Columbia University professor Anthony Zenkus sparked outrage with his distasteful response to the murder of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson.
Thompson, 50, was shot dead early Wednesday as he headed to an investor conference at the New York Hilton Midtown Manhattan.
Police are searching for his killer, who was first pictured grinning in surveillance footage released by the NYPD on Thursday.
Zenkus, a professor of social work at Columbia and Adelphi University, suggested that people should not mourn Thompson’s death.
“Today we mourn the death of United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson, shot… wait, I’m sorry – today we mourn the deaths of the 68,000 Americans who die needlessly every year to make insurance company executives like Brian Thompson multi-millionaires.” , he said.
Furious commentators called out Zenkus for brushing off the gruesome murder of the father-of-two and blaming him for the deaths of others.
‘This is incredibly insensitive. He is a father who was shot in the street. Have some compassion and humanity,” one person said.
‘For heartless hypocrites like you, it doesn’t matter that he had a wife and two children, as long as you can exploit a murder for the cause of your proletariat. Perhaps he was doing his best to prevent unnecessary deaths. You don’t know and you don’t care,” said another.
Professor Anthony Zenkus (pictured) of Columbia University said he will not mourn Thompson’s death
Thompson, 50, was shot dead early Wednesday as he headed to an investor conference at the New York Hilton Midtown Manhattan.
“The idea that Brian Thompson deserved to die because he was a wealthy healthcare executive seems to be a disturbingly popular sentiment,” a third person said.
You cannot claim to be the movement of compassion and tolerance while gleefully celebrating a father of two being shot dead. So mean.’
Zenkus is an activist on racial justice, income inequality and climate justice, according to his Columbia biography.
In 2016, he gave a TEDx Talk about the ways income inequality and racism affect children’s brains and behavior. He also serves as an expert on domestic violence and trauma in television, print and digital media.
Some accused Zenkus of making a false equivalency, stating that he would not post about people dying from diseases their health insurance did not cover if Thompson had not been killed.
‘If the CEO hadn’t been killed I wouldn’t have seen a single post about the 68k referenced in this post and I never have before but since he did it’s all I see, we don’t care about people and their problems until it is the trend to do so. We’re all guilty of it sometimes, myself included,” 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 devising social media policies. “There are too many idiots in their faculties who spout nonsense that has absolutely nothing to do with their work (and therefore does not fall within the bounds of academic freedom) and who discredit serious academics,” said one.
Police are hunting for his killer, who was first pictured grinning in surveillance footage 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, from whom she is divorced, had received threats in the lead-up to the shooting, but Thompson still chose to travel to New York to chair his company’s investor conference.
He would announce the company’s hugely profitable financial outlook for 2025, including projected revenues of more than $450 billion.
Investigators searching the crime scene found bullet casings with the words: “Deny,” “defend” and “depose” — which many linked to a 2010 book by author Jay M. Feinman about the cruelty of the health insurance industry.
The gunman appeared to be lying in wait as he walked toward the hotel around 6:45 a.m.
Surveillance footage captured the moment he opened fire on the director, shooting him in the back and leg before fleeing the scene on foot.
Police said he then got on a bicycle and rode toward Central Park. He currently remains at large.