CEO of UnitedHealthcare fatally shot outside of NYC hotel, source says
2 years ago by return2ozma to c/news
Remember this?
UnitedHealth uses AI model with 90% error rate to deny care, lawsuit alleges
If this happens to two or three more CEOs over the next couple of months, they'll change their position on gun control, not change their behaviors that made somebody do this. And "they're coming for our guns" morons would find a way to not only excuse it, but fully support it, at least at first.
We really are just a few years away from Cyberpunk, aren't we? I'd actually say a mix of both that, and Cloud Atlas' last timeline.
I mean having to live in a fortress and being afraid to go into a coffee shop without armed guards is no way to live... it wouldn't be a fun time for those poor, sociopathic bastards. But I guess having those extra digits in their bank accounts makes up for it?
they legit just send out the interns to go get coffee, so much that it's a trope at this point. these people barely raise their own fucking kids, they don't give a shit about any of those like, minor pleasures. they have cocaine, and other rich people who are constantly willing to kiss each other's ass in a big circle, human centipede ouroborous style.
They have the money to hire a 24/7 coffee shop on their private island. I don't think it's so bad for them.
they already do that shit. elon already has a pretty big security retinue and his ass almost never goes out in actual public anymore, only ever hosts private events with verified people and pretty good security. most CEOs and billionaires aren't gonna be that paranoid, but most of them don't have to be, and they already tend to live in totally different contexts than your average person.
what I'd be more interested in knowing is how this guy figured out that this particular guy was going to be outside this particular hotel at this particular time. this wasn't a crime of pure opportunity, this was something which seems like it was probably planned in advance. if it was publicly accessible where this guy was going, that's a much easier and cheaper thing for businesses and CEOs to solve, and is probably the most important part of this kind of security.
Absolutely this, this is a nucleation point for disarming the citizenship. Step one for a dictatorship.
No, I'm talking more like this https://en.m.wikipedia.org/...
It's actually pretty easy to get a pistol in New York State as long as you get proper training and register it. Also the NYC pistol ban was struck down a couple years ago.
I'm more worried about a federal gun ban that the Trump administration can use violence like this as a justification.
If this happens to two or three more CEOs over the next couple of months, they’ll change their position on gun control,
Say what? Nearly every CEO who is willing to talk about firearms is already pushing for more Gun Control with both their words and their money. The obvious exceptions are of course Firearm CEOs and maybe Elon Musk.
Seriously, have you ever looked at whose funding all of the Gun Control efforts and Politicians in this country? It's a veritable whose who of Democrat Billionaires and CEOs.
NYS already banned suppressors for the plebes. Only cops can buy them in NYS. And its highly unlikely they had a NYC permit, for carry, only cops get easy NYC permits, and also C execs like this guy who pays off the right people, in the correct amounts.
So, this means, it must have been a cop that did the shooting. Because it could have been an oligarch with the legal gun, but they couldn't get a suppressor in NYS.
You can make a pistol suppressor from seamless tubing and steel wool, threaded barrels are not uncommon or controlled. You’ll be missing the booster needed for reliability, and it’s not going to be very good, but expansion chamber volume is expansion chamber volume. Reportedly the shooter had more than one malfunction, which lends credence to a DIY can, or a shitty gun.
If the goal is murder, another +15 years for NFA violations isn’t a big deterrent.
you could probably 3d print a booster, and use a spring, I bet. it wouldn't be reliable since it'd get hot, but I don't think there would be too big an issue with too high of pressures or anything causing it to break. alternatively, you could just go with something that doesn't use a tilting or rotating or locking barrel mechanism, like a steyr GB, or even just a hi-point, which I think is just straight blowback.
you'd also probably wanna go with a mainly wipe-based suppressor rather than one with just baffles, since you're making something that's basically disposable anyways, and those can fit into smaller packages while being more effective than something with baffles.
they'll just define "our" as "voted republican" - EZ Clap
Are you under the impression that pro2a people are corporate shills? Lol the fuck
It's funny you think they're not. They've been dick-riding manufacturers and lifestyle companies for decades. How much "Glock" or "Mossberg" merch have you seen out there? Those are eager corpo shills.
Glock and Mossberg are gun manufacturers, not health care providers...the fuck
Lol I know exactly who pays into the NRA, they're just corporate shills now nothing more. They don't do shit for gun rights and most gun owners want them to desolve.
They are inadvertently. Corporations say the right words and the pro2a people fall in line. Look at all of the millions of citizens that voted directly against their best interests in November because they've effectively been fed messages that made them disregard what actually effects them. Obviously not all pro2a people are in this camp, but there's a lot of overlap between those folks and people getting manipulated by other rich and powerful forces.
Most pro2a people vote repub because they're the only ones that remotely say anything pro2a even though they're completely shit at it. Almost all gun owners are single issue voters. If the dems dropped the anti gun rhetoric they'd sweep elections.
as a hobby, it's basically just another form of consumerism, and the culture surrounding it is not unlike that of car culture, with the same purported values. freedom, agency, maintaining control over your own life, it's all just marketing speak to drive customer traffic, and ends up being politicized only really insofar as everything must exist inside of a political context.
there are definitely advantages to having guns for certain populations, certainly, marginalized populations that are already at risk, but those populations already have more prevalent firearms use for obvious reasons, and would probably maintain higher firearms use rates regardless of legality as a result of their marginalization, where more strict gun laws won't really factor in, or rather, would be just another meaningless slap-on charge to extend sentencing.
most of your other actual pro2a people are gonna by random hobbyists, hunters, and fudds, who can't really be expected to put up any organized resistance against anything, and the other half are people who would already be a fan of any plan to march around and take away other people's guns, because they're ex-military chuds, or cops, or what have you.
"Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.”
Hopefully this makes all those money grubbing assholes consider how many of the millions of people they've fucked over have access to firearms and their location.
There's an interesting book called Narconomics: How to run a drug cartel that goes into detail about why there's so much violence in the drug world. It all comes down to there not being a legal system where people can peacefully resolve disputes.
If Pepsi stole Coke's formula and brand name, Coke would sue them. But if a rival cartel infringes on your territory, you have no choice but to get to murdering.
Now, I don't know the motivations of why this healthcare CEO was shot - and I don't condone violence. But I will say that I see some strong parallels where it feels hopeless from a consumer point of view when dealing with insurance companies. The whole process, including the legal system, seems tailored to take away your power. So I'm not at all surprised that violence has occurred.
Thompson, who was named CEO in April 2021, was pronounced dead at Mount Sinai West.
Good thing he had health insurance for his stay at Mount Sinai; some aren't so lucky thanks to worthless puddles of filth like this.
Edit: Zero sympathy. Negative sympathy, even.
Link above to ARS Technica article titled: UnitedHealth uses AI model with 90% error rate to deny care, lawsuit alleges.
It should go without saying that such violence is not good and not supportable.
That said, I also think those who make monopolistic fortunes off the sick while also dictating refusal of care to the sick are categorically not civilians. It is what it is.
Maybe he had a preexisting condition?
And expect the health insurance industry to act on that.
Well Mr Johnson. We were looking through your onboarding package with Innertrode and can see you have a 6 year old daughter. We need to put her on the Uvalde plan because she is a child and they are prone to lead poisoning and mass hemorrhages which we won't be covering. But if she gets the sniffles, we have it covered because you are family. Also we'll need to talk to you about her reproductive health once she reaches marrying age next year
Why should this piece of shit get more sympathy than a convenience store cashier who gets shot during a robbery?
Because the mods get off on simping for the rich it seems.
Oh no not violence against the rich! Inexcusable I say!
It's apparently against community rules to discuss violence in any form.
So instead let's talk about giving CEOs bunnies. Everybody loves bunnies and maybe putting a bunny in a CEOs lap will show them the love they are sorely missing.
Give every CEO a bunny. Give them 20. Give them bunnies while their backs are turned, surprise them with bunnies. Send them bunnies to their homes. Let them y know they are loved even while they're away from work. Put bunnies in their beds, in their cars. No billionaire CEO should ever turn a corner without knowing a bunny is there waiting. Let the billionaires know the true depths of our love. With bunnies.
you can use alcohol to eliminate those, and there's really no reason to retain those or even the uhhh. bunny cage? if they're properly cleaned, because caliber can be determined just by forensics and is totally useless for most LE to know, unless you're getting really weird with it. yeah. bunny caliber, the caliber of bunnies.
Violence is the reason every judge tip toed around Trump. Violence is possibly the only factor America will listen to. It's certainly the only language they speak.
Even well executed and thought out peaceful non compliance only worked after taking a lot of beatings and with a bit of luck.
And most importantly, with the threat of violence as the alternative.
Peace can work too, but the Ivory towers types need to learn that ignoring peaceful protest, and undermining accountability and regulation, will inevitably lead to violence. He brought this on himself.
I have bunnies. They will not give you peace.
Saying Eat the rich or related phrases is now a removable offense, apparently.
Hey, mod, explain why you keep removing my posts.
Down voting boot lickers. Keep it coming.
Show your colors.
Juries can decide otherwise.
I don't know if it's morals, I just don't have the stomach for violence. That's kind of a weird thing to say to a person anyway.
I just don't have the stomach for violence
That’s exactly what rich people are counting on. They want you to roll over and take it up the ass.
The freedoms you have today were obtained through bloodshed. So I’m not really sure what point you’re making other then you’re not willing to fight for anything.
So you’d rather give up on everything and fight for nothing. Nice dude.
Interesting, are you recruiting me to do something specific with you? Or should we just keep discussing how it's immoral not to do violence on an extremely public forum?
Fucking hell the mods are on a tear here. How does that boot taste?
Also go fuck yourself, mods.
It should go without saying
Shoooould it thoooough?
I almost commented that UnitedHealthcare doesn't have a monopoly, but that's really only true at a national level. In some US states, they're the only option.
The disgusting profits are a product the health insurance industry, they only make money by denying coverage. It's an environment that encourages human suffering.
"those who make monopolistic fortunes off the sick while also dictating refusal of care to the sick" is hardly arbitrary, though, is it. It's quite a high bar to clear, that. It's rational too, since they do many orders of magnitude more harm than e.g. a death row inmate, whom society is content to destroy.
It should go without saying that such violence is not good and not supportable.
I am not celebrating. It's a tragedy, even if a predictable one. We'll all do better with a little more cooperation and a lot less greed.
I don't like it when people die, or get maimed.
If I say that I can understand how something like this happens, it's not out of sympathy for the murderer. It's just an accounting of facts amidst the fact that billions of people exist so obviously someone is going to be willing to kill for their perceived injustices. Especially when injustices are a lot more concrete than abstract.
It’s a tragedy,
Technically, and in reality, it's not a tragedy. Technically, dying from a pre-existing condition as a health insurance exec is a comedy. In reality, it's a net positive for society.
Life is a comedy to those who think, and a tragedy to those who feel.
I'm thinking a lot about this one.
The ruling class isn't a "civilian", because they literally command armed forces.
While not always called "armies", their function is the same: Secure the interest of the capitalist class.
Just like I wouldn't call the POTUS a "civilian", as the POTUS commands an armed force.
Insurance companies regularly commit acts of violence on the poor and sick for the benefit of their bottom line. People literally die because of the decisions this CEO made, so when the shoe is on the other foot, don't come crying because we know you're not an innocent actor, insurance company.
Let’s be honest here. This is probably the only way a ceo would ever be punished for crimes against the poor in America. Unfortunately this will probably lead to the increased militarisation of ceo security teams (and the police) rather than a recognition of why someone would want to dome a ceo in the first place.
It's nice that whomever did this didn't take their grudge out on a bunch of powerless workers. So often you see someone with a grudge against... whatever end up shooting a bunch of minimum wage employees who had no hand in their misfortune.
I feel sorry for the people who suffered and died due to the awful health insurance industry.
I am honestly surprised people fucked over by health insurance haven't tried to take things into their own hands before, if that's what this is. And if that's not what this is, it surprises me that it hasn't happened yet.
Plenty of people (me included) have been severely fucked over by insurance companies. I'm not willing to kill anyone, but there are a lot of people out there who are. Especially if they know they're dying and have nothing to lose.
Did you just say with a straight face that a CEO is simply a middleman who was powerless to change the internal workings of a system?
He's right to suggest that a board of directors should possibly be looked at as equally to blame for a company's policies and actions.
They should be, but they are harder to get to.
I mean sure you want to kill the opposing militaries generals, but a captain or above is nothing to scoff at.
Besides CEOs are more like a lieutenant or full bird Colonel.
A CEO is a CEO. Just because they are accountable to the shareholders does not make them working class. The CEO is the closest thing a corporation has to a singular owner. Their compensation package includes shares (ownership) of the company and they are the ones who make the decisions.
Literally their "job" is to be responsible for the actions of a corporation.
Sure, they do make a lot of decisions, no question. However, those decisions are at the direction of a Board of Directors.
In the same way a manager would be fired if they went against their owners wishes, a CEO is similarly subject to their superiors.
If a CEO has very little authority as you claim then what the fuck are they getting paid all that money for?
The way I see it they either run the company, in which case they own the blame for a company's failures, or they are just a figurehead with no real influence, in which case they don't need to be paid any more than the actors the marketing team hires to be in their commercials.
Excuse me? There is a bit left there on your chin.

Sometimes you take what you can get.
I am honestly shocked that something like this hadn't happened much sooner
When people are pushed to the point they have nothing left to lose this kinda thing will happen. I'm sort of surprised this kinda of things doesn't happen more often to people who make their fortunes off the suffering of others.
I'm sorry, bullets aren't covered by my healthcare executive sympathy plan.
"The motive for this murder is currently unknown but based on the evidence we have so far, it does appear the victim was specifically targeted," he told reporters. "But at this point, we do not know why."
We don't?
I have never had worse "insurance" than when I had United "Healthcare". They have you a big book full of all their "providers", but when you called to make an appointment, you were told they'd left United quite a while back and shouldn't be in the book. A few providers were still in network, but they weren't accepting new patients. Their "provider support" line was completely useless, because they would only read you out the "options" available in the book, the one with all the ghost providers.
My SIL in southern New Jersey ended up with them for some reason. She needed to see an OB/Gyn due to some abnormal bleeding that had been going on for too long. She went through their provider carousel and finally found one provider who was still in network and also still accepting new patients. That provider was 2.5 hours away from her, in the very other end of New Jersey.
I eventually did find one local provider who was in network, except they never did any comprehensive medical visits; you had to visit them for one issue at a time, at least a week apart. They'd give you a prescription or a referral but (once again) you were entirely on your own finding someone to accept the referral. Like there were times I'd make a dozen phone calls a day for weeks, trying to find someone who could see me - it was very much an entire part-time job trying to see someone!
I ended up switching insurance and have ended up 'captured' within a regional hospital's provider network. The hospital bought up a bunch of local independent providers in all the different specialities. I'm really unhappy with the continued corporatization of healthcare and the conglomeration of hospital networks - but the ability to call one number, be given a specialist within reasonable driving distance and (in that same phone call) be given an appointment within a reasonable timeframe is just so refreshing!
I was told by my nexyt door neighbor doctor that they pay doctors such abysmally low rates that no doctor wants to take their patients. It seems like a scheme to collect premiums and not render any care for members. And its one of the largest health care companies in the US.
With Molina, we would lose $30 by the time that the patient got in the room. We had to drop them as they refused to reimburse any better, even through all the inflation of everything else.
I ended up switching insurance and have ended up ‘captured’ within a regional hospital’s provider network. The hospital bought up a bunch of local independent providers in all the different specialities. I’m really unhappy with the continued corporatization of healthcare and the conglomeration of hospital networks - but the ability to call one number, be given a specialist within reasonable driving distance and (in that same phone call) be given an appointment within a reasonable timeframe is just so refreshing!
I haven't had to test their reaction to more serious issues, where I've heard they're less good, but I'm covered by Kaiser and I like that in a single visit I can get my regular checkup, get my eyes checked, get new glasses, get bloodwork done, get vaccines, and pickup medicine at the pharmacy. For regular care the only thing that would be better if there wasn't a profit motive involved at all.
A few years ago on a cruise we sat at a table with a doctor who said he was in charge of all United Healthcare insurance approvals. This guy didn't just mention he had to sometimes refuse people care, he was absolutely giddy about it and took sadistic pleasure in seeing other people suffer. We moved to a different table to get away from him.
I guess we'll find out eventually, but I've got to wonder if the shooter was pushed over the edge after someone close to him died due to refusal of care by United Healthcare.
Serious mod abuse in this thread. Removing a lot of posts that don't actually break any rules.
Like I get that you have to ensure that people follow the rules, but you're waaaaaay overstepping that line.
Edit: seems to have calmed down a few hours after I posted this, now comments aren't getting removed unless they actually break the rules, as far as I can tell.
Having just had someone I care about go through the American health care system, I get it.
My person went through months of agony and will never be completely the same, for absolutely no reason other than the system trying to squeeze a little more money out.
I would never do this kind of thing. I don't think it's the way. But I get it. More than once I fantasized about burning down the head offices of the insurance company. I just don't think you can kill and hurt vulnerable people at massive scale for profit with your smug little grin, and expect people to ignore it forever, only because there's a set of traditions right now that makes it all legal.
private insurance profits only exist when human beings suffer. they cant both pay all required healthcare services and profit. human beings are required to suffer for their stock price.
theyve done a great job of convincing people that somehow magically their profits are separate from their required payouts, but that is a farce to make those reliant on private insurance feel better about fucking human beings over.
I'm not gonna celebrate or call for violence, but I am going to say I'm definitely not as bothered by this as I am with the constant cop killings and school shootings.
Late stage capitalism is getting to the terminal stage, I think. Well, it did for this CEO, at the least.
Getting to the find out stage.
"Profits before People"-style mass murder gunned down. Thoughts and prayers. Bury the company with him.
... wrong comment to reply to?
The motive for this murder is currently unknown, but based on the evidence we have so far, it does appear the victim was specifically targeted," he told reporters. "But at this point, we do not know why." (...) "There had been some threats," [Paulete Thompson, Brian's wife] told NBC News. "Basically, I don’t know, a lack of coverage? I don’t know details. I just know that he said there were some people that had been threatening him."
Try "he was an absolute asshole and the group was making people's lives hell in order to profit" for a reason.
UnitedHealth Group, the parent company, was holding its annual investor conference Wednesday morning in New York City but abruptly ended it due to a "very serious medical situation" with a team member.
The corporation using this fucking bullshit corpospeech for "our CEO was shot" makes me irrationally angry.
Heroic gunman stops mass murderer from continuing his work.
Americans pay more for healthcare than any other country in the world. And that healthcare might be good, if you make it through all the barriers first. And you could be dead before that happens. If you even have healthcare after the incoming administration does what they plan on doing.
People are getting fed up and there are only going to be more desperate Americans going forward. Things are not going to get better. Expect more headlines like this in the future.
Awh noo.. The shooter got away :(
The shooter fled the scene on foot and then on a New York Citi Bike, Tisch said. He was last seen in Central Park. As of Wednesday morning, no arrests had been made, police said. Crime Stoppers was offering a $10,000 reward for information.

Be careful talking about legal things that can happen as MODS WILL ERASE YOUR COMMENTS ABOUT IT, and state it is against TOS even though it is not a call for violence, not an attack on users or groups, discrimination against anyone, isn't doxing, has nothing to do with privacy, is not a system disruption, is not illegal content, is not violent content, is not misinformation, nor is it doing harm. JURY NULLIFICATION IS NOT AGAINST TOS nor IS saying TEMPORARY INSANITY PLEA against TOS. IF MODS DO DELETE this please tell me which part of TOS any of this goes against? Edit: jury nullification is : "refusal of a jury to find a defendant guilty even with established guilt, because a conclusion that conviction would be contrary to some other concept of justice." Temporary insanity plea means: the defendant was mentally unstable when the crime took place. None of these endorse violence or are saying what the person did is correct. It is just saying that in this instance the defendant shouldn't be punished for their actions.
What a terrible tragedy, these are incredibly dark times. How will we as a nation, nay, a species, recover? This is a really really bad thing, and I do not like it. What has this poor, poor CEO done to deserve this? God, it should've been me! It should've been me!
Unfortunately, rather than distribute his pay and bonuses and benefits in order to provide a living wage for hospital staff, the rest of the upper management will have a benefits-cutting contest to decide which one of their own to elevate.

I'm relatively sure that the shooter will turn out to be someone who had a loved one suffer and die because they were refused health care coverage. This may turn out to be only the first of similar incidents.
Healthcare is a human right. Socialized medicine is cheaper than our current system, gives more people access, and prevents incidents like this.
"A person familiar with the matter told CNBC that the suspect was wearing a black hoodie and black pants and was carrying a gray backpack. It’s believed the suspect used a firearm with a silencer." So this was a hit? I'll grant that a lot of people might have wanted to take this guy out, but the real question is who was so motivated as to make it happen?
First reported in NY Post: https://nypost.com/...
but the real question is who was so motivated as to make it happen?
Anyone who has been denied necessary healthcare by UHC or anyone who's loved one died because they were denied necessary healthcare by UHC would have a motive.
Died, disabled, or went through other unnecessary, avoidable pain and suffering. It's... quite a pool of candidates.
It sounds like he was receiving regular death threats and considered it par for the course.
Yes, but not all of them use UnitedHealth.
suspect was wearing a black hoodie and black pants
Me: Nope, never seem anyone like that before...
Officer: What about the guy in this picture wearing a black hoodie and pants that you appear to be staring at in this security video?
Me: Yeah... doesn't sound familiar.
Officer: Sir, that was 5 minutes ago...
Officer, I'm sorry, after re-examining the picture I am now sure I have seen that man multiple times.
Once a week for almost my entire life on Sunday's, and one time when I got tired walking on the beach he gave me a piggy back ride.
Suppressors require a federal tax stamp from the ATF to purchase, but yeah everything you said is true.
I would like to know more.
Wait time is like a month if you have it in your own name, 3ish if using a trust.
The "extra background check" really isn't any more indepth than the one for buying a gun either.
Silencer by no means implies this was a professional hit. Lots of people have em these days just for the hell of it
The only people who don't hate the US insurance industry are a) those who benefit financially from it and b) those who haven't been fucked over by it yet. Granted there are a lot of people in group b but all of them will eventually leave it.
So you're saying they have a very limited pool of potential suspects?
I'd be okay with them never finding out.
Yah know, in this modern world there are so many things that are immediately knowable, and yet even looking up something knowable takes time. I encourage people to rest comfortably in those tiny moments of unknowing, for the time during which they last. Savor the mystery.
Wonder if he was doing something genuinely good with his day or if he was on his way to a presentation with investors where they can gameplan new ways to capitalize on human suffering.
Shame, we'll never know.
Mods just deleted another of my comments for saying
"For America to get better, we need to be okay with bad things happening to bad people"
I am not entirely sure how this statement is calling for violence. Or Glorifying it. Or is even controversial.
The Mods here suck.
This bit of news does not bother me at all. I wonder if this will become a trend now
i mean of course people will eventually get so mad at ceo types to do things like this.
killing them individually like this won't fundamentally change things though, even if we get a little schadenfraude.
in addition to this, organize and collectivize that anger and we got ourselves real change.
I'm a rep for United Morgues R US. I just wanted to talk to you about your dearly departed. Specifically the length, width and height please. Does he have insurance that covers the box or will it be openbox? We have pine boxes of every level but you might be interested in the special finishes like the seashore metalized powder coating. Its only $50k. Such a bargain. We have the burnado, which is an excellent way to prepare for diamonds of colors. The box comes pre-preg with the correct chemicals for blue diamond, ruby and other elegant colors. Making diamonds from your loved ones during the holiday is 50% off, at just $99k! But if you desire, we can also mulch, evaporate or Kitty litter your loved one. Some people preferred the mix with coffee option...that's only $15/lb this week. Act now and we'll deliver for free a custom deluxe, one of a kind gorme swiss army pin-like plastic hood ornament, on the house.
The CNN video thumbnail goes hard so I decided to make a low effort fake album cover.

Probably safer for bystanders than dynamite.
How long till Blackwater is authorized to operate on US soil?
Looks like we're speed running Cyberpunk!
Get ready for corpos walking around with those giant Arasaka bodyguards
I would think that this would draw attention that they are viable targets.
They already do. Its why the actual Occupy Wall St protests were quickly and ruthlessly dismantled and the useless Change.Org was set up.
Change.org was popularized by Obama where the only thing that gave it any functionality was that beyond a certain threshold that the president would be made aware that a given campaign hit that threshold.

Finally, now I know who is asking the tech companies for AI.
Huh.
There's an awful lot of celebratory assumptions going on here, I'd caution everybody that we still don't know the reason this guy was killed.
Everyone WANTS it to be "scumbag insurance exec. killed for scumbag insurance reasons", but we just don't know at this point.
Jilted lover? Could be. Caught cheating? Sure, why not? Insurance killing? Weirder things have happened. Friend or relative just sick of his shit? I mean, I dunno the guy, but anything is possible. Completely random killing? In MY New York City? It's more likely than you think!
In short, before you all start going "Wooo! Good start!" maybe take a breath and wait until we know more about what happened.
🍽
Leaked audio from what witnesses heard after the shooting. (SFW, but volume warning)
Oh, rofl, I did not read the word
fatally
right the first time.
I wonder if it's possible to form a fight club, but with class as a basis
Isn't this basically the plot of one of the Saw movies? Maybe minus some steps.
Awe shucks.
I don't think anybody deserves such a fate, but it does seem he was asking for it at least a little.
Is the shooter a tech bro or photographer? He’s wearing a peak design everyday backpack: https://www.peakdesign.com/products/everyday-backpack?Size=20L&Color=Ash
death squads are not things to cheer on in my book.
I feel like a lot of comments here equate a CEO with the owners.
CEOs chose to be the guard dogs & executioners doing bad shit.
While I'm not saying that would even change any of the comments, I do wanna add the context that basically anyone can be CEO, it's really one of the more replaceable jobs. The elite hire guys like this to to be the face for figurative and literal bullets, and compensate them well for that.
You're all ghouls. Each and every one of you who revels in this. Ironically, that's exactly what you claim his crime was.
I'm ashamed and embarrassed to be associated with you miserable wretches who would glorify murder to sate your revenge fantasies. You have no shame.
None of you know anything about this man aside from his occupation. You're all hateful, ignorant, self-righteous assholes.
You'll have to forgive me for not feeling sympathy when he oversaw UHC denying claims ten times more often than other insurers. How many families do you think experienced their own worst nightmares as a result of his actions?
He has teenage sons who are today experiencing the absolute worst nightmare of their lives. He has a family that will be shattered by this. This isn’t some game or a movie where the bad guys just lost. This is real life.
Sounds like what's probably happening within dozens of families every day for people who have died because they were denied life saving coverage by UHC.
because y’all are being violent.
Being glad a bad person is gone isn't being violent. This man chose to take part in what is widely known to be a predatory and sometimes lethal system that can literally place people into poverty. And he chose to take part in an integral way near the top of that structure. He helped perpetuate it from the top.
These are not good people.
The gunman was violent. Anyone that's glad or indifferent is not.
Yeah, give the good guys guns so they can defend themselves from the bad guys with guns. This is literally your argument
It's an interesting moral case. The current economic system rewards sociopathic wealth hoarding. How can we fight that? Is he an enemy combatant in the class war? I literally don't know.
You think the successor will change shit? This has to be changed politically, not just to hope you have a keen CEO; If you don't deliver financially shareholders will just replace you
This isn't some game or a movie where the bad guys just lost. This is real life.
This is real life where a badguy just lost
Someone up thread brought up that someone in a position such as a health care CEO can cause a tremendous amount more of suffering than death row inmates might have caused. That is an interesting point.
It has also crossed my mind that if, once a week, the richest person on the planet were killed, eventually fear would outweigh greed, and remaining folks of extraordinary means would be likely to be pushed toward justice.
And yet…
I am not a killer. I live in a country where I don't want to see the kind of assassinations I read about abroad. I want the rule of law to prevail. I'm cognizant that if a movement took off where powerful, “evil” people were killed, there would probably be an opposite reaction that could lead to snowballing violence.
Overall, this is a complex subject. Reasonable arguments can be made and supported by various ethical frameworks. I imagine good people are likely to experience cognitive dissonance when reading this news.
tl;dr murder bad, fairness & widespread prosperity good
We still have egalitarian-minded Americans with disposable income and free time who have not yet devoted those resources to agitating for change. I would imagine this factor, of potential opportunities not yet exhausted, diminishes the power of arguments for the righteousness of extrajudicial processes. (Most every night after work I choose to NOT devote my time to activism.) In contrast, if no free personhours remained not occupied by labor, sleep, or activism, I imagine vigilante behavior would be easier to defend in a debate.
The other post had it just as bad if not worse before it was removed entirely.
I tried to bring up the point that a system where we kill CEOs because we don't like their business practices isn't going to fix anything and the downvotes immediately poured in.
Either this is just the way that a lot of people on Lemmy think, or there's some concerted effort/psyop trying to stir discontent among the users here.
For a bit there I was doubting if I even wanted to be associated with Lemmy anymore, but at least it looks like the mods have been cleaning up the worst comments.
"calls for violence in any form against any living creature" are a violation of lemmy.world terms of service. Comments calling for or celebrating violence will be removed, and may result in additional moderation actions
Being happy and calling for it are different
thin line. many people got sent to jail in England for celebrating too enthusiastically online during the anti-immigrant riots. the internet today isn't the same as the internet 15 years ago
the rules aren't because the mods care very much. the rules are so than the website doesn't get taken down and/or the owners/maintainers aren't subject to serious legal penalties
thin line. many people got sent to jail in England for celebrating too enthusiastically online during the anti-immigrant riots.
The only thing I ever saw about people online being sent to jail were these two .
Parlour, of Seacroft, Leeds, who called for an attack on a hotel housing refugees and asylum seekers on Facebook, became the first person to be jailed for stirring up racial hatred during the disorder.
Kay was convicted after he used social media to call for hotels housing asylum seekers to be set alight.
So if you consider that 'too enthusiastic' I uh... have a different definition of that.
Depends on where you live. There's a very similar case in Germany from 2 years ago compared to what's going on now.
In Germany a cop was murdered and someone posted on Facebook: "Not a single second of silence for these creatures."
The courts have ruled that even "liking" a comment/post like that could be a crime.
https://winfuture.de/news,131418.html
Edit: since the post is locked...
Ah, sorry about that, I figured that you would use some translator tool on it if you wanted to verify my source.
I ran it through a few different ones but DeepL seemed to handle it best:
Social media has been nothing new for a long time, yet courts are still dealing with issues related to it. Or rather: hate speech is and remains a huge issue. Now comes a question: is a simple "like" already punishable?
Yes, at least according to the Meiningen Regional Court. In a recently published decision, the regional court found that even a like can be a punishable offense. Specifically, this is the case if the liked post contains punishable content.
The case in question is the double murder of a police officer in the district of Kusel at the beginning of the year. At the time, a hunter and poacher reacted to a vehicle stop with lethal force. The crime was also a major topic on social media, with an overwhelming majority of people expressing shock at this double murder.
But not exclusively: one Facebook user wrote in a post "Not a single second of silence for these creatures". At least one user liked this post and for the Meiningen public prosecutor's office this was already a criminal offense (it is not known whether and how the original author is being investigated, but it can be assumed).
According to the Berlin criminal and media lawyer Ehssan Khazaeli, who was commissioned by the accused, the Facebook user had "made himself liable to prosecution both for denigrating the memory of deceased persons under Section 189 StGB and for rewarding and approving criminal acts under Section 140 StGB", as the lawyer writes in a blog post (via Tarnkappe).
Is a "like" already "condoning"? An extensive search was carried out against the person who pressed the "Like" button, and the authorities gained access to the accused's home, vehicle and cloud storage. Khazaeli criticized the decision: "By liking a post, it remains clear that it is the post of another person - there can be no question of 'taking ownership'," said the lawyer.
Khazaeli went on to say that a like is not a "personal mental statement", and certainly not an endorsement of a crime. "The post is linked to the culture of mourning and the funeral service for the two police officers, not to the murder as such. You can and should find that distasteful, but it is not relevant under criminal law," says Ehssan Khazaeli.
The lawyer intends to lodge a constitutional complaint against the decision in the coming months: "It's not about the individual case, but about the fundamental question of whether simply liking something on social media can be a criminal offense."
there were 6 arrests for social media crimes, including the one for the woman who actually kicked off the protests by sharing a fake name about the kid who attacked the concert
but that's beyond the point. let's look at the comment for Kay, one that you mentioned, that caught a sentence of 38 months
"Mass deportation now, set fire to all the fucking hotels full of the bastards for all I care… If that makes me racist, so be it"
that's the portion that says he "called for hotels to be set alight"
see, to my interpretation he was saying "i would not care if they set fire to the hotels". in the US, this would be very strongly covered under free speech. why? because it's an opinion. in the US you can say "I believe that [xyz] should happen" and that is a belief. an opinion- something that cannot be censored. in the UK, not so much. but even in the US, you could be held legally responsible in some way depending on the interpretation of the law
and likewise, the platform hosting that controversial speech can face legal consequences. from serious fines to potentially even criminal charges depending on the enthusiasm of the government. (governments that are getting progressively more authoritarian and trigger-happy the world over)
the point I was trying to convey is that a website like this instance of Lemmy or any other must follow rules in order to stay out of legal hot water. how can you fault them for that?
if you believe this is not the correct thing to do, then you can pay money to host a website and then you can put your ass in front of the ringer to handle potential legal consequences for not doing your part to stop it. i don't fault the mods in the slightest.
just for reference though, let's compare and contrast the comment that got Kay arrested and put in jail and then some comments in this thread
a lot of comments in this thread are being deleted, let me see if i can catch some before they are deleted
"This bit of news does not bother me at all"
"I mean, I thought we were gonna eat the rich, but this will do."
"this will probably lead to the increased militarisation [sic] of ceo security teams. People can start going after their family"
using the same level of scrutiny, each one of these comments could justify a sentence in the ballpark of 38 months like what happened with Kay
this is what i mean. the internet today is changing and social media admins need to change with the times or the hammer of the law can screw them. users here spamming about mod abuse do not fully understand
Name a lemmy instance that was taken down because people expressed happiness at corporate shill executions. Heck, name any shut down by a government entity for anything.
Spare me, they're being way more liberal with comments on Bluesky and they are far bigger than Lemmy.
You and the mods just want to protect rich people from group consensus about them being terrible.
Your paranoia about a slippery slop to violence is very transparent.
Enjoying action against evil is not wrong.
I posted in c/news about the mods being overzealous in deleting posts in these threads, and it was deleted for rule 6. Fair enough. However, I have looked over the modlogs for the post regarding this shooting and the number of posts that are being deleted for relatively innocuous comments is excessive.
Being happy a bad person got shot is not : Glorifying Violence, Celebrating Violence, nor Inciting Violence.
More over, If this were someone like Kim Jong-Un, or Putin who had been shot, I find it hard to believe the mods would be nearly so overzealous to delete comments saying in essence "good, he had it coming".
I don't think the mods are intentionally skewing the conversation as much as they have an unexamined bias.
It is okay for people to be happy a bad thing happened to a bad person. Other people are okay to disagree with this statement. Let the discussion (within reason) happen. If you aren't prepared to moderate a discussion, turn off comments on your magazine.
Mods are always gonna be mods. It is the personality that is required to do a thankless job for no pay.
That said: Understand that the major social networks have legal departments. A lemmy instance is a few people working out of their basements who suddenly get a letter from the French version of the FBI asking for details about someone who is TOO happy about a politician getting got.
Best case scenario? That instance now needs to make a "public" stand for when they will and won't cooperate with law enforcement and there is no way that ends well. Worst case scenario? The instance is considered an accomplice.
I enjoy lurking at resetera because holy shit. And it was hilarious to watch the mass ban waves of the "Socialism OT" members who had spent years outright calling for people to arm themselves and fight governments. And it started within weeks of people finding out that resetera had been sold to some major corporation (I want to say MMO Network?).
Mod: The moderators of this community - and those of other communities - have an easy-to-verify track record for removing any calls for violence and encouraging/celebrating past violence, even directed at despicable individuals. This does not depend on the target of the violence. It is a part of the terms of service of the server, which are not determined by the moderators of this community. Users also agree to these terms by accessing lemmy.world (I am not a lawyer - please contact an admin if you have legal questions).
"Celebrating violence" is not in the TOS. I get how one can move from the TOS "No call for violence" to a more practical "no celebrating violence". But no, no one here agreed to that in the TOS because that is not what is in the TOS.
And honestly the section in the TOS which you guys keep quoting:
- Attacks on users or groups
Before using the website, remember you will be interacting with actual, real people and communities. Lemmy.World is not a place for you to attack >other people or groups of people. Just because you disagree with someone doesn't give you the right to harass them. Discuss ideas and be critical of >principles. Show the respect you desire to receive.
We do not tolerate threats of and calls for violence in any form against any living creature.
Really seems to be there to protect the users of Lemmy from violence, which I support. Not the CEOS of Corporations. I mean, in the context of the paragraph it seems obvious you guys are overreacting to most of the deleted posts.
i have removed comments that were celebrating the death of hamas and hezbollah leaders so i do commit to being fair in my removals
Super disappointed mods can't parse people not being surprised or feeling something was deserved as a consequence of their actions, and advocating the violence.
My comment that got removed was "can't imagine why this happened", which neither calls for, nor celebrates violence, but expresses that the conditions leading to such an action, in our dystopian US are predictable, have happened before countless times in history all over the world.
The inability to acknowledge the fault of the powerful actors and system that created such conditions and utter lack of consequences for the rich and powerful in the US are what caused such responses for an agreeably horrific act. The issue that won't go away, on Lemmy or anywhere else, and oversimplifying the above to "advocating violence" is disingenuous if deliberate, and idiotic if accidental.
Any living creature can't be the standard. That's just absurdly Broad. By this argument you can't have cooking communities. In any form against any living creature? I can't cut down a tree on this website apparently.
Antibacterial soap are murder. Vaccines are okay though, except for that one weird virus that actually experiences internal changes sans host.
Did you read this comment or apply any thought before you hit post? "Against any living thing" is so hilariously broad it makes me wonder if you're just trolling.
He's not a living creature anymore.
Lol
How was my comment about jury nullification against tos?
It is interesting. Calls for violence are against the TOS. There is actually nothing in the TOS or the sidebar rules about "Celebrating Violence".
I mean that is fine and all, and frankly it is a good policy. Just kinda bad form to be deleting so many posts for something that isn't in the TOS.
Seems the mods have added additional interpretations to the TOS and then used that as justification to delete a whole lot of the conversation.
Anyways. I like violent video games. Is that celebrating violence, how about football? Can I like football here?
Wish I would have known how over zealous .world moderation was gonna be when I signed up. Go take a nap for a couple days.
It depends on the community. For example, the Political Memes community of .world is incredibly dumb when it comes to moderation and I've been moderated for "misinformation" for saying that a party sending billions in support of genocide means that the party supports genocide, but that's an instance of moderators trying to enforce their opinions through the moderation system. At least in this case it's out of an abundance of caution since there's such a stigma against violence and even messages simply celebrating it can be misconstrued as encouraging it.
Meh, they should grow a spine, people call for violence all day on truth social, twitter, etc.
This whole 'abundance of caution' is due to decades of successful brainwashing and propaganda. How many avoidable deaths are the direct result of executive policy at healthcare, oil, law enforcement, etc. organizations?
Should we censor celebrations or (hypothetical) calls for the deaths of Hitler, Mao, Andrew Jackson, etc?
When does it become acceptable to fight back? When you've been conditioned to exercise an 'abundance of caution' the answer is never.
I'm not calling for violent revolution here, nor a complete lack of moderation, I'm just noting that removing comments of a rightfully angry and frustrated community is weak as fuck.
If you post a manifesto with calls to violence, sure, I can see that being removed, but a little festive comment celebrating the death of a deserving POS? GTFO.
Uncritical support for AIDS as the immune system is responsible for the deaths of millions of bacteria every day.
I completely understand the "calling for violence" part of the rules. The celebrating part is a bit much, though.
I think something had to die for my turkey sandwich, and I would kill again for another.
@lemmy.world
Welcome to the News community!
Rules:
Attack the argument, not the person. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Good faith argumentation only. This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban. Do not respond to rule-breaking content; report it and move on.
Obvious biased sources will be removed at the mods’ discretion. Supporting links can be added in comments or posted separately but not to the post body. Sources may be checked for reliability using Wikipedia, MBFC, AdFontes, GroundNews, etc.
Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.
Posts which titles don’t match the source may be removed. If the site changed their headline, we may ask you to update the post title. Clickbait titles use hyperbolic language and do not accurately describe the article content. When necessary, post titles may be edited, clearly marked with [brackets], but may never be used to editorialize or comment on the content.
Posts must be news from the most recent 30 days.
No opinion pieces, Listicles, editorials, videos, blogs, press releases, or celebrity gossip will be allowed. All posts will be judged on a case-by-case basis. Mods may use discretion to pre-approve videos or press releases from highly credible sources that provide unique, newsworthy content not available or possible in another format.
If an article has already been posted, it will be removed. Different articles reporting on the same subject are permitted. If the post that matches your post is very old, we refer you to rule 5.
Misinformation / propaganda is strictly prohibited. Any comment or post containing or linking to misinformation will be removed. If you feel that your post has been removed in error, credible sources must be provided.
All posts must link to original article sources. You may include archival links in the post description. News aggregators such as Yahoo, Google, Hacker News, etc. should be avoided in favor of the original source link. Newswire services such as AP, Reuters, or AFP, are frequently republished and may be shared from other credible sources.
For copyright reasons, you are not allowed to copy an entire article into your post body. This is an instance wide rule, that is strictly enforced in this community.
go to feed...
@lemmy.world
Welcome to the News community!
Rules:
Attack the argument, not the person. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Good faith argumentation only. This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban. Do not respond to rule-breaking content; report it and move on.
Obvious biased sources will be removed at the mods’ discretion. Supporting links can be added in comments or posted separately but not to the post body. Sources may be checked for reliability using Wikipedia, MBFC, AdFontes, GroundNews, etc.
Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.
Posts which titles don’t match the source may be removed. If the site changed their headline, we may ask you to update the post title. Clickbait titles use hyperbolic language and do not accurately describe the article content. When necessary, post titles may be edited, clearly marked with [brackets], but may never be used to editorialize or comment on the content.
Posts must be news from the most recent 30 days.
No opinion pieces, Listicles, editorials, videos, blogs, press releases, or celebrity gossip will be allowed. All posts will be judged on a case-by-case basis. Mods may use discretion to pre-approve videos or press releases from highly credible sources that provide unique, newsworthy content not available or possible in another format.
If an article has already been posted, it will be removed. Different articles reporting on the same subject are permitted. If the post that matches your post is very old, we refer you to rule 5.
Misinformation / propaganda is strictly prohibited. Any comment or post containing or linking to misinformation will be removed. If you feel that your post has been removed in error, credible sources must be provided.
All posts must link to original article sources. You may include archival links in the post description. News aggregators such as Yahoo, Google, Hacker News, etc. should be avoided in favor of the original source link. Newswire services such as AP, Reuters, or AFP, are frequently republished and may be shared from other credible sources.
For copyright reasons, you are not allowed to copy an entire article into your post body. This is an instance wide rule, that is strictly enforced in this community.
go to feed...
CEOs have not been held accountable for their actions by the legal system. This is inevitable with the way the United States is set up
save