Hundreds of tips have been received, but the police are asking for more information

By Cristin Dusk | Dec 05, 2024 Updated 10:49 a.m. ET

One caller to the New York Police Department’s tip line was convinced that the man who shot and killed Brian Thompson on Wednesday was a former high school classmate from 40 years ago. Another posted a TikTok video and sent it to the tip line proclaiming, “I think that’s the guy,” according to the police.

One tipster sent photos of a man he called a dead ringer for the suspect to the police, adding arrows to point out facial resemblances. The tipster, Phil Watson, who shared his dossier on the doppelgänger with the Times, said in an email that he had yet to hear from detectives.

“I think they are overwhelmed,” Mr. Watson wrote.

Since Wednesday, when Brian Thompson, the 50-year-old chief executive of UnitedHealthcare, was shot and killed outside the New York Hilton Midtown, the police have received “hundreds of tips” from the public, said Carlos Nieves, the department’s assistant commissioner of public information. 

Detectives in the department’s Crime Stoppers bureau have been working straight through the night fielding tips that they then pass on to the investigators. No sooner do they finish one call than another one comes in, Mr. Nieves said.

Leads and theories are coming in via the tip line — 800-577-TIPS — or online, some drawn by the high-profile nature of the case and others perhaps by the offer of a reward of as much as $10,000, more than triple the usual amount for such cases.

The police are encouraging anyone with any information that they believe could lead to the killer to keep calling, Mr. Nieves said.

“You may think that piece of information is trivial,” he said. “But please give us that information and let us decide if it’s trivial or not.”

The smallest bit of information could be “the piece that puts all this together for us,” Mr. Nieves said.