New Yorkers hold UnitedHealthcare CEO shooter look-a-like contest

The contest appeared to celebrate the unidentified shooter who killed Thompson outside the Hilton Hotel in Midtown Manhattan last Wednesday, per the New York Post. A cash prize of $50 was set to be awarded to the winner of the contest.

The event follows a series of viral lookalike competitions in the city, which began in October with a Timothée Chalamet lookalike contest in Washington Square Park. That event gained widespread attention after Chalamet himself made a surprise appearance, and police intervened due to the large, unpermitted crowd, leading to several arrests. Similar contests have since been organized for other public figures.

Contestants were seen donning hooded outfits and masks resembling the shooter’s appearance in surveillance footage, while one participant wore a shirt emblazoned with the words “Deny,” “Defend,” and “Depose,” referencing the engravings reportedly found on the bullet casings used in the murder. The words are in reference to a phrase used by insurers to avoid paying claims to customers and defending their decisions to do so.

Freedom News TV captured footage from the event with a crowd gathering in Washinton Square Park to select a winner.

The competition comes amid widespread online support for the shooter, with some internet users applauding the crime and even calling the suspect attractive after a surveillance image of him smiling while checking in to a hostel went viral. The photograph, taken right before the shooting took place, shows the suspect’s uncovered face, which law enforcement has shared in an effort to identify him

Thompson was gunned down around 6:45 am on Wednesday, with surveillance video footage capturing the hooded shooter using what appeared to be a suppressed handgun. The suspect is still at large, and his identity remains unknown.

The crime has drawn significant attention not only for its brazenness but also for the wave of online approval directed at the killer, as many have defended the shooter’s actions as part of a broader critique of the actions of insurance providers and the US healthcare system as a whole.