Summary
Brian Thompson, CEO of UnitedHealthcare, was fatally shot in a premeditated attack outside the New York Hilton Midtown before speaking at an investor conference.
The gunman, still at large, fired multiple times, leaving shell casings marked with the words “deny,” “defend,” and “depose.”
Authorities suggest Thompson was targeted but remain unclear on the motive. His wife confirmed prior threats against him.
Analysts speculate a possible vendetta tied to his company. The case raises questions about executive security, as Thompson lacked personal protection despite known risks.
I finally understand what certain people mean when they talk about “good guys with guns”.
Authorities suggest Thompson was targeted but remain unclear on the motive.
Friggin Sherlock Holmes’ over here.
The case raises questions about executive security
“We won’t be pressured into changing the system we’ll just protect the rich exploiters better”
Its simple all you clueless colombos. Just start investigating all denied claims where the person died at a result. Shouldn’t take more than a decade or so to go though that list.
Despite a fairly obvious motive in general before this news broke, and now confirmation it was because of their policies, they are doing zero soul searching or reexamination of why their policies became a motive
Thompson’s killing quickly sent shockwaves through the corporate world, with corporate security heads gathering in a conference call to Wednesday.
“Many of my colleagues today are sitting down with their executive protection team leaders, their security leadership teams, and re-evaluating what they are doing and not doing,” Dave Komendat, president of Seattle-based Komendat Risk Management Services
Who had neo-Pinkertons on their 2020s bingo?
authorities remain unclear about the motive
the authorities are fucking idiots
Damn, he was really about sending a message 😬
nice.
a n a l y s t s
Authorities suggest Thompson was targeted but remain unclear on the motive.
Ummmm, real solid police work here. Although motive might be hard to narrow down, its not like this was a popular CEO.
Make money ruining the well being of families, eventually retribution will be had.
Given the situation millions of Americans find themselves in, certainly someone was going to take lethal action. Say you have terminal cancer and our insurance made your life worse and shorter. What do you have to lose when your life is gone? From the other perspective, would you seriously betray a person that results in them getting a terminal illness? What do you think you would be risking? Imagine doing it to tens of thousands on a yearly basis. All it would take is to betray the wrong person.
The pen is mightier than the sword.
Nice.
“The motive remains unclear” is one of those things that, as a journalist, you know you have to write because it is absolutely the truth, but you hate yourself for every letter of every word because you know how fucking stupid it sounds given the circumstances.
“I mean, there are millions of people with motive. Which one in particular we will hopefully never know”
Deny that you know or even saw them. Defend them if they do get caught, through protest, fundraising, bail, etc. Depose those who put them in jail if they are sentenced.
I feel like this is going to end like Murder on the Orient Express, where…
Tap for spoiler
… it turns out that literally everyone took turns shooting him.
Unless it turns out he was murdered by, for example, an irate shareholder who didn’t make the money he wanted to make.
There is more than one reason he could have been murdered.
If that were the case writing the words “deny,” “defend,” and “depose” on the bullet casings was a pretty stupid move, given that it calls attention to the atrocities said shareholder profits from. It seems most likely that the motive is exactly what the bullet casings suggest.
Which is exactly why someone would do it to make the police think it wasn’t for another reason.
Really, I have no idea why all of you assume a criminal will say, “yep! It’s me!”
For some very weird reason it never crossed my mind, and I really do not know why, that I could invest in a huge healthcare corporation whose target it is to provide as little healthcare as possible. But your comment made me think about that that is possible to do.
Murder bingo, murder scavenger hunt, time traveler trying to stop the future apocalypse no lack of options…
Are you really suggesting that only possible realistic motive to murder him is because of his position at UHC?
I can think of so many plausible scenarios. I just gave you one, here’s another: he was cheating on his wife, so she paid to have him killed, something that actually happens in the real world and doesn’t involved time travelers.
I’m sure you would like this to be a just world where bad people get killed for good reasons, but that’s not how the world works. Hitler’s generals tried to assassinate him and it wasn’t because they thought he was being too mean to the Jews.
Are you really suggesting
nope, just toying around with the concept, figured it would be about 3/5 on the joke scale.
edit: Though if you really wanted to get into it, the words scribed on the casings might direct you to a likely solution. *
Or the words on the casings are intended to direct you to the wrong solution. Because, again in the real world, people who commit premeditated crimes throw police off the scent intentionally.
Ehh, I think Occam would have the better of that here.
In any case. (no pun intended) Maybe they’ll spend a few minutes reflecting on the own mortality while they’re ripping us off thinking there’s no recourse.
Ehh, I think Occam would have the better of that here.
Would you say the same about this?
People commit crimes and then pin the blame on someone else literally every day. It’s like the easiest way to try to get away with a crime.
Ah yes. “The murderer must be playing 5d chess to fool people” angle. It’s an angle, but not a reasonable one. How much Scooby Doo have you watched?
It takes “5D chess” to write vague words on bullet casings?
Possible vs Probable.
Lots of things are possible, sure, but his position and impact on people due to his position does make one very probable.
I am guessing you do not know enough about him personally to know what is the most probable. Maybe he very openly cheats on his wife. That would make his wife hiring a hit man very probable. Maybe he’s swindled someone out of a ton of money on a personal level rather than via UHC. Again, that would make a good motive to kill him.
We do not have enough information here and pretending we do is not very wise.
He MAYBE fucked around on his one wife causing embarrassment.
He CERTAINLY fucked around with THOUSANDS of people causing DEATH.
It’s worthwhile to consider alternatives but it’s unwise to paint all scenarios as equally likely.
It’s also unwise to come to a conclusion when the person who did it hasn’t even been identified.
True, it’s possible he has numerous enemies.
But what I can say is the average person doesn’t have people wanting to kill them. If all things are equal, and given the message written on the casings, there seems to be one that is currently the most probable.
Obviously there are many plausible scenarios, but one of them scales significantly differently than the others.
If there are many plausible scenarios, even if one is the most plausible, it’s silly to assume that’s the one.
It’s only silly if one misunderstands an assumption to be established fact.
If I hear hoofbeats, I will assume horses, not zebras.
If I see Zebras, I’ll say my assumption was wrong. No shame in it. I’m wrong all the fucking time, being right isn’t part of my identity.
But until then, if someone says “what do figure those hoofbeats are?” I’m not going to say “50/50 horses or zebras”
Assumptions are claimed to be established facts. That’s what an assumption is. You’re making a claim of fact without having the evidence.
Absolutely, hence why they do have to say that the motive is unclear. While we all have strong theories about why this happened, there are plenty of other possibilities that have to be considered. Could have been taken out by his family for insurance money, could have been a business rival, the guy might have gotten in shit with the mob. At this point they just don’t know.
The impression I got from when I lived in the US is that at his level, US oligarchs generally don’t like getting their hands dirty and there are strong communal disincentives to disrespecting “honour among thieves” laws. All the oligarchs groups will gang up on you if you use direct violence against another oligarch.
From what I’ve read, the “mob” in the US largely has no power, definitely nothing on the level of Brian Thompson. Even transnational groups (Mexican cartels, EU gangs, central American gangs) keep a low profile in the US and make a concentrated effort to avoid publicity.
I will admit, family issues is a possibility. Difficult to say. The business rivalry or mob connection doesn’t seem even in the realm of possibility, but I could be wrong.
Exactly. We just don’t have enough information yet and it is just silly to assume this is some sort of just world where people behind atrocities that are subsequently murdered are murdered because of those atrocities.
He wrote Deny, defend, depose on the bullets. That’s him speaking the language that the insurance industry uses. I would say that broadly, we know his motive. Who the company denied a claim for is the only real question here.
As I said to someone else, do you really believe this was done by pro-Palestine activists?
It is silly to make assumptions based on three words. It’s especially silly to assume someone isn’t smart enough to make police think they’re not the guilty party.
No I don’t think it has anything to do with Palestine, and everything to do with this book
He switched delay to depose to send a clear message to the insurance industry. That message being, “there’s a fourth step that you fuckers have forgotten in your three step strategy.”
Maybe you should have at least read the name of the URL. I didn’t say that this has anything to do with Palestine.
Please, if you’re not going to read the article, at least read the name of the URL and then respond to me accordingly.
“It is still unclear which of the potential motives caused the man to pull the trigger”
“deny,” “defend,” and “depose.”
He literally left the manifesto there and they can’t figure it out.
He left “A” manifesto. I have never dealt with his company,but if I was hired to kill him I would most definately make look like a disgruntled parent if a dead kid or some such.
Hopefully he(another common assumption) never gets caught and we never know.
Nah, that’s a cop out. They could absolutely find somebody speculating on the motive to quote if they wanted to.
Yeah, just put a random tweet in like they usually do
“The motive remains unclear”
Was it him that got denied, or was it a recently deceased family member?
There’s several options.
That seems like terrible wording. Why not just say the motive is unconfirmed with the suspect if that’s what’s needed to state it as fact?
As of about a month ago there had been ~320 murders in NYC this year.
Yet this single one has captured the media’s attention nationwide and cops seem to be heavily focused on this one.
Because modern society at pretty much every institutional level sees the wealthy and powerful as not just more important than us, but they dont even see us. Hell, compare this to school shootings that only make local news now.
Historically, societies like this end in an incredibly brutal fashion. And until the wealthy and powerful really can build terminator style robot armies…
The masses are always going to win.
It’s kind of the natural consequences of hyper concentration of a finite and essential resource. People rarely sit around and starve voluntarily, and once the majority are starving, people start acting like a mob.
We see it day to day over minor stuff where people just refuse to follow societial norms. Everyday we’re shown that rules don’t really matter, and none of the people who matter are held accountable. If someone isn’t physically stopped from doing something, they take that as permission. Hell, that was the defense of most 1/6ers.
The social contract was invalidated a long time ago, people are just now realizing it. And that’s the only thing that really seperates us from animals.
Crashing out is gonna be the norm pretty fucking soon, I don’t think we have 4 years or that trump will be able to hold society together.
There’s a very high chance we’re gonna live in some interesting times.
There’s a very high chance we’re gonna live in some interesting times.
That was a well written post, but DAMN am I sick of living in interesting times!
I want boring times please for awhile. BORING times.
I hope this is a start and that it will continue. They have left no other alternative
I think the biggest thing to emphasize - and you mentioned it but I think it bears repeating over and over - is that when the system fails to enforce justice, people will seek justice themselves. This is the social contract you mentioned. I think we should expect more of this until the system is reformed and people like this do face justice within it.
“When peaceful disobedience doesn’t work the people don’t stop being disobedient, they stop being peaceful.”
Not really.
Look up the origin of the FBI. Hoover was a low level clerk when he was handed the reins. He didn’t have much of a budget but he did have the willingness to sit and do a lot of research.
When the time came to go after Emma Goldman the government had reams and reams of paper ‘proving’ how dangerous she was.
From now on, the CEOs will travel with security squads, and President Trump will authorize them to shoot to kill anyone who comes in fifty feet of the VIP.
This is more likely to be a one-off, like Gamestop.
It will take just a bit more pressure for people to also walk in squads. There’s plenty of guns to go around.
Let me guess. You’ve never actually been in a gunfight, or been in the ER after a gun fight.
Correct. That doesn’t stop me from being able to use my imagination to see what the material conditions some people face could make them do. I do it by putting myself in these shoes. Consider people who’ve lost loved ones because of one of these fellas. Some might feel they’ve nothing left to lose, entertain suicide, decide to take a bastard or two instead. As conditions get worse, the number of such people will grow. I don’t think people who care about ending up in the ER would be part of this.
I wish I could live in a world where there’s no such thing as ricochets and friendly fire deaths.
Try expanding your imagination to include things like that. Life isn’t a movie or a video game where every bullet only hits the intended victim.
Also, WW1 started because one brave shooter decided to stand up and be counted.
Unintended consequences are a bitch.
All of this makes sense but none of it will change the mind of the person who shot the guy recently or the next one, or the number of such people the system creates. I’m merely pointing out that the system creates these people and they will kill others. The person who killed the CEO recently was already beyond the reasoning you’re suggesting. There’s no point considering these rational reasons when we have proof some folks don’t stop because of them. Instead I think it’s useful to look at what conditions got a person to disregard them. If we want to make a prediction we could observe how those conditions are likely to develop. I think that part is obvious. So I conclude the system will create more such people. If they get numerous enough, I speculate they might start organizing into groups too.
It will take just a bit more pressure for people to also walk in squads. There’s plenty of guns to go around.
Read some history. The Minute Men thought they could stop the British. It didn’t work. The Redcoats were stopped by a British style army and the entire French navy.
Also, you can’t talk about squads and lone gunmen at the same time
`
A bit of a tangent, but Gavrilo Princip wasn’t really the cause of WW1 (and WW2 which was on some level is an extension of WW1).
His actions were the spark and he has gone down in history for his assassination, but in an abstract, analytical sense his actions had nothing at all to do with the beginning of WW1.
I don’t agree.
Individuals and their actions matter.
Look at what this thread is about. We wouldn’t be talking if the shooter hadn’t acted.
The state of healthcare in the US is exactly the same as it was yesterday. But the discussion has changed dramatically
The tensions between the USSR and the West were as bad as the ones pre-WW1. Individual actions kept things from going into all out war.
How is their medical experience relevant?
Will you ever see Tesla Optimus aka Tesla Bot the same way again?
That’s obviously the end goal Musk is going for.
But I’m by no means the first person who realized the only thing the masses have going for us is sheer overwhelming numbers, and the day the wealthy have robot soldiers we’re fucked because by then they won’t need our labor either.
We go from being individually expendable to the entirety of us being expendable.
It’s gonna happen eventually, so we can’t just keep alternating between neoliberals and fascists, regardless of which one is in charge when it happens, we’re all still fucked when the wealthy and powerful don’t need us.
Poor people just need to cobble together EMP weapons if there are robot oppressors. Robots couldn’t be wirelessly controlled or have any wireless antennas without being EMP vulnerable.
If that becomes a problem, they’ll just control them with AI. Who cares if it’s a little inaccurate if it’s only killing poors?
It would still be hard to build an EMP proof chassis that completely surrounded it though. A Faraday cage needs a connection to ground wiring to work properly for example.
So we’ll be able to defeat them like the original Daleks. Separate them from the ground, and fry them
Dude. This event is like a page out of Batman. If you don’t think this is news, I can’t imagine what you think is.
That said, very few of those murders were
notpoint blank assassinations in public during the day. That’s sort of a bigger deal.Edit: Me not inglesh gud.
deleted by creator
Oops. I’m an idiot and I need more sleep.
People are interested in it (see Lemmy as an example), and news outlets publish stuff that gets clicks. What’s so hard to believe about that?
The media is treating it like a national tragedy, Walz was giving his condolences for some reason, and so are lots of other politicians.
It’s like when those billionaires all died in that submarine and the powerful people that run the media and politics treated it as some huge event and spent crazy money investigating.
They acted like it’s was 9/11, because to them $'s are what matters, so when one person with the same amount of $ as 100,000 people, they act like 100,000 average people die.
Do you not see that? The difference between how a wealthy person and a poor person are treated?
America used to have wealth worship, people still to some extent go to the Biltmore mansion to marvel at how nice robber barons lived centuries ago, or binge watch Downtown Abbey. But nowadays the vast amount of people upon hearing something bad happened to a billionaire, will at best say they dont give a fuck.
The contrast between what people are saying, and what they’re told by their leaders and the media isn’t jivving. And it’s obvious.
Look at history…
When societies are at the stage we are now, very very few bare any resemblance to that in just a decade or two. For better or worse, shit is likely to substantially change soon.
Edit:
To put it as simple as possible, the masses are told implicitly every day they don’t matter and only the wealthy do. Eventually people will start acting like their lives really don’t matter.
Which is bad for everyone, and has been happening for a while now. We’re just approaching the tipping point where “crashing out” is the majority opinion
This post really rings true. This is the small rumbling before the big quake.
The reason everyone is offering condolences and claiming this is bad is because the government is supposed to have a monopoly on violence, and that offers protection to the elite in society. Even on radical left lemmy, you can be banned for implying this is a good thing.
This person was at the top of a pyramid that lied to and deceived millions of people and made life absolute hell for people undergoing medical problems. He was responsible for that misery. He created hell on earth for those people. He was not that different than a mass-murderer, knowing full well what his policies would do, only his actions were legal.
His company delayed, denied, and defended, and the assailant had an answer to deny and an answer to defend but there was no delay, just a quick deposing of this guy. It was obviously symbolic.
It’s funny because the founding fathers of the US had enough of the bullshit from England and so they decided to rebel and used violence to create a New Republic… but their violence made them patriots and heroes. It’s just interesting… I haven’t seen 1 person call the assailant a hero yet. It’s not like the Founding Fathers of the US used rhetoric and voting to persuade England to stop its brutality.
I bet a lot of people are secretly thinking that assailant is a hero. (In accordance with lemmy’s policies, I am not saying he is a hero and instead am saying the assailant is very bad and violence is always bad.)
But we’re in such gilded-age end-times right now that the corporate media always parrot the idea that violence is always bad… (with the implied part being the government, backing the elite oligarchy, is the exception) and the populace has internalized that thinking out of fear.
We have democracy in this country and should vote in leaders that actually make legislation that is sensible, but it’s impossible because the bottom 40 percent of society are brain-washed by religious delusions that the elite thrust upon them in order to make them easier to control. The problems in society are caused by religion and it’s just impossible to make the stupidest bottom 40 percent of people stop believing in bullshit.
The elite have given people a choice: gun rights and policies for the rich… or no guns and policies for the poor. There is no middle class pro-gun party and it’s by design. We need to have liberals start embracing the NRA because any gun regulation seems toxic to middle America, and for good reason. To anyone who say the Democrats are not an anti-gun party, you’re lying and everyone can see through it. Any gun regulation is a slow decent to zero guns for regular people, and working class middle America knows it, which is part of why we keep ending up with these horrible leaders allowing health care in the US to descend into an abyss.
Any gun regulation is a slow decent to zero guns for regular people
It’s not. There is not chance of that happening in your lifetime.
The elite have given people a choice: gun rights and policies for the rich… or no guns and policies for the poor.
No they haven’t. There use to be lots of violent left-wing groups. Black Panthers, SLA, Japanese Red Army etc
We need to have liberals start embracing the NRA because any gun regulation seems toxic to middle America, and for good reason
Wrong. . The NRA is NOT protecting American’s right to buy a gun. The 2nd amendment does that. It would take 3/4 of the states to do end that right, and about 80% if the country would have to agree. There is no chance it would happen.
What the NRA IS doing is opposing sensible gun restrictions what would reduce mass murders
I haven’t seen 1 person call the assailant a hero
I’ve seen it in a few threads, and they’re right.
The media is treating it like a national tragedy
That’s my point. The media runs on clicks, and people are clicking.
Do you not see that? The difference between how a wealthy person and a poor person are treated?
How could I not see that? In your top comment you blame the media for this. We’re saying the same thing, but I’m just pointing out why the media acting like it is.
We’re on the same page, but sometimes it’s easier to be defensive and downvote. I hope you’ll see what I’m saying.
That’s my point. The media runs on clicks, and people are clicking
People aren’t reading the articles…
And media isnt run for profit anymore, billionaires all bought them up to control the narrative, I thought everyone was on the same page about this by now, it’s not 2015 anymore. It’s almost been a decade.
but I’m just pointing out why the media acting like it is.
No, you’re incorrectly assuming why they’re doing this but are 3-4 decades behind current motivations.
We’re on the same page
We’re not, but I’m trying to get us there.
Do I need to explain why this guy:
https://corporate.comcast.com/news-information/leadership-overview/cesar-conde-2
Wants people to think killing a corrupt CEO matters more than millions dying for corporate profits?
Oh ok
The media is treating it like a national tragedy,
LOL! This doesn’t surprise me. The media is totally clueless
Walz was giving his condolences
Ouch. Walz pushing crocodile tears for a guy like that, when Walz’s day gig is arguably representing the will and good of all Americans. Or I thought that was the league he was trying to play in. Thats a real drag, I thought maybe he had some character and some sort of inherent dignity, but maybe I was just seeing what I wanted to see.
Thats Disappointing, Walz, but I’m sure you’ll get some future campaign bribes out of it, which is what this is all about.
It is normal for politicians to offer condolences to a deceased person who was rich out of respect and not to tarnish his image.
Now, with regard to the death of the CEO of that company, it does not affect much because those who made that decision were more people. It is like when a high-ranking government official dies, it does not change much.
It is normal
I agree.
I’m saying it’s a problem.
But this isnt some random rich guy, it’s the head of the 9th largest corporation in the world that is predictably dirty. Do you understand how insane that is?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/UnitedHealth_Group#Criticism_and_controversies
This guy
iswas the problem.Edit:
Also top 60 in lobbying…
https://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/unitedhealth-group/summary?id=D000000348
Bought off both sides and people still wondering why they’re winning.
