Assassination of United Healthcare CEO

newyorkguy said:
More on the handgun used.


As various news media have reported, police are now considering the shooter possibly using a veterinary handgun.
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I say it isn't anything of the kind. It's just an automatic with a suppressor.

I have shot a Welrod, it's handling is completely different.
 
Thermal said:
I don't think shareholders get invited to investors conferences. Different animals.
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Sure they do. Not if you invest in a fund which holds the shares but if you hold the shares yourself you get invited to the AGM and have voting rights (which are a drop in the ocean compared to big pension fund investors but whatever).
 
Nessie said:
The cops will also all know people who have had claims turned down. I think this murder will go unsolved.
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If there's any hint of copycatting the pressure will be on to stop it getting out of hand. Even cops with zero sympathy for the victim will want to stop people getting the idea it's okay to kill those you blame for your own suffering.
 
Jack by the hedge said:
Sure they do. Not if you invest in a fund which holds the shares but if you hold the shares yourself you get invited to the AGM and have voting rights (which are a drop in the ocean compared to big pension fund investors but whatever).
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To both you and @TragicMonkey :

Yes. I know. I'm saying that in the practical sense, this conference was for the Big Fish, not every Tom Dick and Harry with a few shares in their portfolio. I don't believe it was attended by anyone who didn't have a small nation's GDP invested in this corporation.
 
i thought your point was small time investors wouldn't have known about the conference and therefore couldn't have used that information to know where he would be that day?
 
Matthew Best said:
How on earth do you make the connection between knowing where someone will be and being hired?
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In the way that I described. It would seem he had information that would not be readily available to the public, especially knowing the exact time at such an opportune circumstance to be vulnerable.

The killers movements were tracked that morning. Strolling around getting coffee and snacks and stuff, then straight to the spot where, five minutes later, this CEO suddenly appears on the dark and empty sidewalk.

Thompson was not going to the office, that could have been staked out in advance (learning his routine). Like, someone who likes to be at their desk at 7AM will routinely be on the sidewalk in front of their office around 6:45. But this was a one-off where a killer would have no reason to expect his target to be at that hour.

The killer was in town even before the press release saying the day of the conference, and police say he went straight to the Hilton upon arriving in town. He knew when and where he could expect to find Thompson in this vulnerable position, with a window of a minute or so.

Seems too coincidental for "Lucky guess".

Eta: the announcement of the conference said only the town. I'd guess that they only gave the precise address to investors who queried/committed to attendance. The NYPD has, I'll bet you, almost certainly asked UnitedHealth for a list of every single person who was aware of this exact location, and are checking them out, looking specifically for investors from Georgia who.queried for the conference address.

Also, they'd be looking at Hilton staff who would be preparing for this CEO to show up early in the morning. The CEO wasn't showing up at 6:45AM to help set up the ◊◊◊◊◊◊◊ chairs for the conference.

It's actually a little bit odd that Thompson wouldn't have stayed at the Hilton itself, where this conference was being held.

Also, the murderer apparently had a bike set up to escape with already (possible coincidence that he happened to find one but I highly doubt it). The killer knew that at 6:45, Thompson would be on that sidewalk. I don't see how he could reasonably know that without someone feeding information about it that was intimate with Thompsons schedule.
 
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Andy_Ross said:
I say it isn't anything of the kind. It's just an automatic with a suppressor.
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The video of the attack that was posted on CNN -- they don't show the actual shooting ("too disturbing") -- was reported to have shown the gun jamming after each round was fired and having to be manually cleared. Others have suggested it was not an automatic handgun and it wasn't jamming. That the shooter had to manually eject each round after firing and chamber the next round. Wonder which it was?

Also many comments about the long barrel of the handgun.

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TragicMonkey said:
Or maybe it was a spurned lover. The human imagination is excellent and we can invent stories that are much more interesting than reality if we want to. But I think there's a difference between discussing a current event on a (soft) skeptics messageboard and treating everything as a creative writing prompt.
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There's a chasm of difference between cooking up random possibilities, and trying to figure out how an actual murder was practically carried out. Running down logistics and testing their plausibility with minimal information is something a lot of people enjoy.
 
newyorkguy said:
The video of the attack that was posted on CNN -- they don't show the actual shooting ("too disturbing") -- was reported to have shown the gun jamming after each round was fired and having to be manually cleared. Others have suggested it was not an automatic handgun and it wasn't jamming. That the shooter had to manually eject each round after firing and chamber the next round. Wonder which it was?

Also many comments about the long barrel of the handgun.

View attachment 57999
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It's obviously an automatic with a suppressor.
 
The bike he used should come into play sooner or later. If he came from Georgia by bus, did he bring the bike with him or score one in NYC? If in NYC, it was much warmer in the previous days, and he would have been running around without a mask (although a COVID style mask wouldn't have drawn too much attention). Someone could remember selling a bike and possibly have info for the cops.

He apparently dumped the bike when he got into the cab to go to the bus terminal. Surely the cops have found it, or someone stole it? I'd bet it's loaded with fingerprints and possibly other DNA, so if it got stolen, I hope the thief figures it out and turns it in.
 
The only thing interesting about the gun used is that it might help to track him down. If it was a recent purchase of such an oddball pistol, a seller might have records. If it was a vet gun, it might narrow down suspects who had access to one.

But if it was something he scored a few years ago on a private sale, probably not going to be illuminating, unless someone happened to remember selling it and who bought it.

On the whole, his gun choice is about as interesting as his sneaker choice.
 
Thermal said:
Interesting that the killer knew where Thompson would be and when. It was a one-off early meeting of investors, but the shooter just happened to know that Thomson would be there at 6:45AM on a dark sidewalk? That's not the kind of thing you find by googling a CEOs name.
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Yeah, this wasn't the same as an annual meeting of shareholders. The time and place for that you could find out just by going to the Securities and Exchange Commission website and searching for their proxy statement. I assume this was a private invitation event, but it was held in the same place in 2023, so you just need to find out the date, which shouldn't be difficult.
 
shemp said:
Yeah, this wasn't the same as an annual meeting of shareholders. The time and place for that you could find out just by going to the Securities and Exchange Commission website and searching for their proxy statement. I assume this was a private invitation event, but it was held in the same place in 2023, so you just need to find out the date, which shouldn't be difficult.
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The date was announced in the press release I posted upthread, but the specific location wasn't posted anywhere, that year or previously. And conferences move as convenient, often just to appeal to guests having someplace new to go. They don't commit to the same location for infinity.
 
Thermal said:
It is. So oddball that police were only able to identify one seller of the things locally, and that one in the next state.
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But the pistol hasn't been identified. It's not some super spy copy of an old Welrod.

It's just an automatic with a suppressor. It's obvious from the video.
 
Thermal said:
The date was announced in the press release I posted upthread, but the specific location wasn't posted anywhere, that year or previously. And conferences move as convenient, often just to appeal to guests having someplace new to go. They don't commit to the same location for infinity.
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Well that settles it. It must have been an inside job, with assistance from Putin and Biden.
 
shemp said:
Well that settles it. It must have been an inside job, with assistance from Putin and Biden.
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No, seriously, think about it. Even if you knew that the conference was being held there, and what time it started, how the hell would you know that your target would happen to be staying across the street and walking in that freaking dark sidewalk long before the conference even got going at that exact time?

This guy had a very short window in the dark. A little later and it would have been daylight and more people milling around. He showed up five minutes before Thompson did. What do you think he was going to do, wait there all day, taking a shot in a crowd whenever Thompson happened to go in or out that door?

He knew Thompson would be there at that off the wall time and place. Showing up five ◊◊◊◊◊◊◊ minutes before the CEO happened to stroll by on the dark and empty sidewalk is no coincidence.
 
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