Saturday Night Live came under fire after mocking the murder of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson in New York City.
Colin Jost, who hosts SNL’s Weekend Update with Michael Che, criticized the police investigation as the murder suspect was able to flee the crime scene on a bicycle and take a bus out of town.
“This week, New York City officials sent a tough message on crime,” Jost began the segment. “If you shoot someone in the middle of the street, you better get on your bike, get on a bus and get out of here, sir.”
Jost also noted that the two predominant reactions to the murder of the 50-year-old health insurance executive, which occurred in Midtown Manhattan on Wednesday, did not include sympathy for him or his family.
Americans seem more focused on UnitedHealthcare’s disturbing history of denying insurance claims, or on how “attractive” the suspect is based on the photo of him smiling at a shelter worker he was flirting with, according to Jost.
“It really says something about America that a man was murdered in cold blood and the two main reactions were, ‘Yeah, well, healthcare sucks,’ and also, ‘Girl, that shooter is hot,'” she said.
Che expanded on the joke, suggesting that the name of the shelter worker who flirted with the alleged murderer was ‘Lucky S. Bechalive.’
Later in the segment, Jost again upset the NYPD, who recently began searching Central Park Lake after finding the alleged shooter’s purse nearby.
Colin Jost, co-host of Saturday Night Live’s Weekend Update with Michael Che, began the segment by mocking the murder of the UnitedHealthcare CEO.
Brian Thompson (pictured), who had been CEO of UnitedHealthcare since April 2021, was rushed to Mount Sinai Hospital after the shooting and was later pronounced dead.
A mysterious gunman (pictured in surveillance footage) shot and killed Brian Thompson, 50, CEO of America’s largest health insurer, in midtown Manhattan early Wednesday morning.
“It’s also crazy that the shooting happened three blocks from here in broad daylight, and the guy took off on his bike, probably because they have every cop in the city guarding our Christmas tree,” he said, making reference to the tree that was recently placed. and illuminated at Rockefeller Center.
Jost’s last comment was about the Port Authority bus station from where the alleged shooter left town shortly after shooting Thompson to death.
“The NYPD now believes the suspect left the city on a bus from the Port Authority,” Jost said. “Thanks, but a Port Authority passenger who looks like a murderer actually expands the search.”
Some on social media thought these jokes were ‘classless‘ and ‘awful‘ for making light of Thompson’s death.
One person thought SNL’lowered to a new low‘ and criticized the show for its supposedly ‘liberal’ perspective.
‘Saturday Night Live has really fallen to a new low. The death of CEO Brian Thompson should be no joke! I’m so tired of your liberal bullshit! “It used to be fun, but now they’re focusing on the View audience,” they wrote.
However, Jost and Che’s latest outing as fictional news anchors, in which they also joked about Pete Hegseth’s struggles during his nomination as Secretary of Defense, was mostly praised by viewers.
The latest development in the citywide search for Thompson’s killer, who ran the country’s largest health insurer since 2021, is that police may have a name for the suspect.
The unidentified man who shot and killed the CEO of UnitedHealthcare was seen at a nearby Starbucks counter moments before opening fire.
Asked Saturday if investigators knew his name, New York City Mayor Eric Adams said, “We don’t want to reveal that right now,” according to the New York Post.
“If we do it, we’re basically giving a tip to the person we’re looking for and we don’t want to give them any advantage,” the former NYPD captain added.
‘Let him continue to believe that he can hide behind the mask. We reveal his face. We are going to reveal who he is and we are going to bring him to justice… The net is tightening.’
The NYPD released new photos of the killer Saturday night. He has been described as white and is around 6’1″ tall, but hardly any other details have been given.
Police said the killer shot Thompson in the back and leg outside the New York Hilton Midtown on West 54th Street around 6:45 a.m. Wednesday.
Thompson was addressing United Healthcare’s annual investor conference in the Hilton ballroom, where he was expected to reveal that the company expected record sales of $450 billion.
The masked killer fired several shots during the ambush and even jammed his gun in the process, which he managed to quickly clear to continue shooting.
Thompson was rushed to Mount Sinai Hospital in critical condition, but died shortly after from his injuries.
He is survived by his wife Paulette ‘Pauley’ Thompson, 51, and their two children who live in the family’s $1.5 million home in Maple Grove, Minnesota.
Following the shooting, the suspect was detained at 86th Street and Columbus Avenue two minutes after leaving Central Park on Manhattan’s Upper West Side.
One of the images shows the killer, who is wearing a clean coat and a mask, walking along a Manhattan sidewalk.
Ammunition found near Thompson’s body bore the words “delay,” “deny” and “depose,” imitating a phrase used by critics of the insurance industry.
The killer fled the scene on an electric bicycle down 6th Avenue toward Central Park, and was seen leaving the park at 6:56 a.m.
The last images of the killer appear to have been taken inside the taxi that picked him up at 86th Street and Columbus Avenue two minutes after leaving Central Park.
By retracing the gunman’s steps using surveillance video, police say, it appears he left the city by bus about 45 minutes after the shooting.
He was seen on video at an uptown bus station, according to NYPD Chief of Detectives Joseph Kenny.
‘This is not Blue Blood. “We’re not going to solve this in 60 minutes,” Kenny told reporters Friday. “We’re poring over all the evidence we can find.”