UnitedHealthcare CEO shooting latest: NYPD releases new photos of masked gunman

Joe DeVito was on a long drive from a gig in Nashville to New York on Thursday with the news of a health insurance CEO being gunned down heavy on his mind. He saw that people were using the death as an opportunity to express anger at the health insurance industry and share their own stories of being denied coverage for care. Along the way, in Virginia, he pulled over at a rest stop to record a song about it.

“I wanted to throw my two cents in and try and try and convey that rage, and why people are so mad,” he tells The Independent.

“As a songwriter, my job is to capture these emotions and sort of wrap them in melodies and rhymes in a way that makes them more digestible and helps people understand them,” he adds.

Brian Thompson’s loved ones and community leaders have expressed their grief at his passing.

“Brian was an incredibly loving, generous, talented man who truly lived life to the fullest and touched so many lives,” Thompson’s family said in a statement to Minnesota news outlet KARE. “We appreciate your condolences and request complete privacy as our family moves through this difficult time,” the statement continued.

Thompson is a father of two. Before taking the CEO job in 2021, he worked as the company’s head of government programs. As CEO, Thompson worked out of UnitedHealthcare’s offices in Minnetonka, Minnesota.

Minnesota Governor Tim Walz called news of Thompson’s murder “horrifying.”

“This is horrifying news and a terrible loss for the business and health care community in Minnesota,” he wrote on X. “Minnesota is sending our prayers to Brian’s family and the UnitedHealthcare team.”

Brian Thompson is a father of two who served as CEO of UnitedHealthcare before he was fatally shot in Manhattan on Wednesday.

Before taking the CEO job in 2021, he worked as the company’s head of government programs. As CEO, Thompson worked out of UnitedHealthcare’s offices in Minnetonka, Minnesota.

Thompson was also named in a lawsuit filed by a Florida pension fund earlier this year accusing UnitedHealth of hiding an antitrust investigation by the Justice Department from shareholders while insiders sold stock, according to the Journal. Thompson had not answered the claims in court before Wednesday’s shooting.

Under his leadership, UnitedHealthcare provided coverage to more than 49 million people, making it the largest insurance company in the US. The network includes 1.3 million physicians and care professionals across nearly 7,000 facilities.

Under Thompson, the company made $74 billion in revenue in the most recent quarter, earning the title of the largest subsidiary of UnitedHealth Group. Thompson made $10.2 million annually and was one of the company’s highest-paid employees.

He had worked at the Minnetonka, Minnesota-based company for two decades and led its insurance division since 2021. He was one of the company’s highest-paid executives, with a $10.2 million annual compensation package.

His wife said he had recently received threats from angry customers over complaints she believed may have had to do with “a lack of coverage”.

“I don’t know details,” Paulette Thompson told NBC News. “I just know that he said there were some people that had been threatening him.”

Despite the alleged threats, Thompson did not have security with him on the morning of the shooting. Eric Werner, chief of police for Maple Grove, Minnesota, where Thomspon lived, said his department had not received any reports of threats against the executive.

Andrew Witty, CEO of UnitedHealthcare’s parent company UnitedHealth Group, addressed employee concerns about safety, according to a meeting recording shared by CNN.

“I know people are nervous around security and safety, and you will be seeing during the rest of the day, over the weekend and next week, a continued hardening of our security defenses on site across the country,” Witty said.

The two homes, which are less than a mile apart in Maple Grove, Minnesota, were targeted on Wednesday evening, The Minnesota Star Tribune reports. The threat was sent via e-mail to multiple people who then notified the police.

However, the threats were not credible and were considered an act of “swatting,” Maple Grove police said.

Clear surveillance images released by the New York Police Department on Thursday showed the “person of interest wanted for questioning” unmasked in Wednesday’s killing of the UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson as the manhunt enters its third day.

The images reportedly capture the moment the suspect was “flirting” with a female worker of the hostel in the city’s Upper West Side where he was staying, law enforcement officials told ABC News.