When a bystander witnessed the early morning killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson at New York’s famed Hilton Hotel, he feared for his own life as well, afraid that the gunman would shoot him while fleeing the scene. He’d been sitting in his car and witnessed “the whole thing.”
“I heard the shot, and I looked around and saw a guy with a gun,” the bystander said. “He shot three times and then he started running.”
It turns out that the shocking assassination was also captured on surveillance footage, The Daily Mail reports, and it occurred just hours before New Yorkers were to gather in the Midtown neighborhood for the annual Christmas tree lighting at Rockefeller Center.
Amar Abdelmula, a driver, witnessed the shooting, and he told PIX11: “I wasn’t paying attention and then I heard the shot. It was silent gun, black gun. (I) saw him after he shot him, and he was running across the street. I tried to take a picture, but too far away.”
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“I was shocked. First time I see crime in front of me,’ Amar added. ‘I was afraid he (would) shoot me too, my car, I saw everything.”
Police descended on the scene, which occurred near W. 54th St. and 6th Avenue Wednesday morning, but the NYPD hasn’t released a motive as yet.
While Michael Dissen was at the hotel for a different conference, he told DailyMail.com he heard a “commission” around 7:05 a.m.
“I just heard all these sirens and I thought, ‘New York City’, but then I went up and had coffee and I saw everyone looking at their phones and I saw what happened,” Dissen said.
Thompson is the subject of an investigation being conducted by the Department of Justice for alleged antitrust violations and accusations of insider trading. United is the largest health insurer by market share in the U.S. and activists have conducted numerous protests from activists who allege it has systematically denied patient care. This includes one such protest earlier this year. This resulted in the arrests of 11 people outside the United Healthcare headquarters in Minnetonka, Minnesota.
The company also wound up in the headlines last February after being hit by a cyber-attack that cost $872 million.
Flags were lowered to half-staff outside the company’s Minnesota headquarters and in a statement the company noted it was “deeply saddened and shocked” by the news of Thompson’s assassination.
One has to wonder why Thompson was targeted, and why the assassination took place in front of surveillance cameras. The killer seemed to know when the victim was going to emerge and the killing took place early in the morning on Wednesday as Thompson left the hotel just after 6:45 a.m. In the footage, we see Thompson stumbling away from the assailant, who follows him and continues to shoot him as he falls to the ground.
The assailant then fled the scene, fleeing into Central Park on a bike. The NYPD has since released harrowing images of the assassin and has offered a $10,000 reward.
Witnesses say the suspected gunman waited for some time outside the hotel prior to the shooting and even knew which door the respected CEO would emerge from.
It’s anyone’s guess why Thompson was targeted but the circumstances are definitely strange. Thompson’s wife, Paulette, said he had been receiving threats before his trip to New York.
“Basically, I don’t know, a lack of coverage? I don’t know details. I just know that he said there were some people that had been threatening him,” she told NBC News.
One employee of the Hilton, who requested anonymity, told DailyMail.com that staff have been horrified by the shocking assassination right on their doorstep.
“For this to happen in this area, it’s weird,” the employee said. “For this guy to do it around here with all these cameras and everything, there’s got to be something behind it. I mean obviously there was, you have to be pretty crazy to do something like that.”
Indeed. This is truly a bizarre situation, and who knows if we’ll ever find out why this happened. Perhaps the suspect in this shooting will be found. Perhaps not. Either way, we are certainly living in strange times.
I’ve included a clip below but please keep in mind that the footage is disturbing.
Featured image via Political Tribune Gallery
