NEW YORK (AP) They don’t know his name, but they have seen him grinning on a hostel surveillance video. They don’t know where he’s gone, but they did find the backpack he threw away while running.
Investigators are facing a perplexing dilemma as the hunt for UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson skiller continues: while having a wealth of evidence, the gunman is still a mystery.
Police are certain it was a targeted attack rather than a random crime, but they do not know who he is, where he is, or why he did it.
Eric Adams, the mayor of New York City, stated on Saturday that the net is getting tighter.
The killer ran to a pond in Central Park following the shooting, and police divers were spotted scouring there hours after he spoke. His backpack was discovered in the park on Friday after officers searched it for days in search of any potential clues.
Two further images of the alleged gunman, which seemed to be taken from a camera installed inside a taxi, were made public by police late Saturday. In the first, he is seen outside the car, and in the second, he is seen peering through the partition that separates the front of the cab from the back seat. In both, a blue, medical-style mask partially hides his face.
Police said they have used surveillance footage to trace the gunman’s movements and found that he apparently took a bus out of the city shortly after the shooting outside the New York Hilton Midtown on Wednesday morning. About forty-five minutes later, NYPD Chief of Detectives Joseph Kenny said he was seen on camera at an uptown bus station.
Brian Thompson, the CEO of UnitedHealthcare, is shown in this undated image from UnitedHealth Group.AP
In addition to the NYPD’s reward of up to $10,000, the FBI said late Friday that it was offering a $50,000 reward for information that leads to an arrest and conviction as the well-publicized search continues to transcend state lines. The culprit, according to the police, acted alone.
Investigators are asking for patience despite the fact that a killer is still at large, but police did not release any information on the hunt on Saturday.
Hundreds of investigators are searching social media and video records, screening public tips, and speaking with everyone who may have anything, such as Thompson’s relatives, coworkers, and the shooter’s randomly chosen roommates at the Manhattan hostel where he stayed.
It’s not Blue Bloods here. On Friday, Kenny told reporters, “We’re not going to solve this in 60 minutes.” We are meticulously reviewing every piece of evidence we can find.
The shooter is suspected of using cash for taxi rides and other transactions, paid with cash at the hostel, and showed what police believe to be a forged ID. He avoided interacting with other people at the hostel and nearly always wore a mask over his face, only taking it off to eat.
But shortly after landing in New York on Nov. 24, investigators were given a break when they discovered security camera footage of an unguarded moment in which he momentarily revealed his face.
According to Kenny, police have shared the photos with news organizations and on social media, but they haven’t been able to identify him with facial recognition technology yet. This could be due to the photos’ angle or restrictions on the NYPD’s use of the technology.
According to police, investigators discovered the gunman’s rucksack in Central Park on Friday night. They stated that it will be examined and tested but did not immediately disclose what, if anything, it contained.
According to Kenny, a fingerprint found on a product he bought at a Starbucks just before the shooting has not yet been used as a potential indication to identify him.
On Wednesday, December 4, 2024, in New York, bullets are lying on the pavement outside the Hilton Hotel in midtown Manhattan, where UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson was shot and killed. (Photo by Stefan Jeremiah for AP)
Police have been able to follow the shooter’s path thanks to CCTV cameras on almost every block and building.
They are aware that he used a 9 millimeter handgun, similar to those used by farmers to quietly kill animals, to ambush Thompson at 6:44 a.m. when the executive arrived at the Hilton for his company’s annual investor meeting. They are aware that the words “delay, deny, and depose,” which are employed by critics of the insurance industry, were found in the ammunition found close to Thompson’s body.
According to Kenny, the gunman may have been a dissatisfied employee or client because he knew the UnitedHealthcare group was having a meeting at the hotel and the possible path Thompson may take to get there.
According to camera footage, the gunman abandoned his bicycle at 85th Street at before 7 a.m. and went into Central Park.
The George Washington Bridge Bus Station, which is close to Manhattan’s northern edge and provides commuter service to New Jersey as well as Greyhound services to Philadelphia, Boston, and Washington, is where he arrived at 7:30 a.m. after walking a few blocks and boarding a taxi.
What transpired next is unknown to investigators. Although they are looking through further surveillance footage, they have not yet found any footage showing the shooter leaving the station or boarding a bus.
Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch told CNN on Friday, “We have reason to believe that the person in question has left New York City.”
Based on surveillance, police have concluded that the shooter spent ten days in the city prior to the incident. It’s unclear if he boarded the Greyhound bus in Atlanta or at one of the roughly six stops along the way, but he arrived at Manhattan’s main bus terminal on that vehicle.
According to Kenny, he immediately got a taxi to the area around the Hilton and spent roughly thirty minutes there.
He took a taxi to the HI New York City Hostel at approximately 11 p.m. on the night of his arrival. He quickly removed the mask and grinned there while chatting with a staff member in the foyer, providing detectives with the fleeting sight they now depend on to find and apprehend a murderer.
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