Top Story with Tom Llamas - Thursday, December 5, 2024

Episode Date: December 6, 2024

Tonight's Top Story has the latest breaking news, political headlines, news from overseas and the best NBC News reporting from across the country and around the world.

Tonight, the earthquake rocking California, triggering a tsunami scare. The powerful earthquake sending people scrambling. Groceries knocked off shelves, surveillance videos showing cars violently shaking, water streaming out of pools, officials issuing that rare tsunami warning, briefly urging everyone to stay away from the ocean. The state of emergency just declared. Also tonight, message on a bullet, the new clues in the brazen attack on the United Healthcare CEO. With the killer inscribed on the ammunition, the images of a person of interest in the

fatal shooting, and the new video appearing to show the gunmen getting away, police zeroing in on a hostel, and the breaking details about how and when the suspect arrived in New York. Making his cape, Pete Higg said, President-elect Trump's pick to lead the Pentagon, fighting to save his confirmation prospects, the signs Republican support is waning amid allegations of sexual misconduct and alcohol abuse. We press Heggseth on if he's considering standing down and his bid for defense secretary. An American kidnapped and killed in the Philippines, the FBI now looking into what happened to the 26-year-old Vermont native who documented his life on YouTube.

What officials believe happened after the terrifying moments, he was abducted and the elevated warning to Americans traveling to that region. The dramatic rescue caught on camera, two teens trapped in their car after it veered off the road and plunged into the water, how police were able to help them escape. And it's a wrap, Spotify releasing its highly anticipated personal music recap. But this year, there's a twist, how the listening service is using artificial intelligence, making your own personalized DJ, even a podcast, talking about what you listen to this year, and why this year's list isn't hitting the right notes for everyone.

Plus, we'll show you the explosive fight on Capitol Hill, the shouting match between the acting secret service director and a Republican lawmaker. Top story starts right now. And good evening, we have some new details in the murder of that United Healthcare CEO. But first, we want to start tonight with the situation out west.

A major earthquake striking off the coast of California prompting that temporary tsunami warning. Surveillance camera footage capturing the violent shaking after a magnitude 7.0 quake rattled the region. Officials sending out an urgent warning for people to stay away from the beach and seek higher ground. The tremors creating waves inside this pool in Chico, California. Similar scenes playing out all across the northern part of the state. New video showing the aftermath damage inside of a hotel in Ferndale.

You can see broken bottles from behind the bar. Serious cleanup needed inside this grocery store as items are knocked off the shelves. NBC News correspondent Liz Kreutz has the latest tonight for us. Tonight, a disaster warning sending shockwaves along the Pacific coast, a 7.0 earthquake striking northern California, knocking bottles to the floor and doors off their hinges. Here littering supermarket aisles, making waves in swimming pools. This is a big one, guys. And bringing fears of a tsunami.

It wasn't over, you know, in a nanosecond. It kept going and it was building. and you hear things falling. NOAA issuing a tsunami warning for hundreds of miles of coastline, stretching from California's Bay Area to southern Oregon. The potential of devastating flooding forcing evacuation orders in California cities like Berkeley and Half Moon Bay. Residents ordered to move inland immediately.

You take cautious steps to protect your safety, so that's why I'm up here at a high point. The tsunami warnings lifted a few hours after the quake. Today's quake, coming nearly two years to the day after a 6.4 struck the same area in Humboldt County. Two died and several buildings were damaged. Historically, this point just offshore of Northern California has had more magnitude sevens than anywhere else in the state. Because we have three different tectonic plates that come together there. Governor Gavin Newsom declaring a state of emergency for the area.

It's another reminder of the state that we live in and the state of mind that we need to bring to our day-to-day reality here in the state of California. in terms of being prepared for earthquakes. And Tom, officials say there's been reports of a water main break and some homes knocked off their foundation. There's also thousands of people without power right now, but thankfully, no reports of injuries or deaths. Despite the size of this quake, it did not happen in a densely populated area and there has not been significant damage. Tom. That is a bit of good news. Okay, Liz, we thank you for that. Now to our other breaking headline, the massive search underway for the man who shot and killed the United Healthcare CEO at point.

point-blank range. We're 36 hours into the urgent manhunt, and at this time, no one is in police custody. But we are getting more clues into the investigation. Take a look at these images released of what police are describing as a person of interest. He's wanted for questioning in connection to the targeted attack. That murder unfolding in busy Midtown Manhattan yesterday morning, the shooter you see him here methodically hunting down CEO Brian Thompson just as he was headed to an investor's meeting. Police revealing today that the killer left behind message. The words, quote, deny, defend, and depose, written on shell casings, found at the scene. We're going to break down the possible meaning in just a moment. All of this as we piece together

the suspect's movements. We know he bought a water bottle and protein bars at a Starbucks just before the shooting. He then made his way to the Hilton Hotel where he shot Thompson and then took off on an electric bike into Central Park. But now police are directing their attention to a hostel where they believe this person of interest was staying. detectives reportedly searching one of the rooms there. And the information just in tonight, we're just learning new details about where the suspect may have traveled from and how we got here to New York.

NBC Sam Brock has the latest. New images tonight show the full face of a hooded man. The NYPD is calling a person of interest wanted for questioning in connection with Wednesday's ambush and early morning killing of United Health Care CEO Brian Thompson. A law enforcement source confirming to NBC news, the images were captured at this hostel on Manhattan's Upper West Side. We're recording to an eyewitness. The man in the photo shared a room with two strangers

and checked out on Wednesday. One guest who says she did not share the same room saw police arrive last night around 6.30. It makes you second guess who you're actually staying in a hostel with. So it's quite scary that like we could have been in the same room. The search for a killer, hinging on an emerging network of crucial camera images. As police are now probing whether this nest video taken less than 15 minutes after, the murder could be the shooter. The footage showing the rider on a bike just outside of Central Park 30 blocks north of the scene of the crime, where Wednesday a gunman approached the 50-year-old CEO walking toward an investor

conference alone at 6.45 in the morning and gunned down the father of two, firing shots into his back and leg right in front of the Midtown Hilton Hotel. Video obtained by the New York Times also shows a person resembling the shooter walking roughly 175 feet from the scene of the crime, 10 minutes before Thompson was shot, appearing to talk on the phone. Clint Watts is a former FBI special agent. Knowing that the shooter was on the phone talking to somebody else definitely changes the way the investigation goes.

Possibly someone knew the shooting was about to happen, or he was maybe calling someone for the last time, or it could be part of a larger plot. Shell cases from the shooting now also a key focal point of the investigation. Overnight, a senior New York City law enforcement official briefed on the investigation telling NBC that the three casings recovered on scene had the words. deny, defend, and depose written on them. A possible reference to a 2010 book critical of the insurance industry. There are also new revelations about the minutes before the murder with an official telling NBC

the gunman not only stopped at a Starbucks near the crime scene, but also bought several items, including a water bottle and two energy bars, which were then discarded. The Starbucks purchases are a great opening for law enforcement to get on top of who the perpetrator is. It could be some sort of physical evidence, a fingerprint, maybe even some sort of DNA that they can trace. The targeted killing now raising new questions across the insurance industry about security. With Thompson, a highly paid executive in a sector frequently facing frustration and even outrage, walking alone from his nearby hotel. Recent corporate statements from United Health don't reveal personnel security expenses for executives.

The company hasn't responded to questions about what resources were or were not deployed for Thompson. It comes after his wife, Paulette, telling NBC News Wednesday, there had been some threats against her husband, adding, basically, I don't know, a lack of coverage, I don't know details. In the family's hometown outside Minneapolis, the police department told NBC News they had no record of any such reports, as the staggering and still unfolding murder and manhunt has left a city and industry stunned. Okay, Sam Brock joins Top Story tonight, live from outside that hostel in New York City. Sam, talk to us about this new information that's just come in, the details about how the suspect got to New York City and where he was traveling from. Yeah, Tom, this is pretty fascinating. So three senior law enforcement officials tell NBC they are now operating under the belief the suspect came from Atlanta to New York on a Greyhound bus, Tom, arriving November the 24th. So there's a number of the important pieces of information here. First of all, the passenger ticket list. If they're able to find a name there that matches up with, some form of identification police already have.

It's not clear if they've identified the suspects so far or not. And we do know that with respect to this hostel, it appears that he used a fake ID. But also, November 24th, that was 10 to 11 days before this crime was committed, the staging, the planning, what kind of information can be gleaned from that? And then did he come from Atlanta? Is there a whole thread of the suspect's background that now needs to be explored there as well?

So many layers to this, a crucial piece of information coming in town late tonight. Yeah, and it sounds like police may be known. may know now who they're looking for. All right, Sam, we appreciate all that to break down the latest evidence we have in this case and where that manhunt goes from here. I want to welcome back John Monaghan, a retired captain with the New York Police Department. John, great to see you. He's also the author of a series of detective novels. His latest is the guns of Antwerp, NYPD, takes Boston. All right, John, we thank you again. So we're going to go through all the new clues we've gotten tonight. We want to start with what I think maybe is the biggest piece of evidence today, along with those images. Let's start with the bullets, right? on the bullet casings. Deny, defend, depose. I have two questions. First, what do you think

these words mean, number one, and number two, what does it tell you that the killer wrote something on the shell casings? A lot of planning. As we heard there, he's been there for a while. He put a lot of planning into this. I'm baffled by the idea that he expected these bullets to be on our crime scene. These are unfired bullets. They only get ejected and land on the ground. when you rack the gun to clear a jam. You don't go into a shooting expecting a jam. I did not see it on a video that he took them out of his pocket and dropped them, but those bullets are inside the magazine of the gun.

The only way they get produced onto the floor of our crime scene is when he racks that gun three times, which he did do to clear a jam. So he puts these words on the bullets and thinks, maybe they end up in the crime scene, maybe they don't. Doesn't make any sense. This word depose is not from the title of the book, the other two are. I would start looking at people who have been sat for depositions recently

in the healthcare thing, maybe. I don't know. But it's a lot of planning. But how do you even write on a bullet case? I mean, is that something people do? You can etch it. That's time consuming and it's very, you know, difficult. You can get a permanent marker. You know, but is he sending a message to people like you? I mean, is he sending a message to investigators saying, I don't know, dropping clues. Tom, I tell you what, it could be that. It could be a subterfuge to get us to go in that direction if the motive was in another direction. There's a lot of moving parts in each silo of this event. There's the personal, the professional, yeah.

The other big piece of evidence, right? Police releasing these images. We want to show them to our viewers, show them to you. Now, police are using the term person of interest. From what we understand, this is protocol by the NYPD. In some cases, they've been saying this is the suspect. In this case, they're calling this person a person of interest here. Talk to me about why they released these two photos.

One shows them smiling, one frowning. or not smiling. What does this tell us and why do they release these? Well, we're hoping someone will identify him, not from passing him on the street here in New York, but someone in his life that knows him. You know, that's a face that there's probably 50 people in the world right now that are looking at that picture, and a light bulb goes off says, I know that man from somewhere. Okay. So it's very helpful. He's a person of interest, not a suspect, for a number of reasons. We're not certain 100% that it's him. Yeah. That's a different jacket, I believe, if it's a different backpack than the Starbucks pictures.

It seems like... You've seen differences, you think? I do see some differences, but there's enough similarities to consider him a person of interest. Okay, just before we go to our next thing, which is going to be a map, I do want to ask you, they know when he got here, they know where he came from, they know how long he's been here. They have these... Do you think they know who this person is? Not yet.

Not yet. You still think they don't know who he is? Not yet. They're close. Atlanta could be a sub-diffuse, too. I don't know. You want to take a greyhound. It depends on...

From Minnesota, you've got to go through Chicago, Cleveland, and Buffalo. Did it go to Atlanta on purpose? I don't know. Let's go to our map now. I want to show you this because we've learned some more things about where he was at. This is where the shooting takes place.

This is the hostel where he was staying, right? It's about 50 blocks north on the upper west side of Manhattan. Does this tell you anything at all? He's staying at a hostel again, 50 blocks from the scene of the shooting. Well, the best way to get from point A to point B here

would be bike bicycle right through Central Park. Fastest way. Fastest way, right through Central Park. There are exits, 85th Street, 90th, 100th Street. Once you pass 100th Street, you've got to go up to 110. So the best way to get there would be buy a bicycle through the park. He may have used a fake ID, he paid with cash, that he's staying at a hostel.

Does that tell you something different? He's from out of town. That's the first thing I think of he's from out of town. Now you mentioned the bus from Atlanta. That makes sense. And the hostel, I mean, the nature of a hostel is such that, like, your first bullet there, you know people have stayed in hostels. They bunk you up into a room with others.

That doesn't mean he's connected to these men. Yeah. They have been interviewed from what I understand and cleared. Right. So that's not really... Yeah, he was saying with two of their guests. We don't think they're connected. At least police haven't told us that yet.

But, I mean, they're going to be questioning them, right? Oh, yeah. Okay. Earlier today, we also got this Nest video. I want to play for our viewers as well. They may have seen this. Police believe this may be the suspect. He's on that bicycle.

He's going from 85th Street Central Park West. Looks like he's likely heading further west. What does this tell you of anything? You know, this is the 85th Street exit from Central Park. So if he came up from 59th Street, I don't think he's in New Yorker. He's an out-of-town. He's staying in a hostel. Yeah.

Should have stayed in the park until 100th Street, or at least 97th Street. But he came out here at 80-50. He's heading Columbus. Next block is Amsterdam, and then it's north to 104 Street. No longer has the backpack. What does that tell you? I'm not convinced. Tom, I'm not convinced.

It's him. Does it look like a city bike? Look at the tail. See the tail on that? Apparently they've gotten rid of the city bike thing. So let me do that.