By Josh Nathan-Kazis
San Francisco's police department has canceled all time off for its officers during a major healthcare industry conference next week, the department told Barron's, just over a month after a gunman killed a top UnitedHealth Group executive on a Manhattan street.
The conference, hosted by J.P. Morgan at the Westin St. Francis hotel on San Francisco's Union Square, is the biggest yearly gathering of healthcare investors and executives, and is expected to draw more than 8,000 attendees. Events hosted by other organizations and held parallel to the conference will likely draw thousands more in the healthcare industry to the city's downtown.
Looming over conference preparations is the December slaying of Brian Thompson, CEO UnitedHealth Group's health insurance division, outside of a UnitedHealth Group investor meeting in early December. Federal and state prosecutors have charged Thompson's alleged killer, a 26-year-old graduate of the University of Pennsylvania named Luigi Mangione, with murder. He has pleaded not guilty to all charges.
Mangione has drawn a startling degree of public sympathy, a response that exposed a deep well of resentment for the healthcare sector. Valuations of the largest health insurers have skyrocket over the past two decades, even as life expectancies in the U.S. have stagnated, and polls show that Americans have historically low opinions of the quality of healthcare in the U.S.
Police in New York City said after Thompson's killing that they were watching for copycat attacks. Now, San Francisco authorities say they will be alert for any threats to conference-goers. The San Francisco Police Department told Barron's it will be prepared to respond to any emergency, and that it has no information of any credible threats.
"The San Francisco Police Department is working closely with the event organizer, and we are committed to ensuring the safety and security of all attendees," the department said. "The SFPD will be fully staffed, and all time off has been canceled to ensure that sufficient officers are on hand throughout the conference."
A person familiar with J.P. Morgan's arrangements said that the company is working with the city and the police department to increase security for the conference.
Many of the world's largest healthcare companies have announced plans to make presentations at this year's conference, which begins on Monday, including Bristol Myers Squibb, Johnson & Johnson, Biogen, Eli Lilly, Medtronic, Danaher, Pfizer, Merck, McKesson, Gilead Sciences, and others.
While the conference presentations are held in the packed halls of the Westin St. Francis, the real action in San Francisco next week is elsewhere, in hotels and event spaces and bars across San Francisco's downtown.
Companies rent out rooms and floors at hotels to host one-on-one meetings with investors, while healthcare-focused publications organize parallel events. At night there is a busy cocktail circuit. Many of the people who come to downtown San Francisco the week of the conference never even set foot in the Westin St. Francis.
That amorphous way in which the conference sprawls out across the city could make the event particularly difficult to make secure, and necessarily devolves some responsibility for security away from J.P. Morgan, and to the attendees and participants themselves.
"The SFPD is working with our local, state and federal law enforcement partners to address all public safety issues that may affect the conference," the San Francisco Police Department told Barron's. "As with anyone attending large events in the city, we advise conference attendees to be aware of their surroundings, keep valuables close by, travel in groups, and if they see anything suspicious or out of the ordinary let the police or event security know."
Write to Josh Nathan-Kazis at josh.nathan-kazis@barrons.com
This content was created by Barron's, which is operated by Dow Jones & Co. Barron's is published independently from Dow Jones Newswires and The Wall Street Journal.
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January 08, 2025 17:09 ET (22:09 GMT)
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