A Closer Look At The Murder Of Brian Thompson

In a shocking incident, Brian Thompson, the CEO of US health insurance company UnitedHealthcare, was murdered in a targeted attack. The incident was caught on camera and shows the murderer wielding what appears to be a suppressed pistol.

What We Know

Before we get into the facts we should put things in context. This event just happened, and little information has been made public. This article is based on initial news reports and one security camera video of the shooting. More information will surely emerge at some point but the facts are limited as of writing.

The shooting took place at 6:45 AM local time. The victim, Brian Thompson, was slated to attend a shareholder conference that day. As he walked along a sidewalk, a masked man stepped out from between parked cars and fired multiple shots, striking Mr. Thompson. The shooter appears to rack the slide of the firearm to clear one or more malfunctions as he approaches Mr. Thompson, who had fallen to the ground. The shooter then runs off.

Police reportedly found three casings from spent rounds and three live rounds at the scene. All were 9mm. Pictures of the live rounds at the crime scene show they are full metal jacketed projectiles. Based on the security camera video, the live rounds found at the scene were probably ejected from the gun when the shooter cycled the slide multiple times while advancing on Mr. Thompson.

What Gun Was Used?

At this point, we do not know much for sure, except that it was a handgun firing 9mm ammunition. It also looks like there was a suppressor on that firearm. We do know that the shooter manually operated the slide after each shot. He seems to anticipate that the gun will not cycle after firing, and he moves very quickly to the slide after the first shot.

Some commentators have speculated that subsonic ammunition may be to blame for the malfunctions. That is possible but is not likely. Firstly, we do not know if subsonic ammo was even used. Maybe it was, maybe it wasn’t, without an audio recording it would be difficult to say. But even if it was used, subsonic 9mm ammunition is not “loaded lighter” than regular supersonic ammo. Instead, it uses a heavier projectile. Most handguns use a “short recoil” operating mechanism, which uses the recoil force of the shot to push the slide to the rear, ejecting the spent case and chambering a fresh one. When heavier bullets are used this system will generally be more reliable, not less.

Specifically with a 9mm, cheap practice ammo has a 115-grain bullet weight and is almost always supersonic. Higher-grade ammunition usually has between a 124-grain and 147-grain bullet, with 147-grain ammo being subsonic when fired from a handgun in almost every case. Using heavier ammunition frequently resolves cycling issues in 9mm pistols rather than causing them, and it is a standard practice to try heavier ammunition when a gun does not reliably cycle 115-grain ammo. While some 147-grain ammo is marketed to suppressor users, it is not a rare or exotic type of ammunition. Your local Cabela’s or Bass Pro probably has some on the shelf. Pictures of live rounds at the crime scene don’t tell us anything about the weight, we will have to see what the police reports say.

Another piece of speculation was that a specialized, integrally-suppressed pistol was used. That is highly unlikely. This thought comes from the manual operation of the gun between shots. But this is not likely because of the way that the shooter operates the action of the firearm. Dedicated suppressed pistols like the B&T VP-9 or Station Six use a bolt at the rear of the pistol and require a twisting motion. The shooter does not seem to do any manipulation other than pulling the slide straight back, as would be done with a standard semiautomatic pistol. Also, those pistols are rare, expensive, and only available through legal procurement channels that someone planning a murder would not want to deal with.

My best guess as to the cause of the malfunctions is the silencer itself. Handgun silencers differ from rifle silencers because they use a Nielsen Device to couple the suppressor to the barrel. A Nielsen Device (also called a booster) uses a spring fitting to allow the silencer to shift forward when the gun is fired. Most semiautomatic pistols use a tiling barrel Browning-style recoil system, where the barrel tilts upward after each shot. Adding a silencer to the end of the barrel adds weight and can throw off the operation of the gun, inducing malfunctions. But a silencer with a Nielsen device can stay (roughly) at the same point in space while the barrel moves through its recoil cycle.

Almost any handgun silencer bought through legal channels will have a Nielsen Device built in (with the exception of silencers for fixed-barrel pistols, which are less common, or ultra lightweight silencers like the SilencerCo Spectre 9 or GSL Pill Box). But homemade silencers often do not have that mechanism. If this silencer was made with 3D printing or was fashioned from a “solvent trap” or “fuel filter” parts set it would probably not have a booster assembly, but would only be a simple tube with baffles inside. And adding a heavy metal tube to the end of a tilting-barrel pistol is a very sure way to cause malfunctions.

Another possible explanation is a weather-related malfunction. It was around 31 degrees Fahrenheit (around 0 Celsius, for those of you using the wrong measurement system) in New York City at the time of the shooting. When guns are cold they behave differently. Some types of lubrication tend to gum up in the cold and can cause malfunctions. Based on the silencer use and the fact that the shooter seemed to anticipate needing to cycle the gun by hand this is not as plausible as the “Wish.com fuel filter silencer” theory.

Professionalism

Much ado has been made online about this being a “professional” hit. While the shooter clearly knew to expect malfunctions and knew how to address them, other facets of this incident suggest that the shooter was less of a professional than some might think.

One glaring issue is marksmanship. The murderer shot Mr. Thompson “at least” twice, once in the calf and once in the back. Based on the security camera video, the first shot hit Mr. Thompson in the leg. Anyone who has taught pistol shooting knows that the most common place for a right-handed shooter to miss with a handgun is low and to the left. Hitting the murder victim in the calf with the first shot is not a sign of a professional.

Also, Mr. Thompson was reportedly shot only twice. Handguns are notorious for failing to incapacitate a target even after multiple hits. Obviously, any shooting with a handgun can be fatal, but if this was as highly choreographed as some commentators are making it sound, the murderer would likely have shot the victim many more times. As an example, Israeli Mossad agents famously shot several suspected perpetrators of the Munich Olympics terrorist attacks around 12 times each with suppressed pistols at close range. Those assassinations probably used smaller caliber pistols, but the point still stands that professionals would probably shoot more than twice in this scenario.

There are some other hints that the shooter was not highly trained, like the fact that he lowered the gun to take aim at Mr. Thompson’s back rather than raising it to the target and that the shooter used FMJ ammo, but we will have to wait and see what information comes out as time goes on. At this point, be wary of listening to anyone who likens this murderer’s prowess to fictional characters like Jack Bauer or Jason Bourne.

This was a cold-blooded murder, and while this case has sparked a lot of interest, the most important thing at this point is catching the suspect. If you have any information that may be of use to the police, please contact NYPD Crime Stoppers at 1-800-577-8477.