Internet practitioners try to solve murder of New York CEO: NPR

A surveillance camera is seen at the 54th Street entrance to the New York Hilton Midtown Hotel in New York on Thursday, where UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson was fatally shot Wednesday.

Ted Shaffrey/AP

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Ted Shaffrey/AP

The fatal shooting of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson in Manhattan has set off Internet searches of their own to find the killer and his motive after the suspect apparently disappeared from one of the most watched cities in the United States

Online, amateur detectives and true crime fans have been poring over police-released photos of a person of interest — one showing a smiling, masked man in a hoodie, seen in the lobby of a hostel where the suspect previously stayed — and zooming in on surveillance footage .

On X, Reddit, 4Chan and other online forums, the public has weighed in with their conclusions about the tag on the suspect’s backpack, the type of gun accessory he used and other details that could lead to tracking down the killer.

“Dude had a suppressor, which is an extremely hard thing to get, especially in a state like New York,” said one person on Reddit.

Others theorize what kind of person would flee the scene on what police said was an unmarked e-bike and what the suspect’s purchase says about him.

“Water and protein bar means he cares about his health to some degree,” said another Reddit user. “What kind of madman would choose water and a protein bar for their last meal.”

As the police investigation entered its third day, there was no indication that authorities had found or named the gunman. Police said they believed the suspect had fled New York City on a bus.

The New York Police Department said the evidence suggests the attack was premeditated. Carved on bullet casings found at the scene read the words “deny”, “defend” and “set aside” – tactics used by insurance companies to reject claims, and described in a 2010 book critical of the industry titled Delay Deny Defend. While police are investigating whether the words indicate a motive, armchair investigators also support the idea that the attacker was driven by anger at the insurance industry.

Police have asked the public for help in the investigation and are leaving their tip line open, as is typical in manhunts.

“The public is important when it comes to helping the police in this type of investigation,” David Sarni, a retired NYPD detective and adjunct professor at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York, told NPR on Thursday. “People said, ‘Oh, no, I spoke to him yesterday.’ These are things you look at and that’s what you hope those tips will be – another piece of the puzzle to solve this and apprehend the person who did this.

In previous high-profile cases, online sleuths have successfully tracked down suspects who have eluded authorities. They helped identify what are believed to be hundreds of rioters involved in the US Capitol riot on January 6, 2021, and their leads led to some arrests.

“The public can essentially be a force multiplier for the police,” said Wayne Logan, a professor at Florida State University College of Law in Tallahassee who has written about the role of crowdsourcing in criminal investigations. “The police have limited resources, and more eyes on a case, more thoughts on a case can obviously give advantages to the police.”

Internet sleuthing also has its pitfalls. The 2013 Boston Marathon bombing is a famous example where online investigators got it wrong. The New York Post ran a front-page story with pictures of two people – suggesting they were responsible for the attack – whom Gumshoes had misidentified as the suspected bombers. Another person named through crowdsourcing turned out to be a missing university student who had died by suicide prior to the bombings, and the finger-pointing exposed his grieving family to threats.

“There can be people who act out of an improper motive, identify a person … and their name and reputation is tarnished when they were not involved at all,” Logan said.

When questionable tips are fed into the deluge of leads submitted to authorities, it can waste limited police resources spent investigating the information, according to the law professor.

In the case of Thompson’s death, there has been a counter-effort to the eager amateur search for facts. Some on social media have reacted to the news of the manager’s killing by lambasting the health industry, praising the gunman’s actions and even vilifying those helping police in their investigation.

But Christian Quinn, a former deputy chief of cyber and forensics for the Fairfax County Police Department in Virginia, told Washington Post that he suspected that investigators are not “really influenced by online chatter from … people with opinions who don’t really have the expertise.” But sometimes, he added, “you get that one little tidbit” that turns the investigation around.

Still, Logan, the FSU professor, said it’s important not to underestimate the power of cyberbullying.

“Anything is possible with the internet, you know?” he said. “The fundamental concern is that the wisdom of the crowd does not become the tyranny of the crowd, where essentially crowdsourcing and crowds drive criminal investigations, not more careful, systematic police investigative work.”