An urgent manhunt continued Thursday in New York City as police scoured a vast network of private and public surveillance cameras and pursued leads in search of the person who fatally shot UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson the previous morning.
Investigators deployed drones and dogs and searched data related to public-use electric bicycles from company Citi Bike, while the suspect remained at large after what police chiefs said was a targeted killing.
On Thursday morning, ABC News reported that police were closing in on a suspect, citing police sources.
Related: Who was Brian Thompson, the murdered CEO of UnitedHealthcare?
Among the clues were a cellphone, images of the suspect in the Upper West Side neighborhood and bullet casings found at the scene with the words “deny,” “defend” and “depose,” according to unnamed sources who also spoke to ABC News.
Police searched a hostel in the neighborhood where the suspect was believed to have been staying, CNN reported, also reporting that police found a fingerprint while examining objects linked to the man, including a cell phone and a water bottle, and that evidence was examined in hopes that it might reveal an identity.
“This does not appear to be a random act of violence,” New York City Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch told reporters. “All indications are that this was a premeditated, pre-planned, targeted attack.”
Thompson was killed around 6:40 a.m. ET Wednesday by a man dressed in black, carrying a gray backpack and with his face covered up to his nose. The police use the word ‘he’ when referring to the suspect.
The man in question had pointed a silenced pistol at Thompson’s back and shot the executive at least once in the back and calf just as he was about to enter a Hilton hotel in downtown Manhattan for an annual investor conference.
When Thompson collapsed on the sidewalk, the gun jammed. The man – said by police to be “adept” in firearms – quickly broke free and resumed shooting.
The suspect then fled on an e-bike to nearby Central Park. As of Thursday, no further arrests have been made in the case and police offered a $10,000 reward for information.
Since Wednesday, police also discovered images of the man near the Frederick Douglass public housing project on Manhattan’s Upper West Side around 5 a.m. ET, ABC News reported.
The suspect’s motives are still unknown. Thompson’s widow said her husband had received threats. However, such incidents are not uncommon in controversial sectors.
“There had been some threats,” Paulette Thompson told NBC News. “Basically, I don’t know, a lack of coverage? I don’t know any details. All I know is that he said there were people threatening him.”
UnitedHealthcare is a branch of UnitedHealth Group, one of the largest companies in the United States. The branch insures tens of millions of people with private health coverage.
The need for private sector health insurance is a fact of life in the US, but often a thorn in the side of Americans, and insurers are often accused of wrongly denying coverage. The company was also the subject of an insider investigation into unfair business practices, Fox Business News reported.
Thompson’s murder quickly sent shockwaves through the business world, with corporate security chiefs meeting in a conference call on Wednesday.
“Many of my colleagues today are sitting with their executive security team leaders and their security leadership teams and reevaluating what they are doing and not doing,” Dave Komendat, president of Seattle-based Komendat Risk Management Services, told the New York newspaper. Times.
Another security executive, CEO Michael Julian of MPS Security & Protection, told Axios: “I’m just shocked that the guy didn’t have any protective details.”
Thompson is survived by his wife, Paulette, and two sons.
The Associated Press contributed to this reporting
