litany or this laundry list of charges that we can run through, so to speak. it would seem also a little unethical to do so. >> i feel like i've also been well schooled by every former federal prosecutor who i know have known for a long time that you never want to bring a case, that you don't feel that you can win, especially as the prosecution. >> that's true. this is a tough one, though. i mean, you know, people are saying, you know, why did they bring this case? you know, you have a man dead and a situation where, you know, something happened. there's definitely a question on causation defense is pushing that but at the end of the day, he was alive. he was choked. he was dead so, you know, it's a case you bring if the grand jury says so, that's probably ultimately what they decided. >> jennifer rogers brother, great to have you both here. appreciate your insight. thank you. thank you. and thanks to >> tonight i'm erica hill in for laura coast tonight. stay tuned. anderson cooper 360 is next

tonight on 360. >> police say they have found a backpack in new york's central park. and a law enforcement source tells us investigators believe it belonged to the suspected assassin. a man they now think has fled the city and that is a photo of it. also, clues to the killer's motives, the evidence. so far, what the suspect did before and after the killing, and the picture it now paints for two expert profilers. plus how amateur sleuths across the internet are trying to analyze this photo. trying to do what the professionals still haven't and put a name to the face. good evening. thanks for joining us. there is a lot to get to on day three of the manhunt for the execution style killer of unitedhealthcare executive brian thompson. the day ends with this key discovery, as well as a stunning admission from new york police. they think their suspect is gone. the discovery first, take a look at the image obtained by abc news. what investigators believe to be the suspect's backpack they are now doing forensic testing on it including for dna. it was found in a southern part of central

park, which means closer to the crime scene where the killing took place than where the gunman actually exited the park not far from where the suspect entered in fact, on an e-bike fleeing north. now a law enforcement official telling us it was removed the backpack was by an excavator along with the surrounding material, dirt and other things that may have been around it and the no. officers picked it up to try to preserve any possible clues, any possible dna. now again, word of the discovery was preceded by the nypd's admission that the man they first referred to as a person of interest, this man who lowered his mask just long enough on this surveillance video to flirt with a woman at the hostel where he was staying, is now elsewhere we do have a person of interest in the case, and we have released the photo yesterday. >> we would appreciate you getting that photo out to your audience, because we also have reason to believe that the person in question has left new york city so we want a wider

audience to see the picture outside of new york city that's new york police commissioner jessica tish talking with cnn's shimon prokupecz. >> he joins us shortly with more from that conversation commissioner tish and chief of detectives joseph kenny was also part of that. now, again, this is who they now want people outside of new york to look out for the man who they said came here by bus ten days before the killing and who they now say also left by bus, not from the busy port authority terminal in midtown, but one more, one more than six miles farther uptown. next to the george washington bridge. it's a much smaller bus depot known mostly to new yorkers in that area and upper manhattan we have video of him entering the port authority bus terminal. >> we don't have any video of him exiting, so we believe he may have gotten on a bus so investigators say that his journey there began on foot at the crime scene in midtown manhattan. >> then on e-bike into central park after his execution style slaying, he exited the park

around 77th street, which is 23 blocks a mile or so from where the murder took place he then made his way to 85th street, where police have this video of him on the e-bike, which you've probably seen before. then officials say he walked up to 86th street and grabbed a cab to the george washington bridge bus station, 90 blocks away in new york's washington heights. and they believe left the city. now, we learned tonight, now, that this is a potentially nationwide manhunt, the fbi is involved as well as police in atlanta, where the bus the suspect first arrived on originated. don't know if he got on the bus in atlanta or if it was at some later stop. on top of that we also learned just moments ago that it was not two words written on two bullets delay and depose, but that a third shell bore the bore. the word deny. a senior law enforcement official telling cnn that a medical examiner is testing some of those items for any dna left on them and just before air time, we got this. the chief of detectives or chief of detectives kenney, telling the new york times that investigators are looking into

the possibility those shells may have used been used in what is known as a veterinary gun. this is a photo of it. a larger firearm used on farms and ranches. chief kenney saying, quote, if it has to get put down, the animal can be shot without the weapon causing a large noise there's a suppressor on it. again, new york's two top police officials spoke today with cnn's jahmyr gibbs, cnn shimon prokupecz, who joins us now from the upper west side of manhattan, where authorities believe the suspect caught that cab uptown to the bus station so the backpack that the nypd found believed to be belonged to the gunman. what more do we know about how they found it? where exactly was it? and what happens now well, it was during our interview with the police commissioner that we learned that they were actually back in central park doing a secondary search. >> and it was during that secondary search at around 5 p.m. or so that they found the backpack. and then what they did, as you said, anderson, is once they located the officers, located it they brought in

teams. they used an excavator so as to not disturb any of the contents, not to mess with anything that could be on there, like dna or other evidence. and so then they removed it not to disturb anything inside they even took dirt from the ground with it and now it's all being processed by lab technicians at the nypd. >> so the i mean, not only would the contents inside perhaps hold some dna, if there's the if the gun is actually inside the bag itself, there could even be dna i guess, on the shoulder straps. if he sweated onto the bag, he was carrying that around a lot right? >> there could be any kind of dna perhaps on there, you know. also given the proximity of him to the victim, you know, you never know. anderson. there could be blood on there. there could be other things. it's just very hard to know right

moving. you know, they had spent some time searching for it days ago after this shooting. and now today, finally, the nypd decided, let's go back. and in our interview today with the nypd, you know, we spoke at length about this investigation where it's at and what they are doing to try and locate the suspect. take a listen where are we in the investigation? where is this guy? who is this guy so i'll start by saying we have every reason to believe that this was a targeted attack on an individual rather than a random act of violence on new york city streets we do have a person of interest in the case, and we have released the photo yesterday. >> we would appreciate you getting that photo out to your audience because we also have reason to believe that the person in question has left new york city. so we want a wider

audience to see the picture outside of new york city. >> okay, so that's new information. and what is that based on why do you believe that this person has left new york city? >> so we have our perpetrator leaves the hilton hotel after the incident takes place. we have them getting on a bicycle and riding into central park. we then later pick him up on 77th street, exiting the park in central park west. still with the bicycle. eventually we had him on 86th street and columbus avenue walking. he loses the bike and then from there we have him in a taxi cab and a taxi cab takes him up to 178th street and broadway, which as we know, is a port authority bus center those busses are interstate busses. that's why we believe he left. he may have left new york city. do you know what bus he got on? >> where that bus was going? >> we're working into that and we're looking into that now. it's a very busy bus terminal. we want to make sure we have the right bus, but we're working through that right now. this is all new information. >> i want to get back to that quickly. but because this is new information, i think it's important for for the new york city residents, certainly to

know that this individual is no longer you believe he is no longer. he said. >> we have reason to believe he is no longer in new york city. >> and that, i assume, is based on video of we have we have video of him entering the port authority bus terminal. >> we don't have any video of him exiting. so we believe he may have gotten on a bus. okay. >> and we don't know what bus this person at this time. i want to ask the photo from the hostel. you do believe that is the alleged suspect, correct at the desk. you do believe, do you believe he's wearing different clothing than from what he wore during the commission of the murder? >> the appearance from from when he's checking into the hostel at the desk obviously, it's only a headshot. it appears that he's wearing the same hooded jacket that he was wearing the day of the incident. >> you've been at this a long time. how planned was this? the resources that were involved in this what's your sense of this my sense of this is that he definitely planned this out. >> he arrived in new york city, obviously, before the incident took place we have him on video prior to the incident for almost a half an hour, walking

and wandering around the hotel area before he committed this act so, you know, do i think it was planned yes, i do, just in the mere fact that he knew what time the victim was going to be walking by. he knew what hotel this conference was going to be in, and he's been traveling and walking around the streets of new york city, largely in a mask with his face covered. >> we had to go through lots of video evidence to get that one money shot of him with the mask down. >> there's been a lot of speculation about the type of gun how he fired. did he jam? did it not jam? what's your what's your sense on that now and what kind of of a gun do you believe was used here? >> we really won't won't be able to confirm that until we seize that gun. but you know, from talking to people that are familiar with firearms, it appears that either there was a malfunction in the gun that he was clearing or it's a specific type of gun. that's a bolt action gun that he was ejecting rounds as it was, as he was reloading the gun and anderson

one of the things that they told me that a lot of the investigators are doing, they're sitting in rooms watching video sometimes for hours and hours, just looking for the smallest of clips to try and locate where he may have been. >> now obviously, that they believe that he's out of new york city. the manhunt continues and it's going to take a lot more resources now to try and find him. they're going through video at the bus depot in upper manhattan here to try and figure out what bus he got on. that's the big question. now what bus did he get on there? get on to get out of here. and where did he go? >> shimon prokupecz appreciate it. thanks. joining us now is former fbi agent scott curtis, also cnn national security analyst juliette kayyem and cnn chief law enforcement and intelligence analyst john miller. john, obviously, a lot of new developments today. the idea, first of all, of this gun is interesting. the idea that it could be a veterinary or a gun that veterinary veterinarians use. >> yeah. what chief kenny is talking about is after this assassination, you know, the

nypd went to its firearms experts and said, what is this gun with this enormous silencer? and they examined it closely. it's a blurry shot, but they also looked at the way he was manipulating the weapon. and they said, you know, that looks like the bent vp9. now, as you see it has this large extended silencer that that is screwed onto a threaded rather short barrel. but the way the gun works is you fire it with that trigger and then it does an automatically load the next round you have to pull back on the rear of that slide, and then let it go to eject one round and feed the next in. if we look at that videotape taken during the actual shooting, you see him fire the gun he's pulling back, firing the gun. >> so it's not necessarily that it jammed per se. >> right. so that's the question. and here's the investigative conundrum, which is he's manipulating that gun that appears to be this, you know, kind of assassin's

weapon. but they also found shell casings on the ground. but they also found live rounds. so the question is, was he familiar enough with the working of the weapon? did he. >> it does look like in the second. i mean, there's if we rerack it, he he fires. he he does it, he fires. i mean he like there and then he fires and then he seems to like tap it 2 or 3 times. >> right so either he's undergoing a malfunction because he doesn't know how that weapon works or i mean, it's a blurry shot. it may be another weapon, even a ghost gun with a large suppressor or silencer. scott, what do you make of the end? >> like you mentioned, either there was a malfunction where he was doing the drill. tap rack. ready to cycle another round in there, or he got overzealous and he cycled two rounds there instead of just pulling it back and letting one round cycle into the chamber. >> but there's a there's a weird cultural thing here. i mean, you wouldn't be committing a professional murder with a veterinarian, a veterinary gun, but this gun is

based on the design of something called the welrod. and even going back to the british and the allied forces in world war two. in the 1940s, the welrod was the assassins weapon. it when you fire it with that suppressor, you get a sound like a book hitting a table in a library and the idea why a vet would have that is so that it doesn't disturb, i guess, other animals. exactly. it's practically silent it's a it's a it's a significant round. it's a nine millimeter round. and it's, it's it's meant for close up killing. it's meant for vets to kill an animal by shooting it in the head or somewhere. you know that's going to be fatal. but it would work the exact same way on humans. very effectively and extraordinarily quietly juliette, if if he's going, i mean if he commits this murder gets on the bike, goes through central park, goes up to, you know into the 80s on the west side, hops in a cab, goes to the bus station i assume those

are all things he if he came to this city, there's not a lot of people who aren't from this city. >> would even know about that bus station up by the george washington bridge and i don't know if that's one of the things in the ten days of reconnaissance that while he was in the city that he learned about. but there can have been at that time in the morning that many busses going to places from that bus terminal by the george washington bridge i don't know how how busy that that terminal is, but it's got to be less busy than port authority. right. >> and it is and but what we do know from this activity is he planned his exit and probably his exit from the city almost as carefully as he planned. the assassination. so this is someone who's thinking of the full circle. this is not a mass shooting. it's not a suicide. it's it is. it is someone who wanted to get out and thought through it and all those actions that you just said. not once has he stopped. not once does he surveys. not once do we see his face. so i have been writing and saying whatever we think this is, this is someone

you know the police are doing one thing and they are bumping up against his anticipation his, his, the anticipation he had that they would do exactly that. and he is he is playing, not playing. it's sort of like a cat and mouse. now the surveillance has not been as fruitful as we wish. the even the face that we see is not, is apparently not showing a match. he he kind of knows how to cover himself and so in some ways, this surveillance state which exists in this city, it's a dense city. it's got lots of cameras in some ways, he was surveying it and knew how to get around it. >> scott. i mean, how much does him leaving the city if in fact, that's what he did? we know he got into the bus station we don't know no video of him leaving. how much does that complicate the law enforcement manhunt? >> well, now now it's completely expanded tenfold here in where he could be. and he's had how many days now advance on law enforcement there to, you know, work himself out of the new york city area obviously it was it

would be easier to try to corral him within the city because there are all these choke points, right, with bridges and tunnels and the way out there through bus, train plane. and, you know, i figured he was going to come in and go out by bus because there's less scrutiny there with not having to provide identification. no screening of bags. there um, so that's with a weapon, right? if he's bringing the weapon in here, um, then he can do that. obviously a lot easier on bus and potentially on a train, but not on a plane. obviously. >> the you know, john we've been talking about how why wasn't the bag found in the last couple of days, central park, you know, if he was only in that park for 15 minutes, we know generally where he entered and where he exited there's a limited route. you can you can travel. um would i know they're being very careful and and shimon is reporting that you used an excavator and they got the surrounding material as well in case he spit or there's any dna on the ground. but would somebody have immediately looked inside the

bag? i mean, with a tyvek suit and, you know, just to see is the gun there their instructions were, if you find it freeze the location do not touch it. >> wait for the detectives. wait for the crime scene unit and let them package this up. because this is one of these things where even touching it or going through it with rubber gloves, you can smudge prints, move dna contaminate it with your own material. when they go to trial, they want to be able to testify. this was all done with perfect procedure in terms of trying to preserve that evidence and then extract that evidence. >> you know, we know it's interesting, though. he wanted to escape, but he also wanted to leave behind bullets that have these words written on them. that's exactly right. >> he is he is the the master of of of sort of wanting to be seen but not wanting to be found. and this gets to what we've all been talking about, this sort of the creation of a cult around him, that him

becoming a sort of folk hero for people who don't like their health insurance companies. i think it's disgusting. but nonetheless, the fact that he seems to come from nowhere and go nowhere the nypd is now at day three, almost day four, you know, and nowhere closer is part of what he's able to manipulate. so i think he is using technology media. these hints of the bullets, the the coy smile while flirting, but not enough to know who he is. all of that is show someone who who i think is sophisticated, at least in in media and and and creating this aura around him and something similar to to kaczynski and rudolph there where they were trying to send a message every for every act that they were doing. >> scott curtis, thank you juliette kayyem as well. john miller is going to join again shortly, along with continuing cnn coverage throughout the evening. be sure to tune in at 11 for a special edition of laura coates live manhunt the search for the killer. again, that's 11:00 eastern right here next for us tonight. what? two specialists in criminal

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always great. >> go to dash dot com right now and see how much you can save cnn heroes on all star tribune sunday at eight on cnn a lot of breaking news in the search for the new york seo assassin, including this. >> the discovery in central park, not far from the crime scene of what police believe is the suspect's backpack, now undergoing extensive testing at a police lab. also, new tonight, nypd chief of detectives joseph kennedy telling reporters the words delay, deny and depose were scrawled on each of three bullets discovered at the scene. joining us now is brianna fox. she's a professor of criminology at the university of south florida and a former fbi special agent. also forensic psychologist kris mohandie professor fox, you said last night you think this person might be banking on the prospect he's going to get caught it seems like he wants to escape. i mean, we were talking about this just in the last ten minutes or so. he wanted to escape the city. clearly, he wanted a message to be sent with those bullets

absolutely. >> and i think that while there's certainly an urge to get away with the crime, i think he's banking on the fact that he probably won't forever. but at the same time, building up as much publicity as possible, the more eyes on this he can get, the better to him. at least if he's going to get caught, there's something to be gained throughout all of this. having more people know of his cause, more people aware of why he engaged in this shooting. i think all of that's going to start coming out as we start getting more information on his motive. >> chris, with respect to the writing on on the shell casings what does that tell you? i mean, when a killer leaves any sort of message or indicator at a crime scene that might speak to to their motive i think it's it speaks exactly to his motive that he has a deep seated grievance which may very well be personal as it relates to insurance company, perhaps even this one.

>> the fact that he said delay, deny that, you know obviously relates to how many people experience insurance companies when it comes to serious claims. and then the fact that he mentioned depose suggests that he may have been involved in litigation as he sought to pursue, you know, his rights in that system so we're talking about a man with a grievance, and i believe it's a personal grievance. i believe he's going to have a connection by virtue of a family member or a loved one who may have been in his perceptions, ground up in that system, maybe even died or experienced harm so it's very important for this man to get his message out there in this dramatic fashion and to punish the person he's affixed blame to, which is the ceo of this company who he sees as a symbol of these oppressive practices that have resulted in harm to somebody that he loves. so i think that what we're going to find out about him is that that

there is a connection or at least an identification with that connection. but i think it's i think it actually is a personal connection that there was litigation. there's a lot of litigation that goes on with people in these companies and for many people, it's a it's an option of last resort and then they're left with now what do i do when they've lost everything or they perceive that they've lost everything. so this is a man with an agenda with a grievance. and it was important to get that out there and to leave this behind. and my concern is, is he done? and is there anybody else that he may be wanting to continue this mission with? and all i can say is i'm sure he's out there watching the news that his best chances of being heard at this point is for himself to turn himself in and so that, you know whatever it is that he needs to communicate can be communicated in a more pro-social way rather than this method. >> professor fox do you believe, i mean, if he's seeking to build up publicity that he's monitoring coverage

of this i do, and i think he's probably monitoring a lot of the social media coverage as well, where there's been a lot of discussion of things like motive, his the, the what, the words that he put on the bullets may relate to even people. >> i hate to say it, but essentially cheering his perceived motivation on there is no good reason to ever engage in an act of violence like this, but i think there are a lot of people that see insurance companies as being unfair or denying their coverage without cause and i think that that's probably what he's trying to build up. the support and get people to identify with him. on i think that if he had just done this, let's say in minnesota, where the victim is from, and it was left as an unsolved murder, his message would never get across to people. so i think that even though it was so much more risky to do it in midtown manhattan, that to him was the

best way to get this message out there. and it's being talked about a lot. so i think in his mind he's being successful and he really relishes in watching this. >> yeah. kris mohandie, brianna fox, thank you so much appreciate your time. coming up. the race to identify the unitedhealthcare ceo shooter is hardly the first time a manhunt has captivated the nation's attention. what can high profile investigations into the boston marathon bombing, for instance, or the d.c. sniper tell us about how this current search might end. we'll have that ahead dry i still feel gritty rough or tired with my bow eyes can feel i bow. >> my bow is the only prescription dry eye drop that forms a protective layer for the number one cause of dry eye, too much tear evaporation for relief. that's my bow. >> oh, yeah remove contact lenses before using my bow. >> wait at least 30 minutes before putting them back in. i

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place. money that you don't want cancel right in the app. raise a glass to smarter spending and download rocket money today. >> closed captioning is brought to you by christian faith publishing right for a higher purpose publish with us. christian faith publishing is an author friendly publisher who understands that your labor is more than just a book. call or scan for your free writers guide. 800 455. 1827. >> we're bringing you the latest developments of the search to identify the gunman who fatally shot the ceo of unitedhealthcare wednesday morning in new york. a law enforcement official telling cnn tonight that the nypd found what could be the shooter's backpack in central park. investigators have reason to believe the suspect has left the city. he was last spotted entering a port authority bus station in upper manhattan. it's a massive manhunt obviously. one former top cop

on the program last night estimated as many as 1000 police personnel could be working on a case like this. it's also not the first time a manhunt has captured the nation's attention. brian todd has that. reporter an intense manhunt consuming the public's attention, putting increasing pressure on the police. >> a script with many similar dramatic chapters in american history. >> these kinds of investigations have a kind of a snowball effect in terms of people being interested in it. >> april 15th, 2013. two pressure cooker bombs explode near the finish line of the boston marathon, killing three people and injuring hundreds. a terrified city is placed on lockdown the perpetrators slip away but the perpetrators were identified very early on due to lots of cameras that were present. a relentless manhunt was underway for two brothers, tamerlan and dzhokhar tsarnaev. later that week, after they killed an mit police officer

and committed a carjacking tamerlan tsarnaev was killed in a violent confrontation with police his younger brother remained on the loose. >> my message to the suspect is to give himself up to stop any further violence or towards anyone. >> a day after his brother was killed, a wounded dzhokhar tsarnaev was captured hiding inside a boat in a backyard in watertown, massachusetts. we have a clear view of a boat that seems to be shrink wrapped in some plastic, where they are focusing their lights on, and we can hear officers yelling. october 2002. the d.c., maryland and virginia area is paralyzed by a series of random sniper attacks over three weeks, ten people are killed in places like gas stations, shopping centers, and even a 13 year old boy was shot and wounded as he was dropped off at his middle school. the shooters left a taunting note on a tarot card. >> people were getting shot at gas stations. >> they were just anywhere you would go out in public. >> everyone was on edge because am i the next victim? >> in late october, john allen

muhammad and his 17 year old criminal protégé lee boyd malvo were apprehended at a rest stop in maryland. muhammad was later executed. malvo remains in prison last year after he vertically crab walked to a roof and then got away. prison escapee danilo cavalcante eluded police for nearly two weeks before his capture in rural pennsylvania. two other manhunts for two notorious killers each played out over a period of years after he planted a deadly bomb in atlanta's centennial park during the 1996 olympics and after police initially suspected the wrong man, eric rudolph, planted bombs at abortion clinics in georgia and alabama, he wasn't captured until 2003. over the course of 17 years, ted kaczynski the unabomber, mailed or hand delivered bombs across the u.s. that killed three people. he was captured in 1996 after his brother tipped off law enforcement. both rudolph and kaczynski had eluded capture by hiding and surviving in the wilderness.

>> they can find ways to live off of the land especially if they're experienced right. >> rudolph was experience some notorious manhunts have been resolved when the relatives of suspects came forward to give law enforcement crucial information that led to their capture, as what occurred in the unabomber case. >> analysts say that could happen with this current new york manhunt, but that could depend on whether this suspect might have been trying to avenge a relative who may have had a bad experience with unitedhealthcare anderson. >> brian todd, thanks so much. jon miller is back with us. you know, when you look at that, the photo, the you know, the one photo where he's smiling in that flirtatious moment, apparently he had with the person in the hospital. you do feel like anybody who really knows knows this person would look at that and be able to say, oh yeah, that's that's the you know, the person i know that's bob. >> right. you know, whoever so that's what they're counting on and that's worked before. but let's take a look at two quick examples. one, brian todd just gave us the tsarnaev brothers

the boston marathon bombers you know, he was in a college dorm with some friends. he was getting high. this was after the bomber after the bombing. he left. they saw him on tv saying, who knows this person? and instead of picking up the phone and calling police and saying, that guy just left here, they started destroying evidence and getting rid of his computers and things like that, because they were going to protect their friend. so some people will call in, some people won't remember the guy, frank james, who shot ten people on the new york city subway two and a half years ago. uh people didn't call in from milwaukee or philadelphia saying, that's frank james people called in and tweeted on social media. um pictures of him walking around the streets saying i don't know who he is, but he just walked by me. so people react in different ways. i was in the police department and from shimon prokupecz got the tweet saying, are you guys seeing this? and we sent units into canal

street and within a couple of hours had him at the mcdonald's. but you know what? they're counting on is solid citizens saying, i know this guy, and i'm going to call the number for the fact that he whether i mean, it seems like he's left the city, he went to the port authority in upper new york. >> don't know if he actually did leave or what. on what bus? um eight. i mean, at this point, any sign that he may have had help or assistance or somebody waiting for him somewhere else that would help him kind of escape further. he was talking on the phone shortly before the shooting. >> great question. you know, how did he get an e-bike? you know, it's not a rented city bike, you know? where did where did he get the resources? but they are literally building a movie, an end to end movie, you know, in chronological order with these video recovery teams that are that are flooding the streets to see his every move. and so far they haven't seen him interact with anyone else, at least at least when when i last checked with how that was going, they saw him in a taxi. he goes to mcdonald's, he's at

the hilton hotel doing reconnaissance but he's not talking to anybody else. now think about this. the one piece of video we keep playing is him walking down the street with that phone to his ear just before the murder. who is he talking to there? someone here or someone far away and when a suspect leaves the city, i mean we had a guest on a former uh, chief at the nypd who said, you know, it could be like a thousand officers working on this. >> does that suddenly number drop because he's left the city? >> no, because they're still doing the other stuff. i mean, the largest number of officers. every cop in new york has a smartphone. and his picture, they're looking for him while they're doing everything else. the largest number of those officers are the people running down the tips that are coming into the command center and doing those video canvasses, which is creating that literal, that literal image timeline of his time here. but what they are doing is the nypd has something called the sentry program it enlists police departments in all the other

cities as part of a cooperative where they exchange intelligence and information on cases. they are probably going back through what they think those bus routes may be, and having those departments go to those locations and times because there can be those busses that left in a reasonable amount of time limited it's a limited universe. yeah. >> john miller, thank you. coming up next, more on the social media aspect. we mentioned a moment ago, internet sleuths amateurs certainly are working to piece together clues ahead of the police. the question is whether amateur detectives might produce a helpful lead or create more online noise for investigators to sift through. we'll take a look new year's eve live with anderson and andy. >> live coverage starts at eight on cnn stand up stand up stand up stand up. >> when i move you move just like that. when i move you move just like that when i move, you move. just like that. hell

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complicate an investigation, randi kaye takes a look at that. >> i checked the docs around the hotel where the shooting happened riley walls is an engineer and amateur sleuth. >> after police said the shooter had escaped on a citi bike he did some digging and lit up the internet when he posted online that he thought he had identified the bike that the assassin used. >> that was the only bike that left the area around the hotel and headed northbound. >> walls shared the results of his sleuthing on social media and with the new york police department on x, he posted that the bike left the dock near the scene. at 6:44 a.m. he also posted his data writing, can't believe my little data nerd experiment. actually amounted to something in the real world turns out walls had it wrong. police later confirmed the assassin escaped on an e-bike not a city bike. then came the backlash. >> so apparently some little snitch street journalist tracked the assassin's citi

bike and posted it on the internet. >> lots of people online are calling me some kind of snitch, even though it ended up the information i gave wasn't even correct. >> amateur sleuthing is a way of crowdsourcing detective work without the professionals. and in the shooting of the unitedhealthcare ceo, like so many others, theories are plentiful online. in one post in the subreddit about guns, users speculated about the gun. brian thompson's assassin fired, writing the shape size and hand position are all consistent with a, b and t vp9 pistol other amateur detectives suggested the shooter's bag was a peak design everyday backpack 30 l camera bag i'm going to give you my theory on brian thompson's murder based on the information that we have on tiktok, endless theories on the case theory. >> number one is that okay, so the bullets left behind had, like, a message on them. >> some sleuthers even casting

doubt on the nypd's investigation. this one noting the images of the alleged assassin. >> if you paid close attention to these pictures it's two different people that they put out. >> that's the good and the bad of the internet these days. >> dan brunner is a retired fbi agent the swell of what the people think, the swell with the people say they see that can definitely influence how it's portrayed in the media and send law enforcement entities in the wrong direction like after the 2013 boston marathon bombing, when online sleuths on reddit and fortune combed through photos and videos of the aftermath and wrongly identified a bunch of people as the bombers, some media published their photos, leaving those innocent people fearing for their lives. still brunner says, internet sleuthing can do a lot of good people using the crowdsourced resources from using their computers to figure out look at the clues and maybe

find something that law enforcement hasn't considered or isn't looking at all these people we multiply law enforcement's capabilities by millions. that may be true, but some are simply fed up. what i want to say right now is that this is not the time for internet sleuths to do their thing. you all can take a break and anderson, with all these sleuthers and all their tips coming in, what it does is just create a lot of noise for the investigators, and then they have to break through that noise. and i'm told by the, the experts who we spoke with today that what happens is because these people are just amateurs they they bring to them a lot of false tips, a lot of low quality poor quality tips. and then the good tips, the quality tips could get pushed aside. so what this does is it really just gums up the system and then the the, the the good tips do get pushed aside or possibly buried. but anderson i will say that even though these these amateur sleuths do get a bad rap we know what happened in the gabby petito case when she disappeared three years ago

with her fiance, brian laundrie. in that case, the amateur sleuths helped investigators pinpoint that national forest in wyoming, where her body ended up being discovered. so in that case, they really did some pretty good detective work even though they were amateurs. anderson randi kaye, thanks so much. >> coming up next, more breaking news on the suspect's identity also a surprising decision by the judge in the high profile trial of a marine veteran charged in the chokehold death of another man on a new york city subway this holiday season. >> catherine. all aboard the freedom unlimited. >> kevin. kevin. kevin kevin and kevin. >> i mean macaulay. take a very special trip to the mall where anything your little kid is cash back a ball. >> really? yeah. anything is cash bankable? >> i'm sorry. >> tis the season to cash back with chase freedom unlimited. >> how do you cash back? chase, make more of what's yours when

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california coast and this is cnn more breaking news just in. >> investigators looking for the new york ceo assassin are homing in on his identity. i want to go back to cnn's shimon prokupecz for the latest. what are you hearing yeah, that's right. >> anderson. so what we're learning is it's both my colleague, our justice correspondent evan perez, and myself, is that investigators have been homing in on an individual, someone they believe they are trying to identify in connection with

this investigation. now, they don't have enough information, certainly, to publicly identify this individual individual. but it certainly there's enough information and there is things that they have found where they are very curious about this person. and they want to learn more about this person. and so without publicly identifying him at this point, they are continuing to try and gather more information on this individual, but it certainly suggests that they are progressing in this investigation as they continue to look for this individual and try to identify him. anderson. >> all right, shimon, thanks very much. we'll bring back, uh, we'll cover this in a moment. anything develops. we do want to quickly turn though, to a trial that's been going on in new york. the already polarizing trial of a former marine charged in the chokehold death of a subway performer. jordan neely last year after defendant daniel penny jury told the judge they had deadlocked twice on the more serious of the two charges.

manslaughter in the second degree, the judge state granted prosecutors request to dismiss it, which leaves a lesser charge of criminally negligent homicide and means jurors starting monday can deliberate over a charge with a maximum penalty of four years versus 15 years. joined now by retired judge george grasso, who was at the trial today and all this week in criminal defense attorney joey jackson. judge grasso, i know you feel strongly about this case, that this is a miscarriage of justice going on, that this was a marine veteran who stood up and was trying to help people on this train. um, what's it been like at the trial? what do you think is going to happen well, it's been quite a week, and i do believe that. >> i mean, what's very unusual about this case, and in terms of cases i'm aware of from my 30 years with the police department and almost 13 years as a judge is both sides. >> the defense, obviously, and the district attorney agree that daniel penny was a good man, acting selflessly for the right reasons to protect others in that subway car. >> the man who who died was,

you know violent or threatening people with scaring people. >> well, there's evidence that that he was basically, i'm ready to die today and i'm ready to kill today now, now. daniel penny we can say he would not have been the one who would have been directly threatened. there were all the people. there were one women. young woman who testified was basically crying and had her head down and never experienced anything remotely like that. so he put himself in between jordan neely and innocent people on the subway and he may very well have had a knife or a gun or something like that. the problem that penny had is once he decided to involve himself, it's kind of like in for a penny, in for a pound. once he grabbed the guy, then he doesn't know if the guy is going to pull out a gun or a knife or something like that. so it's like when you look at the video that was entered in evidence, you know, one minute. good, good guy. neely is still violently struggling. second minute, good guy, third minute, fourth minute. well, maybe not so good. by fifth minute, we're going to prosecute this guy for

manslaughter in the second degree. and maybe take his life away, maybe send him to jail for 10 to 15. 5 to 15 years. so i think that's the type of thing the jury is really struggling with right now. and they should be struggling with right now and that's why we ended up today with the jury not being able to reach the verdict for manslaughter in the second degree. and then the d.a. wanted to keep the case alive so then they agreed to dismiss manslaughter so they could get to criminally negligent homicide, which is going to pick up on monday. i know you think these charges should never have been brought by the da. >> joey, what do you think of the case so far? >> so i'm not surprised at all. anderson, with respect to the jury not being able to reach a conclusion. and in my view, i think there's two issues that they're really hung up on. the first thing is, i think there's one or more or a faction who say this is self-defense and he was completely justified. that is, the defendant in this case engaging in the action that he engaged in to protect others. and i don't care what you tell me, if you charged with murder, he was justified. if it's manslaughter or justified, criminally negligent homicide

justified. i think the second issue is there was a lot said in terms of the expert testimony. one of the things you have to prove is the judge will tell you is causation what caused the death? and there was the medical expert from the city who indicated it was a choke hold. and then, of course, the defense said, no, it wasn't. it was the k2 synthetic marijuana. in addition to schizophrenic schizophrenia in addition to other issues sickle cell right. the struggle itself. and as a result of that, there's no causation. so i think there's two built in problems. and then the second thing i'll say quickly is that listen, even though they're now deliberating on the criminally negligent homicide lesser standard because it involves negligence, carelessness right. the bottom line is i think you're going to still have that faction. and i think we're going to see a similar result to what we saw today. just with respect to a jury being very troubled and making a decision. >> you know, judge grasso, as a new yorker, it is, you know, you're on the subway and you're on one of those cars. and if there's somebody on the car who is you know, screaming

and threatening, it's a it's a scary thing. and as a new yorker, you know, you want citizens to stand up and help other new yorkers. this obviously, no matter what happens, has already sent kind of a chilling message. >> i was on the subway on the six train about a week after the penny incident, and i was on there was a guy who kind of fit the description of penny, but not penny neely, about ten years old or 15 years older. he was talking about stabbing people's eyes out, and he was talking about that on the train on the train. and i stayed on the car when i could have gotten off because there were all the women. it was around about noon or something like that. and, and i was watching the guy out of the side of my eye and having to think if he acted and i was going to act, that i would have been in his situation, but i didn't. he followed me on the escalator and got into my face and threatened to do that to me but ran off. but that's what we're all dealing with. and that was my personal experience. a week after this case.