Deny, Defend, Depose

A message left on the shell casings of bullets used to murder a UnitedHealthcare executive

This morning, while reeling over an early morning murder in my hometown, my wife pointed out there was more news. The murderer had left a message inscribed on the shell casings of the bullets:

Shell casings found at the scene where the UnitedHealthcare CEO was shot dead by a masked gunman in front of a busy New York hotel had the words “deny,” “defend” and “depose” written on them, a senior New York City law enforcement official briefed on the investigation confirmed to NBC News on Thursday.

I made a video on TikTok about the news, and the comments were the kind of vitriol that should be reserved for never.

The words I said in this post were:

“I have terrible news. The CEO of UnitedHealthcare’s Insurance division, a man named Brian Thompson, was murdered today. He was shot to death in midtown Manhattan. As a critic of UnitedHealthcare, this is not the way.”

People were, in many cases, using their real names or accounts to share their thoughts, often with extra venom (comments from my…