NEW YORK — The gunman who killed the CEO of America’s largest health insurance company likely left New York aboard a bus shortly after the brazen ambush that shook U.S. businesses, officials said of the police. But he left something behind: a backpack discovered in Central Park.
Nearly four days after the shooting of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, police still do not know the shooter’s name, location or motive for the killing. Investigators were looking into whether the shooter may have been a disgruntled employee or customer of the insurer, Chief of Detectives Joseph Kenny told reporters.
The FBI announced Friday evening that it would offer a $50,000 reward for information leading to an arrest and conviction.
Video of the shooter fleeing Wednesday’s shooting showed him riding his bicycle in Central Park, then taking a taxi to a bus terminal with commuter service to New Jersey and Greyhound routes to Philadelphia, Boston and Washington, D.C., according to Kenny.
Police have video of the man entering the bus station but no video of him leaving, leading them to believe he left town, Kenny said.
Investigators found a backpack in the park Friday that had been worn by the gunman during the shooting, police said, after a massive search aimed at finding it in a wide area that included lakes and ponds, meadows and , playgrounds and woods.
Police did not immediately reveal what, if anything, it contained, but said it would be analyzed for clues.
The shooter made sure to conceal his identity with a mask for almost his entire stay in the city, including during the attack and while he ate, while leaving a trail of evidence in plain view of the country’s largest city and of its security camera network.
The gunman arrived in New York on November 24 and fatally shot Thompson 10 days later outside his company’s annual investor conference, at a hotel a few blocks from Radio City Music Hall and Rockefeller Center.
The shooter got off a bus from Atlanta and made several stops along the way, Kenny said. Police have not determined where he got on the bus. Investigators have a list of passengers, but none of them allegedly had to provide identification when they boarded, Kenny said.
Investigators believe the suspect used a fake ID and paid in cash, Kenny said while checking in at the hostel, which has a cafe as well as shared and private rooms and is a few blocks away of houses at Columbia University.
Investigators tested a discarded water bottle and protein bar wrapper for his DNA. They were also trying to obtain additional information from a cell phone found along the shooter’s escape path.
Photos of the alleged shooter, taken in the lobby of a hostel on Manhattan’s Upper West Side, appear to be from the single moment he removed his mask, Kenny said. The footage shows a smiling man in the lobby of the HI New York City hostel. They are part of a collection of photos and videos released since the shooting, including footage of the attack, as well as advance footage of the alleged shooter at a Starbucks.
“From all indications that we have from witnesses, from the Starbucks, from the Inn, he kept his mask on at all times, except in the one instance where we photographed him without his mask on,” Kenny said.
His roommates at the hostel also said he did not speak to them. The search carried out in the hotel room of the alleged shooter revealed nothing of investigative value.
When asked how close he thought the police were to making an arrest, Kenny replied, “It’s not ‘Blue Bloods.’ We’re not going to solve this in 60 minutes. We are carefully reviewing all the evidence we can come across. Ultimately, when an arrest occurs, we will have to present all of these facts to a judge and jury. So we’re taking our time, doing things right and making sure we get justice for this victim and closure. his family. »
Security video of the shooting shows the killer approaching Thompson from behind, firing several shots from a weapon equipped with a silencer, barely stopping to clear a traffic jam as the frame fell to the sidewalk.
Police were looking into the possibility that the weapon was a veterinary gun, which is a weapon commonly used on farms and ranches if an animal needs to be silently euthanized, Kenny said – although he stressed that this was not the case. not been confirmed.
The words “delay,” “deny” and “drop” were scrawled on the ammunition, one word on each of the three bullets, Kenny said. A law enforcement official previously told The Associated Press that the words were “deny,” “defend” and “file.” The messages reflect the phrase “delay, deny, defend,” commonly used by lawyers and critics of insurers who delay payments, deny claims and defend their actions.
Thompson, a father of two sons who lived in a Minneapolis suburb, had worked at Minnesota-based UnitedHealthcare since 2004 and was its CEO for more than three years.
The insurer’s parent company, UnitedHealth Group Inc., was holding its annual meeting in New York for investors. The company abruptly ended the conference after Thompson’s death.
UnitedHealth Group said it was focused on supporting Thompson’s family, ensuring the safety of employees and assisting investigators. “While our hearts are broken, we have been touched by this immense outpouring,” the company said.
UnitedHealthcare provides coverage to more than 49 million Americans. It manages health insurance coverage for employers and state and federally funded Medicaid programs.
In October, UnitedHealthcare was named alongside Humana and CVS in a Senate report detailing how its rate of denial of prior authorizations for some Medicare Advantage patients has increased in recent years.
The shooting particularly shook the health insurance industry, forcing companies to reevaluate their security plans and remove photos of their executives from their websites. Another Minnesota-based health care company announced Friday that it was temporarily closing its offices out of an abundance of caution, asking its employees to work from home.
Balsamo reported from Washington. Jake Offenhartz, Cedar Attanasio and Karen Matthews in New York, John Seewer in Toledo, Ohio, and Jeff Martin in Atlanta contributed to this story.
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