This morning at 6:46 a.m., patrol officers from Midtown North Precinct responded to a 911 call of a person shot in front of the Hilton Hotel, located at 1335 Avenue of the Americas. At 6:48 a.m., officers arrived and found the victim, Brian R Thompson, [00:00:16] a 50 year old male, on the sidewalk in front of the Hilton with gunshot wounds to his back and leg. Mr. Thompson was removed by EMS to Roosevelt Hospital, where he was pronounced dead at 7:12 a.m.. Mr. Thompson is the CEO of UnitedHealthCare and resides in Minnesota. [00:00:36] A manhunt is currently underway after Brian Thompson, the CEO of UnitedHealthCare, was fatally shot in midtown Manhattan early this morning. And there is still a lot that we don't know about the shooting, including the motive. So before we speculate anything, let's go over the things [00:00:53] that we do know about this story. Thompson was shot while walking toward his company's annual investor conference shortly before 7 a.m.. CNN obtained a short clip of the moments leading up to the shooting. It stops right before the shots are fired, but just be aware that it [00:01:10] may still be a little bit disturbing. Take a look. Essentially, what we see in that video is the CEO of UnitedHealthCare, Brian Thompson, walking toward the hotel here behind me and behind him comes the suspected gunman [00:01:25] that police are still searching for. So you can see how he approaches Thompson from the back before then, where we freeze the video. He fires those shots at Thompson. What you do not see from these five seconds, and I can tell you, is that we also see someone sort of running the opposite direction. [00:01:41] So that is something, of course, that police are going to be looking into in this video, breaking it down frame by frame by frame. So as you can see in the video, the gunman's weapon seems to have had a silencer on it. The gun appeared to malfunction, but the assailant was able to clear the [00:01:59] jam and continue shooting shell casings. The bullets were left behind at the scene, which officials will use to determine if this firearm had been used in a past crime. Now, despite not knowing the motive, police are confident that this was a targeted, premeditated attack. [00:02:17] This does not appear to be a random act of violence. The victim was in New York City to speak at an investor conference. It appears the suspect was lying in wait for several minutes, and as the victim was walking to the conference hotel, the suspect approached from behind and fired several rounds, striking [00:02:37] the victim at least once in the back and at least once in the right calf. Many people passed the suspect, but he appeared to wait for his intended target. The suspect fled first on foot, then on an e-bike, and was last seen in Central Park on Center Drive early this morning. [00:02:59] The victim was removed to Roosevelt Hospital, where he was pronounced. The full investigative efforts of the New York City Police Department are well underway, and we will not rest until we identify and apprehend the shooter in this case. [00:03:16] As of right now, the gunman is still at large, and the police are asking the public for help in identifying him. The only small hint we have, as far as a motive goes came from Brian Thompson's wife, Paulette Thompson, who told NBC news that he had been receiving threats. [00:03:33] She said there had been some threats, basically, I don't know, a lack of coverage. I don't know details. I just know that, he said. There were some people that had been threatening him. So regarding lack of coverage, she's referring to health care coverage [00:03:48] because it's a health care company that he works for. But that's pretty much all we know. Those alleged threats have not yet been connected to today's shooting. So everything we say from this point on out is basically just conjecture. It's not proven fact. We will try to be respectful of the deceased and his family, [00:04:05] and I hope you all will do the same. We're just going to give you a little bit of context regarding the company, because naturally, many people are suspecting that the incident had to do with his role as the CEO of this health insurance company since 2021. [00:04:20] And his wife, mentioning a lack of coverage and the threats aimed at Thompson, seems to support that theory. UnitedHealth Group is the nation's largest private health insurer and largest employer of physicians, according to The Washington Post. The nearly $400 billion umbrella company, whose businesses include [00:04:40] the UnitedHealthCare subsidiary that was run by Brian Thompson, also helps run hospitals, has rapidly acquired patient outpatient surgery centers and is expanding into home health services. UnitedHealth ranks as the nation's fourth largest company by revenue this year, [00:04:57] just behind Apple and ahead of tech giants Alphabet and Microsoft. Last year, they brought in $376.6 billion in revenue. And according to NPR, UnitedHealth Group is so dominant, in fact, [00:05:13] that the US Justice Department filed a civil antitrust suit just last month to try to block its proposed $3.3 billion acquisition, a rival home, health care and hospice agencies. And last year, the DOJ launched a probe into whether United [00:05:30] was unfairly restricting competitors and running a monopoly. They faced widespread criticism, in addition to lawsuits for denying health care claims, and a recent Senate report slammed Medicare Advantage insurers, including United, for using predictive technology to deny claims. [00:05:49] In those four years, Unitedhealth's post-acute services denial rate increased from 8.7% to 22.7%, the report found. Meanwhile, UnitedHealth skilled nursing home denial rate increased nine fold. [00:06:04] Speculation about motive aside, Brian Thompson was a real person with a real family. There is no motive that would justify something like this. And tragically, he leaves behind his wife and two children. Jordan, I know it's hard to comment because this is still very much [00:06:20] a developing story. We don't know a whole lot, but what are your thoughts or questions or concerns that arise with this? Well, you talk about how there is speculation around this being motivated by claims being denied. [00:06:36] Let's think about that for a second. What that means, because people talk about this in aggregate or in abstract terms. Why would they do that? Why would a health insurance company deny a claim? Because they don't want to cover someone's care, because that's [00:06:52] more money out of their pocket. It affects their bottom line and ultimately their profitability. And in the context of this meeting, the returns to shareholders, we have a system. We've been trying to change it for years. People on the progressive left. Some Democrats support a system that would eliminate this industry altogether. [00:07:11] But the reality is, if you want to humanize this issue and this isn't just United, it's all health insurance companies. They have an incentive to deny coverage because it saves them money. And the reality is that's people who need life saving care. [00:07:27] In some cases, that's people who need essential treatment. That's someone who needs an essential life saving prescription. They either don't get it, or if they're lucky enough, they have to pay out of pocket. And that's not even luck. That's just misfortune. So you have a system that's supposed to take care of people. [00:07:46] It in many cases does not. United healthcare is one of the worst in terms of claims denials, especially on plans like Medicare Advantage that retirees and the elderly and the most vulnerable among us rely on for care. [00:08:03] They routinely deny claims. So when I heard that this was the motive, you know, you talk about okay, leaves behind wife and kids, that's tragic. Yeah. No one wants to see a loved one deceased at the same time. I had this response where you see this name and this title [00:08:20] and this affiliation and the headlines after it being like, did that happen? It's like, I'm not really surprised. At some point. It feels like an action like this was bound to happen because these companies have been so predatory, so callous, [00:08:37] and so cruel to millions of Americans. It's just you feel bad for the wife and the kids who had nothing to do with this. At the same time, I feel even worse for the many, many people that company has hung out to dry. [00:08:54] Yeah, absolutely. There's a lot of mixed feelings with things like this. Obviously, you never want anyone to be killed in this way, but at the same time, it does put a bit of a spotlight on the industry that he works for, just, you know, by nature of his job and who he was and the fact that the police do [00:09:11] suspect that this was a very targeted act. It you know, it. I don't again, we don't want to speculate. We don't want to assume too much. But that is the natural conclusion that a lot of people are going to come to. If you enjoyed this video, that's because of our members. They make us independent, they make us strong and they make us honest. [00:09:28] Become a member today by hitting the join button below.