There must have been, but also - Thompson was in town for the Investor Conference at a hotel nearby. I'm sure UHC had hotel rooms blocked for it. Call hotels nearby, and look has no rooms available for the duration of the conference, as a starting point (if I recall correctly, people on Reddit used it to call BS on a last minute music concert/festival cancellation in Vegas. "We've just found out about this today", "So why did you release the block of rooms you were holding at the hotel last week?").
The salient point is that the shooter was hanging around early in the morning, and he probably didn’t loiter for too long because that would have drawn attention. It suggests he knew Thompson would be leaving the hotel around 6:30am, and it’s difficult to see how an outsider could have obtained that info.
Someone loitering on the street? In NYC? It's questionable how much attention that would draw.
Also, and not saying this in this case: "Annual Investor Conference Day 1 Agenda, 8am Open Breakfast". Not hard to believe someone would be leaving their hotel nearby at 6.30, 7 for that. It's not staking the place out for hours.
Apparently knowing which door Mr. Thompson planned to use, the shooter arrived outside the hotel about 10 minutes before his intended target and ignored passers-by as he lay in wait.
Yeah. Depending upon the level of prior research by the shooter, the CEO may have shown a reliable pattern before hand attending other conferences too.
