Milon Shil All About Entertainment, Lander World
New Yorkers mockingly celebrated the assassination of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson in Washington Square Park with a truly tasteless shooter look-a-like contest — as the frantic manhunt for the brazen killer entered its fourth day.
Eight contestants donning hooded outerwear and face masks were surrounded Friday by dozens of onlookers, whose cheers amounted to votes in the nose-thumbing stunt.
The winner, whose green jacket and face covering made him a dead ringer for the cold-blooded assassin, said he headed toward the park after hearing about the contest that morning.
“I got no looks until I got over here and now everyone wants a picture with me,” he told The Post.
“He’s the one,” one onlooker remarked as he was introduced as “contestant number six.”
The wannabe doppelganger noted that he didn’t have to particularly dress up for the event, saying “I wear this everywhere.”
His killer looks landed him $50.
The champ said he’s had his own issues with health insurance companies covering some of his medications, although he admitted he is not a UnitedHealthcare customer.
“People do not feel great about the current state of things in our world,” he commented about the unsympathetic response to the CEO’s shocking slaying.
One of the contestants, who was firing off of a bubble gun, had a handwritten sign draped over their black clothing that read “Deny Defend Depose” — the three words the gunman scribbled on the shell casings he left at the scene.
“Bro I don’t know if you all should be doing this – but your life choices I guess,” someone shouted as the contestants stood together.
Thompson was gunned down outside a Midtown hotel just before dawn on Wednesday as he headed to an investor event on foot — and without any security.
The assassin quickly fled after the caught-on-camera killing, sped through Central Park on a bike and at some point left the city on a bus, according to authorities.
Police published photos from surveillance cameras showing the shooter pull down his mask to flirt with a woman working at the desk of a youth hostel on the Upper West Side where he is believed to have stayed upon arriving in the city.
He is still in the wind as of Saturday evening — but Mayor Eric Adams confirmed that police have identified the shooter.
“The net is tightening,” the mayor told reporters Saturday outside a Police Athletic League holiday party in Harlem.