Manhunt for executive’s killer meets unexpected obstacle: sympathy for gunman

From online forums and social media to the streets of Manhattan, people have been celebrating the suspect in the killing of a Manhattan execiutive as a quasi-folk hero.

New York police have released new photos of the gunman who they belive shot and killed UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson. Picture: NYPD

As they search for the man who assassinated a top health-insurance executive in Midtown Manhattan last week, authorities are contending with an unanticipated challenge: an outpouring of popular sympathy for the killer.

From online forums and social media to the streets of Manhattan, people have been celebrating the suspect as a quasi-folk hero who struck a blow against a detested institution -- the nation’s for-profit healthcare system.

In most instances, they were rooting for the killer to evade capture and defending his actions -– or remarking on his good looks. But in some cases, expressions of support have crossed over into calls to stymie a police manhunt that, on Sunday, entered its fifth day with the suspect yet to be named.

On the social-media platform X, for example, several people suggested flooding the police with fake tips or dressing like the killer to confuse law enforcement. In New York’s Washington Square Park, a group held a look-alike contest on Saturday.

Meanwhile, some online sleuths who have made a habit in recent years of banding together in informal posses to try to solve crimes are withholding their services.

“I don’t have to encourage violence. I don’t have to condone violence by any means. But I also don’t have to help,” wrote @thatdaneshguy, who has two million followers on TikTok, where he bills himself as capable of finding anybody.

UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson

To Ed Davis, a former Boston Police Commissioner, who led the police response to the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing, the public reaction to the murder of Brian Thompson, the chief executive of UnitedHealthcare and a father of two, was both a hindrance to the manhunt and baffling.

“I’ve been watching it, and I’ve been shocked by it,” Davis said in an interview with The Wall Street Journal on Sunday. “It’s actually troubling to see it, and I really am surprised that people are reacting that way considering the tragic loss here and the violence of what happened.” Davis, who now has a security-consulting firm, noted that the public’s reluctance to assist would deprive police of a vital resource in a search that has now stretched beyond the bounds of New York City.

“It’s a huge problem. People’s lack of sympathy is really troubling. And the problem with that is, the people who have this kind of animosity, simply because of the circumstances may not be prone to help -- and the police are really looking for help from the public on this.” Sympathy for outlaws is hardly unheard of in American culture. Eric Rudolph, the man who set off a pipe bomb at the Atlanta Olympics in 1996, managed to elude the FBI for seven years by hiding out in the Smoky Mountains. Supporters donned “Run, Rudolph, Run!” T-shirts.

Yet the current outpouring is on a grander scale and fueled by social media. To some observers, it felt like another expression of the same broad-based populist eruption that has shaken American life in recent years, delivering Donald Trump to the White House with a promise to bludgeon the nation’s institutions while also fueling the rise of Bernie Sanders and his Socialist movement.

“Are pitchforks and guillotines returning?” Frances Chiu, a historian and editor, wrote in a Medium piece titled, “Party Like It’s 1789?” She noted the parallels between the French Revolution and the reaction to the Thompson’s death, including comeuppance, vindication, and a “carnivalesque, topsy-turvy whiff to the news as the CEO is deprecated and the shooter celebrated.” Indeed, many of the online comments in support of the suspect have been tinged with class rage and anti-corporate venom. Among them was a post on the Reddit site “Off My Chest,” which has 3.3 million members and bills itself as a supportive community where one can disclose their deepest thoughts.

“Kinda hope they never catch the UnitedHealthCare CEO killer,” a poster wrote on Saturday, explaining that the rich “almost never get their due, ” and adding: “Hell I’ll go as far as to say maybe people should go and flood the cops and (now) the FBI’s hotlines with fake info, troll pics, the like.” By Sunday evening, the post had garnered more than 2,200 comments, heavily in agreement.

“Ditto, wonder if this is a new trend. Modern day Maria Antoinette, let them eat cake attitudes of the CEOs, Government, etc.,” came one reply. “Time to watch it collapse and burn down.” Michael McWhorter, a Florida-based content creator with a background in film and TV production who has built a 6.7 million following on TikTok by sharing videos of people behaving badly and relying on internet sleuths to hold them accountable, said he was shocked the suspect is still unnamed.

“I feel someone out there has seen this story and definitely knows who it is...The world collectively shrugged. That seems to be the general response,” said McWhorter, who posted a video calling the reaction unprecedented. He denounced the crime and urged anyone with information to cooperate with authorities.

Wayne Logan, a professor at Florida State University College of Law who has written on the role of crowdsourcing in investigations, and calls it “potentially a game changer for police” -- believes the public contributions will still happen in this case. “I’m confident there’s a great many people that are willing to participate in this, regardless of what might be the apparent sympathy in some quarters for the suspect,” he said Some amateur sleuths did step up, only to be quickly lambasted as traitors by the online mob.

One online gumshoe, who has nearly 29,000 X followers and notes he continuously scrapes Citi Bike data, posted hours after the shooting that the suspect had probably escaped on such a bike and included a map surmising where he had fled to.

Another X user, Anant Sinha, posted a video in which he interviewed this online detective about his findings.

The conclusion about the bike apparently turned out to be wrong -- but just airing their sleuthing had provoked a backlash, Sinha wrote in a subsequent post, in which he said the pair had received “hundreds of death threats.” He posted a screenshot of angry comments. Among them: “loser ass snitch.”

The Wall Street Journal