Authorities have identified the man suspected of killing UnitedHealth executive Brian Thompson and are closing in on him, New York City Mayor Eric Adams was quoted as saying on Saturday by the New York Post.
Adams was quoted by the Post as saying the police were withholding the suspect's name for now to deny him any advantage. “We don’t want to release that now,” the mayor said. “If you do, you are basically giving a tip to the person we are seeking and we do not want to give him an upper hand at all. Let him continue to believe he can hide behind the mask."
Forgive me for being True Crime brained here a moment (I'm a
it's in my blood I'm sorry) but the cops did something really similar during a widely publicized murder in Delphi, IN, where they held these press conferences assuring the killer they knew his name and identity but never reveaed it
And then it took another couple years and the testimony of another unrelated suspect to even find the guy, so clearly they were blowing smoke to see if the guy would slip up or turn himself in (he did neither)