Screenshots of a closed circuit of a person of interest in the murder of the CEO of UnitedHealthcare.
Source: New York Police
Police believe the person wanted in connection with the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson left New York City shortly after he was killed on Wednesday, on a bus from upper Manhattan.
New York Police Department Commissioner Jessica Tisch told CNN in an interview on Friday that police on Thursday released photos showing that person's face not wearing a mask because investigators want “a broader audience to see the image outside of New York City.”
Tesh said police have a “huge amount of evidence”, which includes “a lot of forensic evidence, fingerprints, DNA evidence”, as well as a “huge body camera” of the gunman's movements around the city.
“We have every reason to believe this was a targeted attack on an individual, not a random act of violence,” Tesch said. “We released the photo yesterday. We appreciate you releasing this photo to your audience because we also have reason to believe the person in question has left New York City.”
New York has an extensive network of government and private surveillance cameras. Police and prosecutors have specialized teams that examine surveillance video to track down suspects, matching facial and body characteristics as well as clothing details.
Senior NYPD officers told CNN that surveillance footage showed the person of interest riding a bike from the scene of Thompson's fatal shooting on Wednesday in midtown Manhattan to Central Park, then exiting the park near West 77th Street on the bike.
Other footage shows that person walking on West 86th Street and Columbus Avenue before getting into a taxi that drove him about five miles north to the Port Authority bus station in Washington Heights, right next to the George Washington Bridge, police said.
The man then entered the bus station, according to NYPD Chief of Detectives Joseph Kenney.
“These buses are interstate buses,” Kenney told CNN. “That's why we think he may have left
New York City.”
Kenny said police are trying to determine which bus the man may have taken.
“We have video of him entering the Port Authority Bus Terminal. We don't have any video of him exiting, so we think he may have taken a bus,” Kenney said.
In addition to westbound buses, the station also has shuttle trucks that take passengers over the George Washington Bridge on the other side of the Hudson River to Fort Lee, New Jersey, and to points farther west.
The unidentified suspect in Thompson's shooting traveled from Atlanta on a Greyhound bus that arrived in Manhattan on Nov. 24, law enforcement sources said Thursday.
That was two days before UnitedHealth Group, the parent company of UnitedHealthcare, announced it would hold an investor day on Dec. 4 at the Hilton hotel downtown.
Thompson, 50, was shot as he was about to enter the Hilton Hotel by a gunman wearing a balaclava or neck gaiter over his face.
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