Last week, UnitedHealthcare Brian Thompson was shot and killed on the streets of midtown Manhattan, prompting a nationwide manhunt and a major reckoning about corporate America.
While many expressed shock and sadness over the killing, it also prompted a social media backlash in which people expressed their anger and frustration with the company and the health insurance industry as a whole. Earlier this week, “wanted” posters picturing health care executives were posted around New York City, and CEOs around America have become aware that they may be less safe than they previously thought.
Andrew Witty, CEO of UnitedHealth Group, the parent company of UnitedHealthcare, addressed the criticism of his company in a New York Times op-ed published Friday morning. Witty wrote that there were faults in the health insurance industry, and that he understood people’s frustrations with it. But he added that he and his colleagues were “struggling to make sense of this unconscionable act and the vitriol that has been directed at our colleagues who have been barraged by threats.”
“No employees — be they the people who answer customer calls or nurses who visit patients in their homes — should have to fear for their and their loved ones’ safety,” he wrote.
Due to concerns over employee safety, police officers have stepped up protection of the company’s offices in Minnesota, the New York Times reported. One longtime UnitedHealthcare worker told the outlet that employees within the company were afraid. Another discussed the kind of comments they had received following the killing.
“Lots of us were feeling like we were horrible because we’re being accused of working for the evil empire,” a UnitedHealthcare employee told the outlet. “But we all do the best we can to do a good job in the system we are in.”
Those employees aren’t the only ones who feel shaken. In the aftermath of the shooting, executive security professionals received a flood of inquiries about protection strategies. Prominent health care companies have also taken down their leadership pages, which typically list the names and photos of their top executives.
“I can’t say it’s more dangerous today than it was in the past, but social media makes it very easy to motivate people,” Eric Sean Clay, president of the International Association for Healthcare Security and Safety, previously told Fortune. “A lot of publicly traded companies have to post information on [events]. That makes it very easy to find someone today. That’s definitely a risk today.”