“Deny, defend, depose.” These were the words separately inscribed on bullet casings found at the murder scene of UnitedHealth’s Brian Thompson.
“Is fu**ing real life?” writes one Twitter user in response to the news. I’m not certain either, it sounds like something straight out of V for Vendetta. Except with a “D”.
According to police, Brian Thompson was the victim of a “premeditated, preplanned targeted attack.” He was shot in the back and calf by a masked assailant while exiting a hotel in Midtown, Manhattan. Based on security camera footage, the police believe that the man was a professional. He used a silencer, and was able to quickly and cooly clear the chamber of his pistol when it jammed during the attack. After the killing, the man fled the scene on a Citibike. He is still at large.
As for motive, NYC Chief of Detectives Joseph Kenny says that the reason behind the murder is “currently unknown.” According to Former FBI supervisor Rob D’Amico, the killing “has all the makings of a personal vendetta tied to the victim’s company,” as reported by NBC.
The Internet has responded the only way it knows how, with jokes.
The wildest thing of all? The bullet-etched phrase “deny, defend, depose” is actually a play on words of “delay, deny, defend” which is a common tactic used by insurance agents in order to avoid paying claims. When it comes to claims paid, UntiedHealth’s record is particularly abysmal. According to a study performed by consumer research site ValuePenguin, the company has denied the most claims out of all major insurers in recent years. The data shows that UnitedHealth denied one out of every three claims in 2023, double the industry average of 16%. I’m no policer detective, but I’ve seen enough Swedish crime dramas to glean that whatever the gunman’s motivations were, they were likely personal.
OR if my penchant for Agatha Christie novels can shed any light upon the situation, the phrase could be a classic red herring. This X user seems to agree. We could be dealing with a hired hitter, a true professional that is attempting to their police of their trail by playing the part of a disgruntled, gun-familiar citizen who was on the receiving end of a raw deal courtesy of UnitedHeath. The other reality suggested by this user would be equally thriller-novel: we’re dealing with a true blue, dyed in the wool masked vigilante. Have we ever actually had one of those? While real people have taken to the streets to become masked “superheroes” before, they’re generally only equipped with non-lethal equipment like pepper spray and tasers. This guy? This guy skipped Kick Ass and went full Punisher.
Compounding upon the sense of unreality, it turns out that someone has created a cryptocurrency in reference to the gunman’s phrase. The Deny, Defend, Depose coin, or “DDD” coin has, according to an X user, moved a total $2.6 million in volume already. We are living in a simulation, and the cryptobros are monetizing it.
At the risk of sounding like a crime thriller narrator, this assassin’s actions appear to be a symptom of a larger sense of social unrest. It’s hardly the first high profile targeted attack we’ve seen this year, considering that Donald Trump was nearly assassinated multiple times. If history is any indication, these acts of targeted violence show that the nation is reaching a breaking point, and something is going to crack soon.
