Transcript of Police: Shooter may have used veterinary gun to kill UnitedHealthcare CEO

The breaking news. We've got new details about the gun used by the suspected shooter. Police revealing just moments ago that they are looking into the possibility, as you look here, that the assassin used, right there, let's pause it, that gun in his hand as a veterinarian gun. That's a larger firearm. It's used on farms and ranches.

Police are also revealing they're talking to Brian Thompson's family as well as people he worked with and local law enforcement in Minnesota. They're saying so far, they don't have any indications that the killing had anything to do with his personal life. Back with me now, the former Boston Police Commissioner Ed Davis and former NYPD detective David Sarni. Okay. Obviously, you know, this is, at this point, moving very quickly here on this Friday night.

Ed, can I just start with you this gun? And we were freeze framing it there. You know, we've heard about it, that there there were a couple of jams, right, that might have had to do with the silencer so far. But now this new reporting, a larger sort of rifle used to put down animals on farms. What what sort what would that actually reveal about this killer that he would have had such a gun?

Hi, Yaron. There there certainly have been a number of theories as to why that, that gun had to be cocked so many times. And and frankly, this is a valid explanation for it. If this is a specialized weapon that's used on a farm, it wouldn't it wouldn't need to be, automatically, able to fire after each round. It would be something that you could, do a single shot with.

And it appears as though that's what's happening here. Now that would lead 1 to believe that there may be some nexus to rural areas of the country. And this is either someone who's been aggrieved by the insurance company or maybe even an activist that is making a statement, about, business.

Right. So, you know, David, this is obviously new information, but can I just ask you your your instinct on how hard it would be to obtain something like this? And I I guess to say the obvious, I don't wanna say a normal person because we're not talking about a normal person, but it isn't obviously the first, second, or even 3rd or even 15th kind of thing you'd think of in terms of a gun. Right? It is very specific.

Right?

Definitely very specific, and accessibility always deals with firearms. And that's why when this video came out, everybody was already making perceptions. And the benefit of this is with when when you start researching this and start doing the work, you find out more nuances about this firearm. We thought it was jammed as as, former commissioner said. This is an unusual type of firearm to bring, but it comes back to accessibility.

Someone had access to this. Did the shooter have it? Did he obtain access from someone else? Did he steal the gun from a location? And there is some slight of proficiency into utilizing the firearm.

So is he the 1 that owned that gun? Because that gun is you know, usually when it comes to firearms, the gun usually floats from place to place, person to person. Usually, when it comes to the legal firearm, this may be something that he possessed or he obtained possession of it from someone else.

John, obviously, a lot of new developments today. The idea, first of all, on this gun is interesting. The idea that it could be a veterinary or gun that veterinary veterinarians use.

Yeah. What chief Kenny is talking about is after this assassination, you know, the NYPD went to its firearms experts and said, what is this gun with this enormous silencer? And they examined it closely. It's a blurry shot, but they also looked at the way he was manipulating the weapon. And they said, you know, that looks like the B&T VP 9.

Now as you see, it has this large extended silencer that that is screwed onto a threaded rather short barrel. But the way the gun works is you fire it with that trigger, and then it doesn't automatically load the next round. Uh-huh. You have to pull back on the rear of that slide and then let it go to eject 1 round and feed the next in. If we look at that videotape taken during the actual shooting, you see him fire the gun.

He's pulling back, firing the gun. I see.

It's pulling back. Necessarily that it jammed per se?

Right. So that's the the question. And here's the investigative conundrum, which is he's manipulating that gun that appears to be this, you know, kind of assassin's weapon, but they also found shell casings on the ground, but they also found live rounds. So the question is, was he familiar enough with the working of the weapon? Did he

It does look like in the second I mean, there's if we re rack it, he he fires. He he does it. He he fires, I mean, he like, there, and then he fires. And then he seems to, like, tap it 2 or 3 times.

Right. So either he's undergoing a malfunction, because he doesn't know how that weapon works, or, I mean, it's a blurry shot. It may be another weapon, even a ghost gun with a large suppressor or silencer Scott,

what do you mean?

Like you mentioned, either, there was a malfunction where he was doing the the drill tap rack ready to cycle another round in there, or he got overzealous and he cycled 2 rounds there instead of just pulling it back and letting 1 round cycle into the chamber.

But there's a there's a weird cultural thing here. I mean, you wouldn't be committing a professional murder with a veterinarian, a veterinary's gun, but, this gun is based on the design of something called the Welrod. And even going back to the British and the allied forces in World War 2 in the 19 forties, the Welrod was the assassin's weapon. It, when you fire it with that suppressor, you get a sound like a book hitting a table in a library.

And the idea why a vet would have that is so that it doesn't disturb, I guess, other animals.

Exactly. It's practically silent. It's a it's a it's a significant round. It's a 9 millimeter round, and it's it's it's meant for close-up killing. It's meant for vets to kill an animal by shooting it in the head or or somewhere, you know, that's gonna be fatal, but it would work the exact same way on humans very effectively and extraordinarily quietly.

Juliet, if if he's going I mean, if he commits this murder, gets on the bike, goes through Central Park, goes up to, you know, into the eighties on the west side, hops in a cab, goes to the bus station, I assume those are all things he if he came to this city, there's not a lot of people who aren't from this city would even know about that bus station up by the George Washington Bridge. And I don't know if that's 1 of the things in the 10 days of reconnaissance that while he was in the city that he learned about, but there can have been at that time in the morning that many busses going to places from that bus terminal by the George Washington Bridge. I don't know how how busy that that terminal is, but it's gotta be less busy than Port Authority.

Right. And it it is. And, but what we do know from this activity is he planned his exit and probably his exit from the city almost as carefully as he planned the assassination. So this is someone who's thinking of the full circle. This is not a mass shooting.

It's not a suicide. It's, it is it is someone who wanted to get out and thought through it. And all those actions that you just said, not once does he stop, not once does he surveys, not once do we see his face. So I have been writing and saying, you know, whatever we think this is, this is someone, you know, the the police are doing 1 thing, and they are bumping up against his anticipate his his the anticipation he had that they would do exactly that. And he is, he is playing not play it's sort of like a cat cat and mouse now.

The surveillance has not been as fruitful as we wish. The even the face, that we see is not is apparently not showing a match. He he kind of knows how to cover himself. And so in some ways, this surveillance state, which exists in this city, it's a dense city, it's got lots of cameras, in in some ways, he was surveying it and knew how to get around it.

Scott, I mean, how much does him leaving the city, if in fact, that's what he did. We know he got into the bus station. We don't know no video of him leaving. How much does that complicate the law enforcement manhunt?

Well, now now it's completely expanded tenfold here in where he could be, and he's had how many days now advance on law enforcement there to, you know, work himself out of the New York City City area. Obviously, it was it'd be easier to try to corral them within the city because there are all these choke points, right, with bridges and tunnels and the way out there through bus, train, plane. And, you know, I figured he was gonna come in and go out by bus because there's less scrutiny there with not having to provide identification, no screening of bags there.

So that's with a weapon.

Right? If he's bringing the weapon in here, then he can do that obviously a lot easier on bus and potentially on a train, but not on a plane, obviously.

The you know, John, we we've been talking about how how why wasn't the bag found, in the last couple days, Central Park. You know, if he was only in that park for 15 minutes, we know generally where he entered and where he exited, there's a limited route you can you can travel. Would I know they're being very careful, and and as Ramona's reporting there, you used an excavator, and they got the surrounding material as well in case he spit or there's any DNA in on the ground. But would somebody have immediately looked inside the bag, I mean, with a Tyvek suit and you know, just to see, is the gun there?

Their instructions were, if you find it, freeze the location. Do not touch it. Wait for the detectives, wait for the crime scene unit, and let them package this up because this is 1 of these things where even touching it or going through it with rubber gloves, you can smudge prints, move DNA, contaminate it with your own material. When they go to trial, they wanna be able to testify this was all done with perfect procedure in terms of trying to preserve that evidence and then extract that evidence.

You know, we know it's oh, interesting, though. He wanted to escape, but he also wanted to leave behind bullets that have these words written on them.

That's exactly right. He is he is the the master of of of sort of wanting to be seen, but not wanting to be found. And this gets to, you know, what we've all been talking about, this sort of the creation of a cult around him, the him becoming a sort of folk hero for people who don't like their health insurance companies. I think it's disgusting, but nonetheless, the fact that he seems to come from nowhere and go nowhere, the NYPD is now at day 3, almost day 4, you know, and and nowhere closer, is part of what he's able to manipulate. So, I think he is using technology, media, these hints of the bullets, the the coy smile while flirting, but not enough to know who he is.

All of that is show someone who who I think is sophisticated at least in in media and and and and creating this aura around him.