A Real Life Hitman Murdered The UnitedHealthcare CEO In The Middle of a Manhattan Sidewalk This Morning

CNN - UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson was shot and killed in Midtown Manhattan Wednesday morning in a “brazen, targeted attack” as he walked toward the company’s annual investor conference, New York police said. The gunman remains on the loose.

Shortly before 7 a.m., a gunman, masked in the freezing temperatures, “was lying in wait” before opening fire on Thompson, according to NYPD commissioner Jessica Tisch.

“Many people passed the suspect, but he appeared to wait for his intended target,” she said. “I want to be clear: At this time, every indication is that this was a premeditated, preplanned, targeted attack.”

The gunman approached Thompson from behind and shot him at least once in the back and once in the right calf, Tisch said. Responding emergency workers took Thompson to Mount Sinai West in critical condition, where he was pronounced dead at 7:12 a.m.

The suspect fled — first on foot, then on an e-bike — and was last seen in Central Park early this morning, police said. Investigators are continuing to canvas the area.

Thompson, who was visiting from Minnesota, was shot with a weapon that appeared to be outfitted with a silencer, according to a law enforcement official. The motive for the shooting remains unclear, but Thompson’s wife Paulette told NBC News “there had been some threats” against her husband.

I'm not going to post the video and to be honest I'm not even sure if I should have posted that screenshot above because that's someone's husband/father/brother but it is all over the news and internet so I think it's ok. And it shows the context- a freakin' hit man hunted down UnitedHealthcare's CEO this morning in the middle of an NYC sidewalk with a pistol with a silencer. NUTS! It's not 100% confirmed it was a hit man, but all signs point to it. At the very least it wasn't random, obviously. Someone wanted him dead and someone who knew exactly where to be murdered him from behind. It doesn't get more hit-man'y than that. 

People are now speculating why, and obviously the first thing that comes to mind is money. This dude had a lot of money. For those wondering, UnitedHealthcare is the biggest healthcare company by revenue, and has 474.3 billion dollar market share. 

It's easy to assume these big time CEOs know A LOT. And clearly someone was out to get him. Maybe we will find out why, maybe we won't. It's all pretty crazy. Usually when there's a suspicious death it's because someone "fell out a window" or "hung themself in jail". I'm not sure we've ever seen a murder like this. And then even crazier, there was no get-away car. Guy walked down an alley and then hopped on a Citi Bike. Something is wildly fishy about that. 

RIP to Brian Thompson. And the hit man is somehow still on the loose as of publishing this. A wild story that I expect will only get wilder as the days go on and details emerge.