I don’t think the police have ANY idea who the shooter is*. Real life isn’t like crime shows where “facial rec” is immediate, complete and accurate. Even if they had prints, DNA, whatever, if the assassin isn’t in the system, you got bupkis for finding the guy.
He’ll be back living his life soon if he isn’t already, and as long as he does nothing to draw attention, it will stay that way.
*I mocked the FBI’s profiling earlier, I hope my prediction doesn’t come back to haunt me.
I posted in the P&E thread about how this incident reminded me of the plot of a Cory Doctorow novella called Radicalized. It’s the title story in a collection of 4 stories, that collection is one of my favorite books.
It might be the influence of the story, but I’m wondering if The Insurance Adjuster acted alone.
In the story, an online group of people who have been affected by the callous practices of the health insurance industry become increasingly radicalized and end up plotting a terror campaign against the industry, starting the kind of conversations that we are seeing now.
While it seems obvious that the shooter acted alone in the moment, I wonder if he may have moral support as well as assistance in the planning and escape, and if it’s possible that was organized online.
I’ve also wondered if this might be the act of a terminally ill person, someone with literally nothing left to lose.
My last thought is that while I’m not in favor of violence, in today’s society is often difficult to get people to pay attention to a serious issue, and this guy succeeded, at least in the moment.
We just had a major national election, and health care wasn’t a major issue on either side……both sides basically conceded that the system we have is “good enough”, even though one side thinks it goes too far in terms of helping people and the other side thinks it doesn’t go far enough.
(At the end of the day it gave us an adminstration that will probably give every citizen a bottle of colloidal silver and an annual green coffee enema and call it a health plan- but that’s for another thread.)
I don’t know if this violent act will be a precursor to change and if does I’ll be torn on whether the ends justified the means, but at least he got our attention.
Spotted this on Facebook this morning. Can’t confirm the authenticity but looks real enough to fool me, anyway. The absorptive pad in the background suggests it was just done.
Another gleaning from Facebook this morning. Makes one wonder how much staying power this episode has in becoming embedded in our culture. I suppose some of that will depend on whether the assassin is caught and, if so, what his motive turns out to be.
I remember seeing the Id cartoon in my teens so (cough) years before Mr. Brooks
At least 10 years, according to Wikipedia. The Peasants are Revolting was the 3rd Wizard of Id collection, published in 1971.
Probably already mentioned upthread but this has, in theory, much more potential to lead to copycatting than school shootings. School shooters almost always die or are captured, and are unanimously reviled for doing what they did.
This guy stands a decent chance of not being caught, of being jury-nullified even if he is, and has been widely lauded as a hero.
I think you are over stating things to a very large degree here.
When juries are handed the autopsy photos showing the damage done to the body, and photos of blood on the sidewalk, and hear about the widow and two young children, I doubt that there will be jury nullification.
Things get real in court rooms, unlike the spoutings of keyboard warriors in social media.
Yeah jury nullification pretty much isn’t a thing. One person bullshitting their way onto the jury and hanging it is probably possible.
The Jay Fienman Kindle book " Delay Deny Defend: Why insurance companies don’t pay claims and what you can do about it" has become an Amazon best seller. The paperback version has completely sold out but they are rushing a new printing.
The book is about the insurance industry in general. Health insurance, home owner’s and auto. Feinman is a lawyer and professor.
Here is his webpage: https://www.delaydenydefend.com/
Good luck finding twelve people who’ve never had a negative experience with the insurance industry.
Unlikely. School shootings are easy. The victims are literal children and much easier to find (in quantity, no less) than a CEO.
Each time the news has brought up Feinman and his book, they mention that Feinman has no comment on the current matter.
Probably wise.
Sit back, sell a bunch of books, don’t risk reputational damage by getting out ahead of any actual evidence, and don’t be seen as dancing on the grave by saying anything more topical or hard-hearted than whatever the book says.
And when he is caught, people will become distracted by the next Big Thing.
Certainly going forward CEOs will be even less easy targets. I can’t imagine any high-ranking officer of a health-insurance corporation walking anywhere alone anymore, at least for months to come.
Good times for the private-security industry!
It’ll be really interesting the first time they forget to screen the bodyguard prospects to ensure there isn’t a well armed man in proximity to the CEO who feels victimized by the CEO’s company somehow.
We are, but just in case anyone is worried, the particulars are unique but this sort of case study is actually very common and pretty well studied. I’m sure people are already collecting the memes and jokes and drawing the requisite analytical conclusions, and that there will be papers given on it in Atlanta in October.
One thing I have heard is that the investors were stepping over the body, and continued with the meeting despite the death. Anyone have info re this?
No. He arrived around 6:40, more than an hour before the meeting was to start at 8 am. He was shot around 6:45, police called by 6:46, taken to hospital (ironically, sounds like it was out-of-network) and pronounced dead around 7:15.
The meeting was cancelled once word of the shooting got out.