Brian Thompson left his Luxury Collection Hotel in Midtown Manhattan around 6:44am yesterday morning, and crossed the street. His intended commute was less than 100 metres.

He did not make it.

Unbeknownst to him, a young man of athletic build, clad in black and covered with a face mask, watched Thompson from close quarters.

The sprightly, 50-year-old CEO of UnitedHealthcare wore an electric blue suit, which popped against the drab colours of 54th Street in the hour before sun-up. His stride, caught on CCTV, was that of a confident man: shoulders back, arms purposeful, fully awake to the possibilities of this day. He was early for his business’ annual investor conference.

It was not to be.

As Thompson nears the side-entrance of the giant Midtown Hilton on his right, the young man steps out from between two parked vehicles. We see him, on CCTV, confidently raise a Brügger & Thomet Station Six suppressed pistol with both hands. He takes rapid aim, and fires. There is no audio. Thompson stumbles towards the hotel wall, collapsing to his knees. For the briefest moment, he rotates his head to the left to comprehend the source of the assault. The young man is now advancing towards him. Further shots are fired.

Thompson, commander of one of the world’s biggest healthcare empires, lies dying on the street, as the morning traffic of Manhattan inches slowly by. He is swiftly brought to Roosevelt Hospital where, at 7h12am, he is “declared”.

***

Not declared dead. Just “declared”.

This euphemism belongs to New York City Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch, who leads the incident’s first press conference, hours later.

Euphemisms would ripple throughout that day.

CCTV footage makes it clear that the assailant is a man. Perhaps half of the broad media coverage I have consumed on this topic describes the gunman as “a person”. Apparently, their aversion to misgendering a murderer is stronger than their desire to catch him.

Almost all outlets air tape of the masked gunman taking aim, then firing. The first spasmodic reaction of Thompson is frozen on their last frame. The New York Post, ever the innovator, closes the deal. It offers its viewers the whole crime, and the getaway. As a touching mark of respect, softening software is used to obscure Thompson’s features, in the manner of a photographed child of a celebrity.

Shells and cartridges were found on that length of pathway which separated the victim and his assassin. Inscribed onto each were words, redolent of the modus operandi of health insurance companies in avoiding coverage of their customers, according to their legion of critics.

Deny, depose, delay.

The police confirm that the murder has all the appearances of a targeted crime. The mainstream media report this faithfully, while coyly asserting that the assailant’s motive is fully, completely, and curiously unknown.

What comports a real story, fairly told for society? Thompson’s murder forces a question with more than one possible answer.

Is it reasonable to acknowledge a targeted murder of one of the wealthiest executives in America, running the world’s largest healthcare insurance provider, operating in a category loathed by its own customers, and declare that the motive for the killing is a complete mystery? I know it’s respectful – kind, even – but is it reasonable?

***

As I write, the story is developing.

The smiling face of a young man, at the reception of an Upper Westside hostel during the day before the murder, has just hit the internet. He shares the frame and clothing choices of the assailant.

This ‘person of interest’ rented a bed in one of the hostel’s male dormitories that night. A timeline of his movements has been assembled by law enforcement.

The photo is a clear one. He must surely be identified by name over the course of the coming day, and located soon thereafter.

At every level of the assailant’s actions, I see tangled emotions. He announces his agenda by way of engraved bullet shells; he needs a Starbucks’s energy bar to boost him, two blocks away from murder; he smiles broadly – warmly, perhaps – at the receptionist of the hostel, hours before murder.

At every level I note his amateurism. He does not wear gloves; his backpack is a designer affair and highly identifiable; he appears to have dropped a cellphone in a nearby alleyway; he grabs an e-bike and takes the quickest route, via Central Park, back towards the hostel. And he commits his crime in the most video-monitored island in the world.

I also see assuredness. We will learn how he came to know Thompson’s early morning movements in such detail – because he did; his gun-handling was, in the words of Chief of Detectives Joseph Kenny, ‘proficient’; and he displayed sang froid in his manner of departing from the scene.

***

There are two principal motivations for Thompson’s murder. And they are linked.

Either it was perpetrated by some individual [or group] who directly reviles what they see as happening in the health insurance industry, leading to a vendetta against Thompson, his company, or both. Or a third-party perpetrator is using the revulsion of practices by America’s health insurance industry as a decoy, for more personal ends.

Separated father-of-two Brian Thompson headed an organisation of 140,000 people serving over 50,000,000 people. By most reckonings, he was the master puppeteer of his world – influencing, by his decisions, the lives of employees and customers.

But the puppet master is also the puppet.

Thompson’s death will immediately be hijacked away from his loved ones, to highlight the inadequacies of the health insurance industry. He is no longer a CEO, but a new battle line. American health insurance is famously reticent to extend coverage and meet claims, which seems so deeply unfair to the insured. The latter observe staggering profits delivered to the oligarchs, when all the time, treatable illness goes untreated.

The tectonic plates of injustice bristle at every layer of Nature. Deep down, CEOs of the totemic industries which materially impact our quality of life fully know it. Yet these sophisticated, accomplished people are often blind to the unending job-at-hand: more fairly balancing the interests of shareholders, with those of employees, customers, and the world at large.

A sword of Damocles hangs, on a horse hair, high above the kingpins of life. How strange that, on occasion, it is controlled by a young man who shares a hostel dormitory with perfect strangers.