Closed-circuit screenshots of a person involved in the assassination of UnitedHealthcare's CEO.
Source: NYPD
Police believe the person wanted in connection with the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson left New York City on a bus from Upper Manhattan shortly after the killing on Wednesday.
New York Police Department Commissioner Jessica Tisch told CNN in an interview Friday that police released photos Thursday showing that person's face without a mask because investigators wanted “the image to be broader.” will be shown to audiences outside of New York City.”
Tisch said police have a “huge amount of evidence,” including “a lot of forensic evidence, fingerprints, DNA evidence,” as well as a “huge camera screen” of the shooter's movements throughout the city.
“We have every reason to believe that this was a targeted attack on an individual and not a random act of violence,” Tisch said. “We published the photo yesterday. We would appreciate if you would share the photo with your audience, as we also have reason to believe that the individual in question has left New York City.”
New York has an extensive network of government and private surveillance cameras. Police and prosecutors have special teams that comb through surveillance videos to track down suspects and match facial and physical features and clothing details.
Senior New York Police Department officials told CNN that surveillance footage showed the subject riding a bicycle from the scene of Wednesday's fatal shooting of Thompson in midtown Manhattan to Central Park and then riding a bicycle to the park near West 77th Street left.
Other footage shows this person walking along West 86th Street and Columbus Avenue before getting into a taxi that took him about five miles north to the Port Authority Bus Terminal in Washington Heights, right next to the George Washington Bridge, shared the police with.
According to NYPD Chief of Detectives Joseph Kenny, the man then entered the bus station.
“These buses are intercity buses,” Kenny told CNN. “That’s why we think he might have left
New York City.
Read more about the Brian Thompson shooting
Kenny said police are trying to determine which bus the man may have boarded.
“We have video of him entering the Port Authority Bus Terminal. We don't have any video of him leaving, so we're assuming he may have gotten on a bus,” Kenny said.
In addition to westbound buses, the terminal also has shuttle buses that carry passengers across the George Washington Bridge across the Hudson River to Fort Lee, New Jersey and locations further west.
Law enforcement sources said Thursday that the unidentified suspect in Thompson's shooting traveled from Atlanta on a Greyhound bus that arrived in Manhattan on Nov. 24.
That was two days before UnitedHealth Group, UnitedHealthcare's parent company, announced it would host an investor day on Dec. 4 at the Hilton Hotel in Midtown.
Thompson, 50, was shot by a gunman wearing a mask or neck gaiter over his face as he attempted to enter the Hilton.
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