Summary
Brian Thompson, CEO of UnitedHealthcare, was fatally shot in a premeditated attack outside the New York Hilton Midtown before speaking at an investor conference.
The gunman, still at large, fired multiple times, leaving shell casings marked with the words “deny,” “defend,” and “depose.”
Authorities suggest Thompson was targeted but remain unclear on the motive. His wife confirmed prior threats against him.
Analysts speculate a possible vendetta tied to his company. The case raises questions about executive security, as Thompson lacked personal protection despite known risks.
As of about a month ago there had been ~320 murders in NYC this year.
Yet this single one has captured the media’s attention nationwide and cops seem to be heavily focused on this one.
Because modern society at pretty much every institutional level sees the wealthy and powerful as not just more important than us, but they dont even see us. Hell, compare this to school shootings that only make local news now.
Historically, societies like this end in an incredibly brutal fashion. And until the wealthy and powerful really can build terminator style robot armies…
The masses are always going to win.
It’s kind of the natural consequences of hyper concentration of a finite and essential resource. People rarely sit around and starve voluntarily, and once the majority are starving, people start acting like a mob.
We see it day to day over minor stuff where people just refuse to follow societial norms. Everyday we’re shown that rules don’t really matter, and none of the people who matter are held accountable. If someone isn’t physically stopped from doing something, they take that as permission. Hell, that was the defense of most 1/6ers.
The social contract was invalidated a long time ago, people are just now realizing it. And that’s the only thing that really seperates us from animals.
Crashing out is gonna be the norm pretty fucking soon, I don’t think we have 4 years or that trump will be able to hold society together.
There’s a very high chance we’re gonna live in some interesting times.
I think the biggest thing to emphasize - and you mentioned it but I think it bears repeating over and over - is that when the system fails to enforce justice, people will seek justice themselves. This is the social contract you mentioned. I think we should expect more of this until the system is reformed and people like this do face justice within it.
“When peaceful disobedience doesn’t work the people don’t stop being disobedient, they stop being peaceful.”
Will you ever see Tesla Optimus aka Tesla Bot the same way again?
That’s obviously the end goal Musk is going for.
But I’m by no means the first person who realized the only thing the masses have going for us is sheer overwhelming numbers, and the day the wealthy have robot soldiers we’re fucked because by then they won’t need our labor either.
We go from being individually expendable to the entirety of us being expendable.
It’s gonna happen eventually, so we can’t just keep alternating between neoliberals and fascists, regardless of which one is in charge when it happens, we’re all still fucked when the wealthy and powerful don’t need us.
Poor people just need to cobble together EMP weapons if there are robot oppressors. Robots couldn’t be wirelessly controlled or have any wireless antennas without being EMP vulnerable.
Not really.
Look up the origin of the FBI. Hoover was a low level clerk when he was handed the reins. He didn’t have much of a budget but he did have the willingness to sit and do a lot of research.
When the time came to go after Emma Goldman the government had reams and reams of paper ‘proving’ how dangerous she was.
From now on, the CEOs will travel with security squads, and President Trump will authorize them to shoot to kill anyone who comes in fifty feet of the VIP.
This is more likely to be a one-off, like Gamestop.
That said, very few of those murders were
notpoint blank assassinations in public during the day. That’s sort of a bigger deal.Edit: Me not inglesh gud.
Authorities suggest Thompson was targeted but remain unclear on the motive.
Friggin Sherlock Holmes’ over here.
The case raises questions about executive security
“We won’t be pressured into changing the system we’ll just protect the rich exploiters better”
I sure hope nobody copies this behavior of retribution against the billionaire class which is responsible for almost all of the worlds suffering.
Thoughts and Prayering so hard right now.
What a bullshit take.
Despite a fairly obvious motive in general before this news broke, and now confirmation it was because of their policies, they are doing zero soul searching or reexamination of why their policies became a motive
Thompson’s killing quickly sent shockwaves through the corporate world, with corporate security heads gathering in a conference call to Wednesday.
“Many of my colleagues today are sitting down with their executive protection team leaders, their security leadership teams, and re-evaluating what they are doing and not doing,” Dave Komendat, president of Seattle-based Komendat Risk Management Services
Who had neo-Pinkertons on their 2020s bingo?
I mean they could stop hi fiving in the boardroom when their AI is denying care to people who have paid for insurance all of their lives.
I don’t think murdering people in the street is a just act, though. Mainly because of same reason I didn’t think the government should be killing people–the error rate is too high and someone innocent gets killed.
The Punisher would be a lot less cool of he left a trail of innocent people behind.
That said, when I saw this happen I immediately thought of the UniteHealth AI denying elderly care story I had read the day or morning before.
Healthcare boardrooms across the country have probably been celebrating the idea they can deny people like they’ve always done PLUS blame it on a computer, now. High five 🙏
Oops. Murder seems to be a side effect of evil.
yo
Its simple all you clueless colombos. Just start investigating all denied claims where the person died at a result. Shouldn’t take more than a decade or so to go though that list.
You misspelled century
its all been discarded by now.
You also need to include deaths due to delayed or inadequate treatment, and suicides related to medical debt
To those upset that this is headline news because he’s rich, remember that exposure breeds copycats.
It would be a shame if the rich got eaten. I do not support eating the rich
If you’re going to, use some sweet baby rays.
Or maybe a sauce that’s not owned by a decent sized corporation pulling in 10s of millions a year…?
Homemades the way to go for sure but idgaf what BBQ sauce someone decides to use. I didn’t say use fucking kc masterpiece.
I didn’t say you did. I was specifically commenting on the sweet baby Ray’s.
If you’re going to eat the rich, don’t give more money to the rich when you season them…
¾ cup yellow mustard
½ cup honey
¼ brown sugar
½ cup apple cider vinegar
1 tablespoon of ketchup
1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
1 teaspoon garlic powder, or ½ tsp fresh finely minced garlic
¼ teaspoon cayenne pepper powder
½ teaspoon salt
For extra spice ½ teaspoon or more of your favorite hot sauce.
Combine in a saucepan, and whisk together till smooth
Heat to a simmer, and low simmer for 10 minutes, stirring constantly
Store in the fridge overnight.
A better choice for ya:
I don’t want food poisoning
Oh no, how terrible.
Thoughts and deductibles to his family.
To those complaining this is news because this is a rich white CEO and shouldn’t be. It’s fascinating to me because it seems like vengeance. It seems like it was well planned. It seems like the killer may have had a personal beef with the insurance company. I don’t usually follow things like this but I think insurance companies are genuinely evil. This one has my interest.
authorities remain unclear about the motive
the authorities are fucking idiots
More likely too many motives that fit.
They know the motives but the lords above them tell them to shut up and say they don’t know.
Shootings must be rare in NYC given how much attention this one is getting.
Um ackshually, NYC is doing better than many other places, at least as far as per-capita homicide statistics go, according to this list I pulled out of Wikipedia:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_cities_by_crime_rate
Sort by “murder and nonnegligent manslaughter” and you find NYC way down on the list. St. Louis, Baltimore, and Detroit is on the top. NYC is not even the worst in the state anymore, Buffalo is worse.
There aren’t often assassinations in NYC, unless you’re talking mob hits through the years.
What even is an assassination? It is entirely likely that this is based in a personal grievance. The guy did wrong by a lot of people. Might even have been a tyrannicide.
And tyrannicide is always a good thing!
An assassination is a targeted murder, no matter the cause. It’s not getting in a fight with someone, or trying to rob someone. You mean to kill that exact person.
The case raises questions about executive security,
Of course this is the lesson. Not that everyone hates you, your company, the business, etc. It’s not our actions. We just need security.
Pretty soon they are going to need security droids like those in the movie Elysium. They are already working on that.
Insurance companies hate this one trick.
But no honestly, why are they acting like CEOs are fucking important?
Just parasites is all they are.
“Thompson lacked personal protection despite known risks.”
Oh. Oh ho ho. That is an interesting bit of information.
Not the lacking personal protection. That does surprise me, but not a lot.
What does surprise me is the “despite known risks.”
Was he that arrogant? Or do they, the powerful, greedy, and heartless, fear the wrong things?
Interesting to consider. The primal instinct to fear for ones life drives the most basic of biology. Is it possible, that this class of individuals lacks that fear? Or is it that there is something that fear more?
I think we all know the answer to that, of course. They fear losing power and wealth. That’s quite a vulnerability. They protect that wealth and power more than their own life. I feel like I’ve heard about consequences to that.
He was that arrogant, and the powerful and rich don’t know actual fear at all until they meet a guy like the one this CEO met.
Man, it’d be a shame if his life insurance company dropped coverage for that.
The assassin was a pre-existing condition, a condition caused by his last workplace, clearly.
LMAO. It’s hilarious to me how basically nobody is mourning the death of this dude. Hopefully it is making other insurance leadership start to rethink their careers.
Or course. He’s Ebaneezer Scrooge without the redemption arc.
nice.
