This is a genuine question.
I have a hard time with this. My righteous side wants him to face an appropriate sentence, but my pessimistic side thinks this might have set a great example for CEOs to always maintain a level of humanity or face unforseen consequences.
P.S. this topic is highly controversial and I want actual opinions so let’s be civil.
And if you’re a mod, delete this if the post is inappropriate or if it gets too heated.
This is a good question from the wrong angle. This event is cathartic for many people because the ultra rich who ruin countless lives never get punished. When they see “consequences” it’s a golden parachute. This event is frustrating because the media, legal, and security apparatuses expect us to treat this assassination as a grave act, but actively normalize the acts of harm Thompson and other leaders like him commit every day.
This event is revealing in stark terms the divide between the elite and the average person. Should murderers be prosecuted? Sure - in a world where justice and the rule of law matter for everyone equally. Doesn’t feel like we live in that world.
If murderers got prosecuted equally this CEO should have had a day in court years ago.
He’s been climbing the ladder at United for 20 years. Many years ago indeed.
If he gets caught, then I’d say yes. Murder should be treated as murder regardless of what the reason is. Making exceptions is never a good idea.
I just hope he doesn’t get caught.
Then all of the healthcare companies that allow people to die because they will not cover them need to be prosecuted, every executive, every decision maker.
The greatest evil is not now done in those sordid “dens of crime” that Dickens loved to paint. It is not done even in concentration camps and labour camps. In those we see its final result. But it is conceived and ordered (moved, seconded, carried, and minuted) in clean, carpeted, warmed, and well-lighted offices, by quiet men with white collars and cut fingernails and smooth-shaven cheeks who do not need to raise their voice.
CS Lewis - Screwtape Letters (preface)
Trinity: what is he doing?
Morpheus: he’s beginning to believe…
Exactly. :)
Don’t threaten me with a good time.
Brian Thompson and his co-workers murder hundreds of thousands of people with systemic neglect, spreadsheets, and lawyers. They murder in broad daylight, during business hours. And yet they’re comfortable, well paid, successful people who will never see a day in jail. What they’re doing isn’t even considered a crime.
I hope he doesn’t get caught, also. Because the same laws that protect those fucking ghouls will crush him for bringing attention to the grift.
they’re comfortable, well paid, successful people who will never see a day in jail.
They also run the risk of getting assassinated by the people who they have exploited, so we’ll see how comfortable they remain in the future.
I just hope he doesn’t get caught.
he will get caught. they already have his photo, he is not professional hitman, he can only evade for so long when there is the whole country’s law enforcement after him.
Except the photo they have of him with his face visible isn’t even the same guy. Doesn’t even have the same clothes or backpack. So unless this dude is proficient at changing his clothes and ditching a backpack all while riding an electric scooter down the street in New York, then they have the wrong guy in that photo.
wtf are you talking about? they have multiple photos and it is obviously the same person
The multiple photos with a face showing, has a different coat, hood, and backpack. Go look again.
can you link what you mean?
Sure thing:
https://sh.itjust.works/post/29120957
The hoods don’t even match. And the backpacks are different too, one had light gray straps, the other is black. And basically 50% of NYC dudes carry black backpacks.
you do understand that these photos are from different place and different time, right?
the black backpack seems more like some shoulder duffel bag to me i assume it is from the hostel checkin. people don’t travel around the city with the same luggage they used for inter-city travel.
people also can have different clothes for different occasion, like putting on some light rain or wind-proof jacket. it can also be shitty compression from some shitty camera.
it is the same person ffs, look at his face, that nose could have passport of its own.
yes, of course. and found not guilty, to send a message.
Do you want to see the people who killed Osama Bin Laden prosecuted?
Because the United Heath CEO killed far more people, including many more children, than Bin Laden did on 9/11.What murderer? There’s an alleged person who allegedly may or may not have allegedly done something that allegedly resulted in the alleged death of that CEO. Allegedly.
Unfortunately this is America, and as members of Congress have publicly stated, there’s just nothing we can do about domestic gun violence. So even if an alleged person allegedly committed an alleged crime with a firearm, the system’s hands are tied.
Oh well. Anyway I’m gonna go eat some cake, since it’s all I have.
Maybe get a fine for .0005% of their net worth. You know, so they don’t do it again.
That’s how it works, right?
Even if he’s caught. Dudes going to get off if he demands a Jury trial. Not a single middle class or poor individual in America has a positive relationship with health insurance. Hell how does a prosecutor even screen jurors for this type of trial?
Bribery
Yes, I do.
I want the state to make it crystal clear that this guy was the shooter. That he did it. That he had no legal justification to do it. That his actions were undeniably criminal, and that his crime was clearly premeditated.
And then I want a jury of his peers to return a “not guilty” verdict, and every scumbag business executive across the country suddenly deciding to take an early retirement.
His jury can’t return that not guilty verdict if he isn’t prosecuted.
No. I hope he’s never found. I hope it destroys the careers of all the cops and politicians blowing shitloads of resources looking for him while they barely look at crimes against normal people. I hope all these insurance executives wake up in a cold sweat every night worrying that they’ll be next. That’s what’s best for the world.
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An answer to a different question, but if he gets caught I hope that the media gives him the same treatment as school shooters; plastering his image everywhere, distributing his manifesto and transforming him into an antihero.
Update: It’s happening!
Jury selection question to weed out biased jurors: “Have you ever had a claim that was unfairly denied?”
Weeks later: “We have been unable to find enough jurors to try the case.”
ITT: Nobody understands the difference between being prosecuted and convicted.
He should absolutely be prosecuted, he murdered someone. Should he be convicted of this murder? Fuck no, and I actually think a jury might agree with me.
Why is violence legal when the government does it but not for regular people who have exhausted their peaceful options? Escalation of force gets justified all the time for cops and waging wars.
The monopoly on the use of force is quite the important part of having a state at all. If a state doesn’t have that, it descends into anarchy (the bad kind, with warlords and gangs). The US is very exceptional in this case as it has in its constitution the provision that such gangs (militia) are allowed, even desirable.
Yes, and if they use that monopoly of power to suppress and harm people then they will quickly lose that monopoly. A state is run by the people, if that changes the people will attempt to take control back.
Seems like something a politician in power would say.
It’s basic state theory, I believe we had that in middle school, along with the division of power. I mentioned the US exception because if you went to school there, your basic state theory might have been different from mine.
Jury nullification would be nice.
Yes, but only in a legal environment where showing that this CEO made decisions for their own profit that would reasonably predictably lead to some number of deaths (10, 100, 1000?) would validate a defense of defense of others.
