed.
According to Alcazar, “if I am working the case I am not ruling out, at least not at this moment, that this could be a hired gun or somebody with a military background who has some experience with weapons.”
According to Alcazar, the absence of a murder weapon could potentially constitute a hint in and of itself.
“I believe the gun may be specifically a bolt action single shot weapon, which is very specific,” he stated. “A unique choice of a weapon to execute a target.”
Verni, however, stated that he does not believe Thompson’s killer was a professional.
He claimed that “a professional hitman would have been more of a ghost” and would not have murdered a man on a street in Midtown Manhattan because there would probably be witnesses even at that hour.
It’s also “kind of odd,” he continued, as the shooter seemed to have “some kind of noise suppressor” on his rifle.
Verni remarked, “But he planned this out, that’s for sure,”
Earlier, investigators informed NBC News that they think the shooter may have taken a bus from Atlanta to New York City last month.
Authorities are trying to determine whether the tickets bought for a Greyhound trip on November 24 contain a name that might be used to identify the shooter. According to Greyhound, it is assisting investigators with their work.
According to two law enforcement officials informed on the inquiry, police are also investigating if the shooter rented a room at a hostel on Manhattan’s Upper West Side using cash and a forged ID.
According to the reports, the gunman purchased two protein bars and a water bottle at a nearby Starbucks prior to the shooting and threw the things away.
Police gathered the things as evidence in the hopes that it would help with the investigation, according to an official, and they also obtained a video that showed the man throwing away the items he had bought.
“There s also still a lot of scene crime processing that needs to be done,” Alcazar stated. “We may know it s him, but we ve got to be able to prove it was him and that requires things like collecting and identifying DNA and processing other physical evidence.”
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