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IT WAS stillNBCJPCNNCIACEOUS Your browser does not support the element. dark at 6.40am on December 4th when Brian Thompson walked alone from his hotel to the Hilton in Manhattan’s midtown. A resident of Minnesota and the chief executive of UnitedHealthcare, one of America’s biggest health insurers, Mr Thompson was in town for his company’s annual Investors Day. Just as he arrived at the Hilton, a masked gunman approached from behind and shot him several times. He was pronounced dead at a nearby hospital. Jessica Tisch, the city’s police commissioner, called the killing “a brazen, targeted attack” that “does not appear to be a random act of violence.”The murderer escaped and, as went to press, police had yet to make an arrest or announce a possible motive. The attack stunned investors gathered in a conference hall at the Hilton to hear about UnitedHealthcare’s strategy and performance. It shocked and baffled New Yorkers, too. New York has the lowest murder rate of any big American city. The murder took place in a part of midtown full of workers and tourists, in an area that is surveilled by cameras and drones and well-served by beat-walking police.The shooter displayed skills. He “was lying in wait”, according to police, near a side-entrance to the hotel. In surveillance footage the assailant is seen holding a gun with both hands, striking a professional stance, according to one security expert. The gun seemed to jam as he fired on Mr Thompson, but the shooter cleared the chamber and continued to fire. He fled through an alley, hopped on an electric bicycle, rode the short distance to Central Park, and disappeared.Jillian Snider of John Jay College of Criminal Justice, a retired police officer, reckons the killer may have had advanced firearms training. “It’s not the easiest thing to unjam a gun…and then let off rounds in succession,” Ms Snider says.Mr Thompson had been the target of “some threats,” his wife, Paulette, told News. The reason was “basically, I don’t know, a lack of coverage?” she said. About 26m Americans lack health insurance, and many who have coverage struggle nonetheless with the costs of care; medical debt is a leading cause of personal bankruptcy in America. Relatedly, health-care workers and executives receive more threats than employees in almost every other industry, according to one security expert. Whether the holes in the country’s health-care safety net had anything to do with the attack on Mr Thompson is mere speculation, however. Whatever the shooter’s motive, says Rafael Mangual of the Manhattan Institute, a New York think-tank, the killing is a reminder “there is little anyone can do to stop a determined offender from carrying out violence...even in New York City.”A graduate of the University of Iowa, Mr Thompson was a 20-year employee of UnitedHealthcare, the insurance arm of UnitedHealth, a publicly traded firm with a market cap of $560bn. As he rose through the ranks, Mr Thompson ran the firm’s government and Medicare programmes before his appointment as chief executive in 2021. “Brian was a highly respected colleague and friend to all who worked with him,” UnitedHealth Group said in a statement. A senior executive at the company described him as “an incredible leader”.Assassins targeting big companies are a rarity in the Big Apple. Suspected anarchists bombed Morgan’s Wall Street headquarters in 1920. One George Metesky, who evidently became aggrieved after he was injured on the job while working for Con Edison, a utility, planted at least 33 pipe bombs around the city between 1940 and 1956. evacuated its Manhattan offices in 2018 after the discovery of a mail bomb addressed to former director John Brennan, an on-air commentator.The security practices of America’s chief executives vary widely. Some travel with bodyguards, others tote their own luggage and move about unprotected, as Mr Thompson did on the morning of the 4th. One security expert said he was asked earlier this week via text, “Why do s need bodyguards?” Today, he received a text from that person saying, “Okay, scratch that.”
