Speaker 1 (00:00):
… investigation to be a brazen, targeted attack. This does not appear to be a random act of violence. The victim was in New York City to speak at an investor conference. It appears the suspect was lying in wait for several minutes. As the victim was walking to the conference hotel, the suspect approached from behind and fired several rounds, striking the victim at least once in the back and at least once in the right calf. Many people passed the suspect, but he appeared to wait for his intended target.
(00:35)
The suspect fled first on foot, then on an e-bike, and was last seen in Central Park on Center Drive early this morning. The victim was removed to Roosevelt Hospital where he was pronounced. We've been in touch with his family, his friends, and his colleagues, and they're very much in our thoughts and prayers at this hour.
(00:57)
The full investigative efforts of the New York City Police Department are well underway, and we will not rest until we identify and apprehend the shooter in this case. The women and men of the NYPD take enormous pride in the work that they do each day and each night to drive down crime and violence in our city.
(01:16)
Right now we are asking the public for your help. If you have any information about this case, call Crime Stoppers at 800-577-TIPS. We have increased the reward in this case to $10,000.
(01:33)
I want to be clear, at this time, every indication is that this was a premeditated, preplanned targeted attack. Millions of people will be enjoying the tree lighting tonight among other holiday events, and the NYPD will be out there with them keeping them safe. For some preliminary details about today's tragic incident, I pass it over to our chief of detectives, Chief Joe Kenny.
Joe Kenny (02:04):
Thank you, commissioner. The information I'm about to give you is preliminary as our investigation is continuing. This morning at 6:46 AM, patrol officers from Midtown North Precinct responded to a 911 call of a person shot in front of the Hilton Hotel located at 1335 Avenue of the Americas. This is between West 53rd Street and West 54th Street.
(02:25)
At 6:48 AM, officers arrived and find the victim, Brian R. Thompson, a 50-year-old male, on the sidewalk in front of the Hilton with gunshot wounds to his back and leg. Mr. Thompson was removed by EMS to Roosevelt Hospital where he was pronounced dead at 7:12 AM. Mr. Thompson is the CEO. of UnitedHealthcare and resides in Minnesota.
(02:47)
Detectives from Night Watch, Midtown North Detective Squad, and Manhattan South Homicide responded to the scene and began their investigation. What we know is that the shooter arrived at the location on foot about five minutes prior to the victim's arrival. He stands alongside the building line as numerous other people and pedestrians pass him by.
(03:05)
From video we see, at 6:44 AM, the victim is walking alone towards the Hilton after exiting his hotel across the street. We believe the victim was headed to the Hilton Hotel to attend the UnitedHealth Group investors' conference that was scheduled to start at 8:00 AM.
(03:21)
The shooter appears to be a light-skinned male. He's wearing a light brown or cream-colored jacket, a black face mask, black and white sneakers, and a very distinctive gray backpack. The shooter steps onto the sidewalk from behind a car. He ignores numerous other pedestrians, approaches the victim from behind, and shoots him in the back.
(03:41)
The shooter then walks toward the victim and continues to shoot. It appears that the gun malfunctions as he clears the jam and begins to fire again. The shooter then flees on foot northbound into an alleyway between 54th Street and 55th Street.
(03:55)
Once at West 55th Street, the shooter continues to walk westbound on Avenue of the Americas, where he gets onto an electric e-Citi Bike and rides northbound on the Avenue of the Americas towards Central Park, where at 6:48 AM, we have the shooter riding this bike into Central Park at Center Drive.
(04:13)
At the scene, we recover three live nine-millimeter rounds and three discharged nine-millimeter shell casings. The motive for this murder currently is unknown, but based on the evidence we have so far, it does appear that the victim was specifically targeted. But at this point we do not know why. This does not appear to be a random act of violence.
(04:34)
We are seeking information from the public to help identify the shooter. As the commissioner said, we have upped the reward up to $10,000 for information. You're urged to contact Crime Stoppers at 1-800-577-TIPS. All information will be kept anonymous. Thank you very much.
Speaker 3 (04:50):
All right. Well, we're going to open up to a couple of questions. We're going to start off with Shimon, CNN.
Shimon (04:55):
So it's about an hour and 20 minutes before the start of the conference. Is there any indication that he was going to meet someone? Because I mean it's pretty early. Is he on his way to meet someone there at the conference?
Joe Kenny (05:05):
He leaves the hotel dressed like he's going to be attending the conference. We're working with his coworkers and other people that he planned on attending the conference with to get that information. But as of right now, he is in charge of the conference, so we believe he was getting there to help set up.
Shimon (05:20):
Then just the Citi Bike, if I may. Do we know where that Citi Bike is now? Does he dock it or does he keep riding it?
Joe Kenny (05:27):
We're still tracking video. The last we see with him on that bike is in Central Park.
Shimon (05:31):
Is there a way to track that bike through-
Joe Kenny (05:33):
There are GPSes on those bikes. We'll be working with the company.
Speaker 3 (05:35):
We're going to move over to AJ Griffith.
AJ Griffith (05:39):
Thank you. Chief, were any words exchanged? If so, what were the words? I'm told the cellphone was recovered in an alleyway on his escape route. Does that appear to be connected to something?
Joe Kenny (05:52):
We're working through that cellphone. Obviously we'll be processing it forensically. As far as words being exchanged, we do not have audio of the incident. We only have the regular video.
AJ Griffith (06:00):
But nothing from witnesses?
Joe Kenny (06:02):
Nothing … Well, there was one witness standing right next to the victim when he was shot. We're still trying to identify that witness.
Speaker 3 (06:09):
We're moving to Aaron Katersky.
Aaron Katersky (06:11):
Thank you. Chief, was he checked into the hotel across the street alone? Was he in the city alone? Was he accompanied by anybody? Did he have any known enemies or anyone that you've been able to find so far?
Joe Kenny (06:24):
Like I said, we're reaching out to law enforcement in Minnesota and we're also interviewing his coworkers and family members to see if there have been any specific threats against him in the past. As far as who was he in the hotel with, we're doing a search warrant in his hotel room right now. That might give us some more information.
Speaker 3 (06:40):
All right. We're going to go over to Ladean Moses.
Lafin Moses (06:50):
A couple of questions. One, based on surveillance, you've seen obvious the individual. Do you feel like he's professional? You mentioned that he did a [inaudible 00:06:53] style. Do you know if this was a professional individual who took that line? Also, would it affect in any way tree lighting tonight?
Joe Kenny (07:02):
I'll answer the part about whether or not he's a professional. We have no way of knowing that. From watching the video, it does seem that he's proficient in the use of firearms as he was able to clear the malfunctions pretty quickly. But as far as the tree lighting, I'll leave that to Chief Magic.
Chief Maddrey (07:14):
Yes. Good morning, Dean. Just really quick. This incident will not affect the tree lighting. The tree lighting is slated to start at 7:00 PM, the show. The actual lighting of the tree will be closer to 10:00, actually 9:55 PM.
(07:30)
We will have a massive police presence out there around Rockefeller Center from 52nd Street all the way down to 47th Street. We'll have plain clothes out there, a plain clothes detail out there. We will have our CRC assets, our strategic response group assets. We will have our intel division out there.
(07:49)
A lot of assets out there to make sure people can come out and have a good time. We're going to have additional police officers in the subways as well so people can take mass transit to make it easier to travel into the city and enjoy the tree. This is a terrible event, but we're going to go on, and people are going to enjoy the tree lighting tonight.
Speaker 3 (08:09):
Moving on to Masha Grader.
Masha Grader (08:11):
I wonder if you could tell me. The mayor said that there was evidence recovered at the scene that would indicate that this was not a random event. I wonder if you could tell me what that evidence was. By looking at the gun, it appears that there's a silencer on the gun. Was there a silencer on the gun and does this indicate not only that it was premeditated, but this is somebody who knew his way around guns and might've been a professional?
Joe Kenny (08:33):
Once again, we won't know that until we complete our investigation and identify the shooter or recover that firearm. You see a glimpse of the gun in the video, so we're not able to make a determination on whether or not a silencer was used on that quick glimpse of video.
Masha Grader (08:46):
Used as a silencer?
Joe Kenny (08:48):
We can't tell it from that little glimpse of video. I'm not going to commit to saying that at this time. That would be part of our investigation.
Masha Grader (08:53):
What evidence did you-
Joe Kenny (08:55):
There's a cellphone recovered in the alleyway. Once again, we will process that forensically and see if it comes back to this shooting.
Masha Grader (09:08):
So you don't think that the cellphone was [inaudible 00:09:09]?
Joe Kenny (09:08):
Once again, this investigation is less than five hours old. That will be part of our investigation.
Speaker 1 (09:13):
The video, chief. The video [inaudible 00:09:14].
Speaker 3 (09:13):
We're going to move on to Joe Marino here at Post.
Joe Marino (09:17):
Chief, do we know when Thompson arrived in New York City? My understanding is he was staying close by at Middleton, but not at Middleton. Has anything in the reverse video canvas indicated that these two individuals crossed paths at all?
Joe Kenny (09:31):
As of right now, based on the current video that we do have, it doesn't appear that they crossed paths. He arrived in New York on Monday.
Speaker 3 (09:39):
All right. We're going to take two or three more. We're going to Rocco, Daily News.
Rocco (09:44):
Chief, did he typically travel with a security detail? Even though it's early, is there anything that indicate that there had been issues with, let's say, a patient who was denied coverage either back in Minnesota or, more recently, someone who lives here.
Joe Kenny (09:58):
From speaking to other employees that traveled with him to New York, it doesn't seem that he had any security detail. He left the hotel by himself, was walking. Didn't seem like he had any issues at all. So I don't think he had … He did not have a security detail.
Rocco (10:12):
And as far as denied coverage, I know that's typically an issue with these major companies. Any reason to believe he had been the subject of a threat?
Joe Kenny (10:20):
Once again, we're looking at everything. We're looking at his social media. We are interviewing employees, we are interviewing family members. We will be speaking to law enforcement in Minnesota.
Speaker 3 (10:30):
We're going to do two more before we wrap up. Shayna?
Shayna (10:32):
Oh, sorry. I was just going to ask if any cursory look at any social media, whether it's the company, whether it's his personal social media, his family's, is there anything obvious that sticks out at this early stage in the investigation?
Joe Kenny (10:45):
We have not uncovered anything at this time. The investigation is still too early.
Speaker 3 (10:49):
We're going to go … Last question over here with Jake.
Jake (10:52):
How's it going? With the suspect still at large, last seen in Central Park, are you urging New Yorkers to avoid the park? Is the NYPD deploying its drones? I know they recently started doing that in the park. Then also I was wondering, is there any indication when he gets this Citi Bike that he's a Citi Bike member? Sometimes if you're not a member, you can pay to use it. I don't know if you're able to tell on the surveillance.
Chief Maddrey (11:17):
[inaudible 00:11:18] Citi Bike. The chief of detectives will answer the part about the Citi Bike. But in terms of … We're encouraging New Yorkers to go about their daily lives and their daily business, but to be alert. We put the picture out. You're putting the picture out. We want people to take a look. If they see anything suspicious, if they hear anything suspicious, we ask them to call 911, reach out to our detectives.
(11:39)
With an incident like this, of course we put a heavy deployment into Manhattan. We put additional resources out. We have the drones up, we have aviation out, we have K9 out. When an incident like this happens, we don't spare any expense. We put all of our resources out there to support the chief of detective's mission and to keep New Yorkers safe.
(11:59)
So we will have a massive presence out there around the tree lighting, but throughout Manhattan as well until more information develops and we're able to support the chief of detectives on what he needs to make a quick arrest.
Joe Kenny (12:14):
As far as where he got the Citi Bike, we're still working that through. Like I said, we're pulling video from numerous locations, numerous sources, and we have him on our timeline walking. What we're very fortunate is he has that very distinctive gray backpack on.
(12:28)
So we see him in one video clip walking, and then another source of video of him riding that bike. So we don't have video or witness confirmation on how he obtained that bike.
Speaker 14 (12:37):
Can I just ask on the cellphone? Do we know if it's related to this, or it's just right now you're saying it's a cellphone?
Joe Kenny (12:43):
A cellphone was recovered. We will confirm that later on down through our forensic examination.
Speaker 3 (12:49):
Thank you, everyone. This concludes our press conference. Thank you for the time and attention.