Brian Thompson’s ex-security shocked UnitedHealthcare CEO was unguarded after company’s Minn. HQ rocked by protests

The Minnesota headquarters of UnitedHealth was rocked by large protests — where demonstrators chillingly marched around carrying a casket — just months before CEO Brian Thompson was executed in Manhattan Wednesday.

Thompson, 50, was stationed at the company’s headquarters in Minnetonka, Minnesota, where more than 100 demonstrators descended in April and July to protest an alleged “epidemic” of claims denials, according to the Wall Street Journal.

During the April protest, a group of demonstrators could be seen parading just outside one company building in nearby Eden Prairie as they hauled a wooden casket labeled, “UnitedHealth Denies Care.” 

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While the casket was supposed to be a symbol of the company’s alleged victims due to claim denials, it has now taken on another unnerving connotation following Thompson’s cold-blooded murder in Midtown. 

During the second protest at the Minnetonka offices where Thompson worked, 11 demonstrators were arrested, including people from Minnesota, Illinois, Maine, Texas, West Virginia and New York, according to local police.

The People’s Action Institute, which led the April and July protests, said it was shocked by Thompson’s death — but still used the tragedy to highlight what it said was a “crisis of denials” in America.

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“We know there is a crisis of gun violence in America. There is also a crisis of denials of care by private health insurance corporations including UnitedHealth,” the group said in a statement Wednesday.

“The People’s Action Care Over Cost campaign gives people a productive, nonviolent, democratic way to create change on this problem. Both of these crises must end. Our political leaders must act on both,” they added.

Given UnitedHealth’s prominence and Thompson’s position as chief of the insurance division, Philip Klein — whose security firm has provided bodyguards for Thompson in the past — said he was surprised to learn that the CEO was alone on Wednesday. 

“It was normal operation for that company that they would have their own private security team to take care of their corporate executives,” Klein told the WSJ. 

Meanwhile, the NYPD is investigating engravings — which appear to include the words “deny,” “depose” and “defend” — found on live rounds and shell casings left behind by the masked assassin after he shot Thompson, according to sources.

The words are eerily similar to a 2010 book condemning the insurance business, titled “Delay, Deny, Defend: Why insurance companies don’t pay claims and what you can do about it.”

What we know about the shooting of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson

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• Brian Thompson, the CEO of insurance giant UnitedHealthcare, was gunned down Wednesday outside a luxury Midtown hotel in a “brazen, targeted attack,” police said.
• Thompson was named CEO of UnitedHealth in April 2021. He joined the company in 2004. He was one of several senior executives at the company under investigation by the Department of Justice.
• Thompson’s wife, Paulette, said her husband had been getting threats before he was killed.
• Thompson’s shooting led to sick support online, and even spurred a tasteless lookalike competition in NYC.
• A person of interest has been nabbed by police officers inside a McDonald’s in Altoona, Pa.
• The suspect has been identified as Luigi Mangione, 26, originally from Towson, Md. He’s an Ivy League graduate who hated the medical community.

Follow along with The Post’s live updates on the news surrounding Brian Thompson’s murder.

The UnitedHealth Group is the largest private insurer in the nation, with a long and controversial history of rejecting customers’ claims. 

The company, ranked fourth on the Fortune 500, is also facing a Department of Justice antitrust investigation.

UnitedHealth did not immediately respond to The Post’s request for comment. 

Thompson was heading toward the Hilton hotel Wednesday morning to prepare for an investors’ conference when a gunman snuck up behind him and fired multiple times. 

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Thompson was hit in the back and right calf as he stumbled and collapsed in the middle of the sidewalk.  

The gunman fled into an alleyway and hopped on an e-bike, disappearing into Central Park, with police continuing to search for him. 

The NYPD said the shooting was clearly planned, dismissing the idea it was a random act of violence. 

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Thompson’s wife, Paulette “Pauley” Thompson, 51, said the family had received threats before her husband’s killing.

“There had been some threats,” she told NBC News. “Basically, I don’t know, a lack of coverage? I don’t know details. I just know that he said there were some people that had been threatening him.”

A source confirmed to The Post that UnitedHealthcare informed investigators that Thompson had been the recipient of threats — though the source noted it’s not uncommon for someone in his position at a health care company.

A manhunt for the suspect is underway, and the NYPD and Crime Stoppers is offering a $10,000 reward for information.