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The target was a CEO of a major corporation. And his plan just involved waiting outside the hotel.

Yes, board:investor meetings are publicly advertised. There’s headshots on LinkedIn. But that’s just it - the shooter pre planned to get at the one person, not storming an insurance office and “demanding to see the boss” or ambushing the CEO in his driveway.

Dude was techbro pilled out of his mind. So why not use a 3d printer, if he wasn't a gun nut he wouldn't know the issues his suppressor would cause.

Suppressors are long and heavy, even commercial ones that are well designed. Sneaking that big tube on the bus, subway, on the e-bike, and then just waking around displayed an desire to escape either via an understanding of the NYC shotspotter system or wanting less obvious gunshots. The 3D print speaks to a desire to get away with it forever - otherwise why not just buy a real gun (and the required 4473 background check) that is guaranteed to work?

Because real life isn't an episode of CSI were the criminal thinks of everything but is eventually caught out with this smoking gun piece of evidence.

Except that does happen. Most criminals are pretty dumb, and make obvious mistakes that lead to capture via normal methods. But forensics exist to aid investigations that hit dead ends, or to narrow the search pool of suspects. A fingerprint at the scene would not make an arrest in a PA McDonalds. But a Terry patdown that ‘discovers’ a gun and suppressor, leads to an arrest, leads to thorough personal search, leads to booking, then forensic analysis. Finding the gear on him was instrumental in that McDonalds encounter going from “this guy sus with fake ID?” to “he’s the CEO killer”. Presenting fake ID is a 3rd degree misdemeanor question mark for a beat cop that leads to more scrutiny, not “that’s the killer, look he even has the murder weapon”.

What makes you think he had a plan? an actual plan that is. He was a well educated techbro, just because he could pull the trigger doesn't mean he could handle what comes next. Probably didn't think he would get that far.

He displayed determination to get away, and planned accordingly. Didn’t stand there and magdump into the body, didn’t walk around NYC that morning wearing his face openly, didn’t use real ID, didn’t drive a car anywhere near the city, changed clothing after the murder, went out of his way to use an inferior firearm because it can’t be definitively linked via records, built and hefted a DIY suppressor around NYC public transit, used an RF blocking phone pouch/left his phone behind…

To then be caught days later with everything on him, and a semi-confession note? He couldn’t have found a body of water or hole in the ground to dump anything into? Ditching the backpack in Central Park was odd but burning it that morning was gonna draw attention, as was keeping on his back all day as he left the city. The police shut the bridges, sent out drones, dogs, etc and the shooter got away - dumb fluke? Or pre planned route that avoided known choke points and let him slip away?