United Healthcare CEO shot and killed

[superrific]

Regarding Starbucks, he had his mask up at the time, and we already know that although he’s capable and reasonably intelligent and well-funded, he’s not a well-oiled killing machine.

Regarding the F train, I posted the exact thing the other day when I called attention to the apparent gap in surveillance from around 5a when he left the hostel area, to 6:15a when he popped up at the F stop. The only ways to get to that stop from where he started at 5a are circuitous and pretty unlikely. He would’ve had to really bungle his subway route to have it take 1 hour 15 mins and end up at that station.

So what he was doing from 5a to 6:15a remains a big question for me. Hopefully the investigators have lots more details on that they’re not sharing.

1. I don't think you have to be a well-oiled killing machine to know DON'T GO TO FUCKING STARBUCKS in advance of your well-planned hit. It boggles the mind that he planned out everything in such detail, but not his water and protein bars. And face recognition software is really good. Wearing a mask doesn't make you unidentifiable by machine. You really need to cover your eyes.

In fact, how did they know he was at the hostel? It had to be face recognition software, yes? Do they call every single hostel/hotel in the city, show them this video, and ask "have you seen this guy"? Doesn't seem like something that could be done in a day. Has to be some facial recognition software, yes?

2. As for 5:00-6:15, we can probably rule out getting early breakfast at Denny's. LOL. Maybe he stopped by Tom's Diner or the Soup Nazi for the authentic Seinfeld experience?

One thing that I just remembered, though, is that the trains run really infrequently before 6:30. So 1h15 is not an unreasonable expectation of how long that subway trip would take starting at 5:00. Train might take 20-30 minutes to show up, and then you transfer to a train that also might take that long to show.

3. Why would you take a subway in the first place? There are cameras there. Take a yellow cab!! There are no cameras mandated in them, are there? There weren't 15 years ago but maybe things have changed.

I maintain that he could have grabbed some breakfast or protein bars or whatever on the UWS, hopped in a cab, and gotten out 8-10 blocks from the shooting, and he wouldn't have been detected at all. Nobody would know where he was coming from. There would be no leads. There would be no surveillance video. Maybe I'm missing something, given that I am not in fact skilled or experienced in traversing NYC without being detected. But subway just seems odd.

So he's wearing a mask, presumably to avoid identification. But he goes out of his way to put himself in two locations where there are undoubtedly cameras, and probably sophisticated ones at that? I don't know. Simplest explanation is that he didn't entirely know what he was doing, but the longer this guy remains on the loose (unless dead), the less eager I am to accept it.

 

[superrific]

Not to mention, it seems that if someone is going to agree to carry out a killing contracted by the victim, the killer is going to draw the line at doing it on a street in Midtown Manhattan in front of a hotel. “Okay I’ll do this for you, but let’s come up with places where there are less likely to be witnesses or surveillance cameras.”

Exactly, since they get to choose time and place. Do it like in Fletch. Just don't hire an investigative reporter to take the shot.

 

[NCK9]

Perhaps he checked into the hostel (and showed his face at checkin) 10 days in advance hoping the tapes/hard drive would be filled and recorded over by the time the crime was committed?

 

[Calheel]

1. I don't think you have to be a well-oiled killing machine to know DON'T GO TO FUCKING STARBUCKS in advance of your well-planned hit. It boggles the mind that he planned out everything in such detail, but not his water and protein bars. And face recognition software is really good. Wearing a mask doesn't make you unidentifiable by machine. You really need to cover your eyes.

In fact, how did they know he was at the hostel? It had to be face recognition software, yes? Do they call every single hostel/hotel in the city, show them this video, and ask "have you seen this guy"? Doesn't seem like something that could be done in a day. Has to be some facial recognition software, yes?

2. As for 5:00-6:15, we can probably rule out getting early breakfast at Denny's. LOL. Maybe he stopped by Tom's Diner or the Soup Nazi for the authentic Seinfeld experience?

One thing that I just remembered, though, is that the trains run really infrequently before 6:30. So 1h15 is not an unreasonable expectation of how long that subway trip would take starting at 5:00. Train might take 20-30 minutes to show up, and then you transfer to a train that also might take that long to show.

3. Why would you take a subway in the first place? There are cameras there. Take a yellow cab!! There are no cameras mandated in them, are there? There weren't 15 years ago but maybe things have changed.

I maintain that he could have grabbed some breakfast or protein bars or whatever on the UWS, hopped in a cab, and gotten out 8-10 blocks from the shooting, and he wouldn't have been detected at all. Nobody would know where he was coming from. There would be no leads. There would be no surveillance video. Maybe I'm missing something, given that I am not in fact skilled or experienced in traversing NYC without being detected. But subway just seems odd.

So he's wearing a mask, presumably to avoid identification. But he goes out of his way to put himself in two locations where there are undoubtedly cameras, and probably sophisticated ones at that? I don't know. Simplest explanation is that he didn't entirely know what he was doing, but the longer this guy remains on the loose (unless dead), the less eager I am to accept it.

I think you should be rightly skeptical of any reported sightings in the media. There are lots of skinny kids in hoodies in New York, and the possibility of mistaken identity (either accidental or intentional) is significant. We already had the erroneous Citybike claim. So, it is at least possible that he did not go to Starbucks.

Facial recognition technology works best with a straight on high-resolution shot that includes nose, eyes and cheeks. A grainy security camera shot with a mask is going to generate A LOT of false positives -- to the point that it would be useless. The one shot with his mask down will help to narrow down the list, but it still would include hundreds/thousands of hits (depending upon the database). At this point, police are likely hoping for a Boston Marathon white hat/black hat moment, where someone recognizes the picture and has reason to believe that the person may have been involved in the crime.

 

[superrific]

Facial recognition technology works best with a straight on high-resolution shot that includes nose, eyes and cheeks.

As of what date? Neural networks can be incredibly good at filtering out noise, and the power of neural network systems for pattern matching is even more powerful than LLMs. I would be shocked if, in 2024, the NYP still needs straight-on high-res shots.

 

[NCK9]

As of what date? Neural networks can be incredibly good at filtering out noise, and the power of neural network systems for pattern matching is even more powerful than LLMs. I would be shocked if, in 2024, the NYP still needs straight-on high-res shots.

Sure, but do they have direct feeds of security cameras feeding into their AI/Facial Recognition engine from every Hotel, Hostel, Starbucks, Bodega, and Food Cart in town? If so then 'Enemy of the State' has become a reality. My guess is someone at the hostel recognized the face and clothing and pulled the video from his check in 10 days ago.

 

[Calheel]

As of what date? Neural networks can be incredibly good at filtering out noise, and the power of neural network systems for pattern matching is even more powerful than LLMs. I would be shocked if, in 2024, the NYP still needs straight-on high-res shots.

Admittedly, I have no personal knowledge of the latest and greatest facial recognition software. Generally, I understand the technology never produces "matches" -- like say fingerprints or DNA -- but varying degrees of confidence of potential hits. And that the more data that needs to be interpolated, the less reliable the hits. I would be surprised if a grainy shot of just the eyes could produce meaningful investigative leads. Even the smiling shot would likely not get a true match (plus, there is the very significant database problem -- the shooter may not even be an American).

 

[Geisterfahrer]

One assumes that he was spending time scoping out the area and planning the job.

Just a random thought: do we know if the guy caught on camera at the Starbucks is actually the shooter? Is there an image of the shooter's face while doing the shooting? If so, the rest of this post is moot, but if not . . .

I've been suspicious of the Starbucks visit from the beginning. You don't need to go to Starbucks to get a coffee in NYC, not even in Midtown (at least that was true a decade ago). There are plenty of places to get coffee that wouldn't necessarily have high quality security cams, or the ability to search the video footage so quickly. Given the other details that we've seen now, I'm wondering if he was trying to get himself on camera.

So he leaves Starbucks, and he goes . . . somewhere completely different, while a guy he knows dressed similarly does the actual job. The guy on the video leads the manhunt into central park, the real shooter vanishes into Hell's Kitchen, and there's actually nothing tying Starbucks guy to the job. Maybe the cops have information we don't (they probably do!), but based on the evidence we've seen, even if they find the guy, they wouldn't be able to hold him long. There's nothing tying him to the crime other than being dressed the same way as the shooter.

I don't know. Often the Occam's razor explanation for stuff like this is "criminals aren't all that smart, which is why they are criminals," but that does not seem to be the case here. Here is a shooter who managed to get himself in exactly the same spot as the victim in a location that's at least semi-private, with an escape path, a possibly sophisticated weapon and firearms expertise. This doesn't seem to be a guy who would show his face unless he wanted people to see.

You are waaaayyy overthinking it, imho.

 

[duluoz]

Jeez. You don’t need advanced facial recognition technology or anything more sophisticated than a simple description of the guy, his build, clothing, accessories, etc. Then you go to the tapes. The city-owned network of surveillance, and the privately owned, business by business where you have your leads.

Human beings told them where the guy fled to, not machines… and the manual legwork of compiling the footage begins there. In addition to other tips which may cut the workload.

There doesn’t need to be any intricate network from sci-fi movies to go after a person of interest. Once they have a person of interest, then they can drill down into the evidence and likelihood of him being THE suspect to be charged and tried.

 

[superrific]

Admittedly, I have no personal knowledge of the latest and greatest facial recognition software. Generally, I understand the technology never produces "matches" -- like say fingerprints or DNA -- but varying degrees of confidence of potential hits. And that the more data that needs to be interpolated, the less reliable the hits. I would be surprised if a grainy shot of just the eyes could produce meaningful investigative leads. Even the smiling shot would likely not get a true match (plus, there is the very significant database problem -- the shooter may not even be an American).

1. I thought you might be relying on personal experience from a case you worked on.
2. Fingerprints and DNA also produce "varying degrees of confidence" of potential hits. Well, fingerprints at least. IDK about DNA. It's just that the confidence isn't quantified. Everything in neural networks is degree of confidence. ChatGPT uses degree of confidence when selecting words.
3. I just read something in the Times, talking to security experts and there was disagreement as to whether there was enough to go by. Knowing something about the neural networks but not about face recognition per se, I would say:

A. As mentioned, it's about confidence. The more information, the more confidence. Would this footage be enough to uniquely identify the suspect? Probably not. Would it be enough to be useful? Very useful? I would think so. You probably couldn't convict on that basis but you could definitely find the guy if he's in the databases, I think.

B. Neural networks are amazing at filling in gaps in their images. You can see videos of people blotting out like 75% of the pixels in an image and the system still identifies the picture correctly. I don't know about face recognition per se, which presents some special issues, but as part of a Kaggle contest I programmed a network to identify photos of whales in the ocean and I was getting 60-70% accuracy on very similar pictures even with some information removed. And that's just me and just on my laptop.

4. I was thinking about the shooter not being American a little while ago. It would explain staying at a hostel. I mean, NYC hotels are obviously used to foreign visitors, but if you're a young 20 something guy with an accent and you want to blend in, a hostel is the best place and that hostel in particular is very good, or at least it was when I stayed there 30 years ago. I didn't communicate with a single other person who didn't have a strong foreign accent, including front desk staff.

 

[superrific]

You are waaaayyy overthinking it, imho.

Probably. I'm not trying to right-think it. I'm taking a day off because I was in family court earlier this week and I'm fucking exhausted from it, physically and emotionally.

As long as I don't take my musings too seriously, is there anything wrong with some speculation?

 

[superrific]

Sure, but do they have direct feeds of security cameras feeding into their AI/Facial Recognition engine from every Hotel, Hostel, Starbucks, Bodega, and Food Cart in town?

I don't know. Probably not. The challenge here would be the data more than the recognition technology. Anyway, this is precisely why I would think, DON'T GO TO STARBUCKS. If there's any place on the way that might have a security system tied in with AI technology, it would be Starbucks. GET YOUR PROTEIN BARS FROM THE BODEGA!

 

[superrific]

Jeez. You don’t need advanced facial recognition technology or anything more sophisticated than a simple description of the guy, his build, clothing, accessories, etc. Then you go to the tapes. The city-owned network of surveillance, and the privately owned, business by business where you have your leads.

Human beings told them where the guy fled to, not machines… and the manual legwork of compiling the footage begins there. In addition to other tips which may cut the workload.

There doesn’t need to be any intricate network from sci-fi movies to go after a person of interest. Once they have a person of interest, then they can drill down into the evidence and likelihood of him being THE suspect to be charged and tried.

You don't *NEED* face recognition technology, but it sure would help. Going to "the tapes" would be arduous. And I promise you that the technology is not sci-fi. It's real. I guess you've written "intricate network" and that's fair, but the tech is not out-of-the-world.

Human beings told him where the guy fled to . . . except he hasn't been found, so maybe the human beings' reports were inaccurate, yes? I mean, we can't say, "humans did a great job of locating him" until, you know, he's located.

 

[superrific]

I think you should be rightly skeptical of any reported sightings in the media. There are lots of skinny kids in hoodies in New York, and the possibility of mistaken identity (either accidental or intentional) is significant. We already had the erroneous Citybike claim. So, it is at least possible that he did not go to Starbucks.

I just read that the sighting on 60th street was sans backpack. So one wonders if that's also bad information. Apparently the police searched the park and did not find the backpack. Wouldn't the police find the backpack if it was there? It's not as if it's a tiny device. So I would think that a) there's another person involved; or b) that wasn't him. As you've surely noticed, I'm a bit more sympathetic to "there's another person involved" speculation than other people, which is maybe why I latched onto this detail. It does strike me, though, that the options listed above, taken together, are way more likely than "cops couldn't find the backpack"

 

[duluoz]

I’m pretty sure that in some reporting somewhere, there was a photo of him wearing the backpack on the bike, entering the park at 6th/59th.

But at a quick search I’m not finding it now.

 

[superrific]

NYPD thinks he's left the city. His escape route was smart. Maybe he didn't care about the cameras because he's not in databases and he was either going to get away immediately, or get caught trying.

Per NYT:

Kenny told CNN that the person suspected of being the shooter rode a bike from near the shooting scene on West 54th Street to Central Park and left the park around 77th Street, still on the bike. Surveillance footage showed him walking near 86th Street and Columbus Avenue, where he got into a cab that took him to the Port Authority terminal near 178th Street and Broadway. “Those buses are interstate buses,” Kenny said. “That’s why we believe he may have left New York City.”

If only the guy who wanted to shoot Kav had been this smart.

 

[Geisterfahrer]

Probably. I'm not trying to right-think it. I'm taking a day off because I was in family court earlier this week and I'm fucking exhausted from it, physically and emotionally.

As long as I don't take my musings too seriously, is there anything wrong with some speculation?

Nope, not a thing wrong with that.

 

[NCK9]

You'd think once he made it to Central Park there were places that he could be off camera and make a clothing change (eg: exercise apparel, homeless guy, whatever blends in with 7:00AM Central Park in Dec).

 

[superrific]

The NYT also reports that they found DNA on a water bottle like the one he bought at Starbucks about two blocks from the scene.

Betcha that's not his DNA. That's why he went to Starbucks. Let's say it's a Dasani bottle. So he gets some empty Dasani bottle from somewhere (perhaps he was looking in trash cans on his way from the hostel), he buys a Dasani bottle at Starbucks to put that idea in everyone's head, and then he drops the empty Dasani bottle near the scene.

Maybe I'm overthinking it, and maybe I'm bored enough to want this guy to be The Jackal 2.0. But it would explain this fact that keeps gnawing at me.

 

[duluoz]

You don't *NEED* face recognition technology, but it sure would help. Going to "the tapes" would be arduous. And I promise you that the technology is not sci-fi. It's real. I guess you've written "intricate network" and that's fair, but the tech is not out-of-the-world.

Human beings told him where the guy fled to . . . except he hasn't been found, so maybe the human beings' reports were inaccurate, yes? I mean, we can't say, "humans did a great job of locating him" until, you know, he's located.

Going to the tapes is exactly what they did. The footage of him surfacing at 57th/6th immediately before going into Starbucks came from a high-end cigar shop. Almost every business has surveillance now, and as far as I know, so does every cab and rideshare vehicle. But these systems are not interconnected and are of varying degrees of sophistication, as are the people in charge of maintaining them.

I’m not even sure what you’re trying to argue anymore. The point is that splitting hairs over some network of cameras and facial recognition and AI that simply does not exist in NYC has pretty much nothing to do with identifying this suspect, in real life. Computers are not necessary for that. If we get into a trial and what is required for conviction, then sure that would’ve been a dream scenario to have a network like that in place. But it does not exist here, which is different from saying the tech or capability does not exist.

So in order to start tracking a guy, all that’s needed is “he went that way…” and then a shit ton of combing through surveillance while incorporating other tips and clues. Which is what happened, for better or worse.