The suspect in the shooting death earlier this week of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson took center stage during Saturday Night Live’s “Weekend Update,” with hosts Colin Jost and Michael Che needling the NYPD for not yet having caught the insurance executive’s killer.
“This week, New York City officials sent a tough message on crime: If you shoot somebody in the middle of the street, you better get on your bike, hop on a bus, and get the heck out of here, mister,” Jost said.
The masked gunman has eluded cops since fatally shooting Thompson, 50, on Wednesday outside the Hilton hotel in Midtown Manhattan where the father of two was set to address an investor conference. Police believe the shooter fled the scene on an electric bicycle, cut through Central Park, then took a cab to the Port Authority’s George Washington Bridge Bus Station in Washington Heights to make his getaway.
As the dragnet extends far beyond New York and other law enforcement agencies, including the FBI, join the search, a surveillance photo of the suspect’s unmasked face has led to plenty of discourse around his looks. The shooter has also led to a plethora of murder ballads composed and performed by singer-songwriters furious over the state of for-profit healthcare.
“[I]t really says something about America that a guy was murdered in cold blood, and the two main reactions were, ‘Yeah, well, health care stinks,’ and also, ‘Giiiirl, that shooter hot,’” Jost quipped.
Michael Che worked in a comment on the public’s apparent lust for the suspect, saying, “We were able to get the smiling picture of the suspect after the man apparently was caught on camera at a local hostel flirting with a female employee, whose name has been reported as ‘Lucky S. Bechalive.’”
Jost went on to poke fun at the massive police presence on Wednesday around Rockefeller Center, where the annual tree-lighting ceremony was to take place that night. The Hilton is only a block or so away from the site, and 30 Rock, where SNL is broadcast, is also in the immediate vicinity.
“It’s also so crazy that the shooting happened three blocks from here in broad daylight, and the guy just bicycled away,” Jost said. “Probably because they have every cop in the city guarding our Christmas tree.”
On Tuesday, the day before Thompson was killed, UnitedHealthcare released its projections for 2025, which said the company expects revenues of $450 billion to $455 billion.
New York City Mayor Eric Adams, himself a former NYPD captain, said on Saturday that police know the suspect’s name but “don’t want to release that now.” However, he claimed, “The net is tightening.”
