By Daily Mail (U.S.) | Created at 2024-12-05 18:37:07 | Updated at 2024-12-22 16:23:43
2 weeks ago
Columbia University professor Anthony Zenkus sparked outrage with his distasteful response to the murder of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson.
Thompson, 50, was fatally shot while on his way to an investor conference at the New York Hilton Midtown Manhattan early Wednesday.
Police are hunting for his assassin who was pictured for the first time grinning in surveillance footage images released by the NYPD on Thursday.
Zenkus, a social work professor at Columbia and Adelphi University, implied people should not mourn Thompson's death.
'Today, we mourn the death of United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson, gunned down.... wait, I'm sorry - today we mourn the deaths of the 68,000 Americans who needlessly die each year so that insurance company execs like Brian Thompson can become multimillionaires,' he said.
Furious commenters called out Zenkus for brushing off the father-of-two's heinous murder and blaming him for the deaths of others.
'This is incredibly insensitive. He’s a father gunned down on the street. Have some compassion and humanity,' one person said.
'It just doesn’t matter to heartless hypocrites like you that he had a wife and 2 kids, as long as you get to exploit a murder in the cause of your proletariat. Maybe he was working to prevent needless deaths. You don’t know & don’t care,' said another.
Columbia University professor Anthony Zenkus (pictured) said he will not be mourning Thompson's death
Thompson, 50, was fatally shot while on his way to an investor conference at the New York Hilton Midtown Manhattan early Wednesday
'The idea that Brian Thompson deserved to die because he was a rich healthcare executive appears to be...a disturbingly popular sentiment,' a third person said.
You cannot claim to be the movement of compassion & tolerance while gleefully celebrating a dad of two getting shot to death. So vile.'
Zenkus is an activist on issues of racial justice, income inequality and climate justice, according to his Columbia biography.
In 2016, he gave a TEDx Talk on the ways in which income inequality and racism affect the brains and behavior of children. He also serves as an expert on family violence and trauma in television, print and digital media.
Some accused Zenkus of making a false equivalency and stated he would not be posting about people who died from illnesses their health insurance does not cover if Thompson had not been murdered.
'If the CEO didn’t get killed I wouldn’t have seen a single post about the 68k referenced in this post and I never did before but since he did it’s all I see, we don’t care about people and their problems until it’s the trend to do so. We’re all guilty of it at times including me,' one person said.
Others criticized Columbia for not having a social media policy and allowing their professors to post such things.
'Universities really need to start figuring out social-media policies. There are too many idiots on their faculties spouting nonsense that is totally unrelated to their work (and thus not w/in the bounds of academic freedom) and who are bringing disrepute to serious academics,' one person said.
Police are hunting for his assassin who was pictured for the first time grinning in surveillance footage images released by the NYPD on Thursday
'Wild to see a Columbia professor actively celebrating a cold blooded murder. He even has “anti-violence” in his profile,' said another.
Thompson's widow Paulette said her husband, who she is separated from, had been receiving threats in the run up to the shooting, but Thompson chose to travel to New York anyway to head up his company's investors conference.
He was set to announce the company's hugely profitable 2025 financial outlook, including expected revenues upwards of $450 billion.
Investigators searching the scene of the crime found bullet casings inscribed with the words: 'Deny', 'defend', and 'depose' - which many linked to a 2010 book by author Jay M. Feinman on the viciousness of the health insurance industry.
The gunman appeared to be lying in wait as he headed towards the hotel at around 6.45am.
Surveillance footage captured the moment he opened fire on the executive, shooting him in the back and leg before fleeing the scene on foot.
Police said he then hopped on a bike and headed towards Central Park. He currently remains at large.
