UnitedHealthcare CEO shooting latest: Manhunt continues for Brian Thompson’s killer as police look at how suspect fled NYC

Andrew Witty, CEO of UnitedHealth Group, UnitedHealthcare’s parent company, released a video Thursday addressing employee safety concerns following the shooting of CEO Brian Thompson.

“I want to reiterate how tragic Brian’s passing is truly sad for his family, for his friends, for all of his work colleagues and, frankly, for the American healthcare industry where Brian was an innovator and someone who endlessly put patients’ interests first how you would try to improve health care for everyone,” Witty said in a video obtained by CNN.

He described the circumstances of Thompson’s death as “deeply shocking and disturbing”.

Witty told employees that the company has increased security measures at its facilities across the country, including security checks before people enter campuses.

The suspect in the CEO shooting was caught on video throwing something into a pile of trash minutes before Brian Thompson was killed.

Police say there may be DNA on whatever he threw away that could help them learn his identity.

The man is seen walking on West 55th Street toward the Hilton at 6:19 a.m. Wednesday, according to video obtained by Newsweek.

He walks past the first pile of blue plastic bags near the Stage Star Deli at 105 West 55th Street, then stops in front of a pile of white plastic bags. Footage in the deli shows a man leaning forward and placing a small item on one of the bags and continuing to walk.

Thompson was shot and killed outside the Hilton at 6:45 am

Police say they have “reason to believe” a person of interest in the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson has left New York City, according to Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch.

Tisch told CNN on Friday that police released photos of the suspect without a mask on Thursday because they wanted “the wider public to see the picture outside of New York.”

Police are urging anyone with information about the killer to come forward.

Some of the tips under investigation came via TikTok.

One posted a TikTok video and sent it to a tip saying, “I think that’s the guy,” according to police.

Another tipster, Phil Watson, sent police photos of a man he called a “dead ringer” for a suspect, with arrows pointing out facial similarities, he said The New York Times.

“I think they’re overwhelmed,” Watson wrote in an email to The Times.

Carlos Nieves, the department’s assistant commissioner for public information, says they’ve received hundreds of tips — but they want more.

Tips can be called into the tip line at 800-577-TIPS — or online.

Spokeswoman Danielle Brumfitt said the hostel where the suspect was staying before the shooting was cooperating with police and could not comment on the investigation.

Police released photos Thursday, taken at the HI New York City Hostel on Manhattan’s Upper West Side, of a person they said was wanted for questioning during the shooting.

Investigators believe the suspect used a fake New Jersey ID when he checked into the hostel, one official who spoke to the AP said.

Employees at the hostel said they remember a man who almost always wore a mask when interacting with them.

That person was wearing a jacket that resembled the one worn by the man shown in surveillance images released after the shooting, the official said.

Joe DeVito made the long drive from a gig in Nashville to New York on Thursday with news that a health insurance executive had been fatally shot.

He saw people use death as an opportunity to vent their anger at the health insurance industry and share their own stories of being denied coverage for care. Along the way, in Virginia, he stopped at a rest stop to record a song about it.

“I wanted to put in my two cents and try to convey that anger and why people are so angry,” he said.

The NYPD is reviewing hundreds of tips that have come in since Thompson was killed.

Carlos Nieves, the NYPD’s assistant commissioner for public information, said he would pursue them.

“You may think that information is trivial. I’m telling you, give us that information,” he said. “Tranical or not, maybe that’s the piece of information that ties it all together.”

Nieves revealed New York Post that a tipster claims he went to school with the suspect.

“The (CrimeStoppers) guys were basically saying, ‘We’re hanging up and there’s another call,'” Nieves added. “One was actually coming in while I was talking to them. It was actually a TikTok video and it says ‘I think it’s a guy.’ So we have to consider that.”

The suspect reportedly arrived in New York by bus on Nov. 24, law enforcement sources told ABC News.

A surveillance video at the Port Authority Bus Station captured his bus arriving at 9 p.m

The inbound bus came from Atlanta, but it’s unclear where the suspect got on. He was reportedly spotted on a bus in Washington, DC

But did the suspect leave by bus? Police are investigating. He still hasn’t been caught.

A law enforcement official said The New York Times that the man believed to be the killer was caught on surveillance video leaving Central Park without a backpack.

The suspect was seen carrying a gray backpack when he opened fire on CEO Brian Thompson on Wednesday morning. He was still carrying the bag when he fled on his bicycle and entered Central Park minutes after the shooting.

Police searched the park, but the backpack was not found.