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🧷 The Words on the Bullets: “Deny. Defend. Depose.” Enters National Consciousness

On December 5, 2024, journalist Ivy Griffith published a viral report titled “Deny, Defend, Depose” May Have Been Found on Bullets From UnitedHealthcare Shooting — Here's the Meaning. The article explores the chilling possibility that UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson was not only targeted—but that his killer left behind a message:

Deny. Defend. Depose. Engraved into bullet casings.

Immediately, speculation ignited across Reddit, Twitter, and news outlets. But one Redditor, Vulkyria, provided context that struck a cultural nerve:

“It’s a change-up of the book title, Delay. Deny. Defend. Why Insurance Companies Don’t Pay Claims and What You Can Do About It. by Jay M. Feinman.”

They concluded:

“This is the beginning of the resistance. It should be turned into a bumper sticker. Deny. Defend. Depose. Repeat.”

The Phrase Is Now National This article marks a turning point:

The phrase “Deny. Defend. Depose.” has entered the national vocabulary—through tragedy, through anger, and through recognition.

Ivy Griffith’s reporting confirms what many of us have lived firsthand:

The phrase is not random.

The phrase has a history.

The phrase is being read, understood, and repeated—because it names something real.

Echoes of Feinman. Echoes of the System. As Griffith notes, the phrase echoes legal scholar Jay M. Feinman’s seminal book: Delay. Deny. Defend. — a definitive analysis of how insurers systematically obstruct policyholders.

The alleged shooter’s altered phrasing—“Deny. Defend. Depose.”—tightens that formula into a courtroom escalation strategy. It exposes how the industry transforms suffering into policy—and policy into a wall no ordinary person can scale.

Protest or Warning? While the attack has rightly been condemned, the presence of these words at the crime scene has opened a dangerous question: Was this simply a slogan—or a verdict?

Griffith quotes both fear and fascination. While New York officials worked to assure the public this was a “targeted attack,” the phrase itself sparked broader dread—not just of more violence, but of what the words reflect.

“Deny. Defend. Depose.” has now crossed from litigation strategy to cultural symbol. And no one—not UnitedHealthcare, not law enforcement, not the public—can claim it’s unfamiliar.

📎 Preserved Copy: Distractify, Ivy Griffith — “Deny, Defend, Depose” Bullets Found in UnitedHealthcare Shooting (Dec. 5, 2024)

📖 Original Article: https://www.distractify.com/p/deny-defend-depose-meaning-unitedhealthcare

🧷 “Deny. Defend. Depose.” – When Legal Language Becomes Public Resistance

On May 19, 2025, writer Charles Dickens published an article titled “Deny Defend Depose Meaning: From Legal Tactic to Cultural Flashpoint”, capturing one of the most important linguistic and political shifts in recent memory.

The phrase “Deny. Defend. Depose.”—once known only to insurance litigators and corporate risk teams—has exploded into the public consciousness. It’s been scrawled across protest signs, graffitied on hospital walls, printed in headlines, and now, tragically, found engraved on the shell casings from the assassination of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson.

Dickens doesn’t glorify what happened. He analyzes it. And in doing so, he confirms what many of us already knew:

This wasn’t a phrase invented by extremists. It was a phrase used by corporations. A legal strategy that became a symbol—because of how deeply it was felt.

⚖️ The Original Meaning: Deny. Defend. Depose. As Dickens explains, the phrase emerged from inside the insurance and legal industries, referring to a now-common 3-step litigation strategy:

Deny the initial claim

Defend the decision if challenged

Depose the claimant in court to undermine their credibility

This strategy wasn’t illegal. It was institutional. And over time, it became routine—particularly in health insurance, disability claims, auto injuries, and Medicaid appeals.

What began as risk control evolved into a system of procedural exhaustion: stall the claimant, bury them in paperwork, escalate when they fight back.

Dickens writes:

“Though it may sound harsh, this three-step approach was historically designed to protect against fraudulent claims... But in practice, especially when overused, it has often been accused of prioritizing profit over people.”

🚨 From Legal Tactic to Cultural Flashpoint Dickens captures how the phrase made its leap from courtrooms to culture. He notes that the Mangione shooting—while horrifying—did not invent this language. It revealed how recognizable the phrase had already become.

“The phrase on the bullet casings—deny, defend, depose—wasn’t random. It was a message, a grim commentary on perceived institutional neglect.”

This line matters. Because it echoes what so many survivors of insurance denial already know: the violence often begins long before physical harm. It begins in the delay. In the silence. In the algorithm. In the denial letter.

🧠 Why the Phrase Resonates So Deeply According to Dickens, the phrase has taken off because it captures something too many people have lived:

Being denied a critical medication

Being forced into legal battles just to survive

Being treated as an adversary by the very system that promised to care

Across social media and public art, “Deny. Defend. Depose.” has become a rallying cry—and sometimes, a warning. Dickens points out its dual identity:

“It has become both a warning and a war cry—depending on who’s wielding it.”

That duality is the cultural tension we now live inside. And it's precisely what UnitedHealthcare refused to acknowledge when they escalated my call to law enforcement.

🛑 My Use of the Phrase Wasn't Isolated. It Was Inevitable. When I said “Deny. Defend. Depose.” on a recorded call with UnitedHealthcare, it wasn’t a threat. It wasn’t new. And it wasn’t mine alone.

It was already:

Being analyzed by legal scholars

Quoted by journalists like Trudy Lieberman

Studied by critics of managed care

Echoed in patient forums and disability hearings

What Charles Dickens makes clear is this:

The phrase didn’t become dangerous because I used it. It became dangerous because the public recognized it as true.

⚖️ Legal Strategy or Systemic Abuse? Dickens closes with a question that haunts the entire health care and legal system today:

“Should legal strategy ever override human need?”

It’s the right question. Because this isn’t about slogans. It’s about outcomes. And it’s about lives.

📎 Preserved Copy: “Deny Defend Depose Meaning: From Legal Tactic to Cultural Flashpoint” by Charles Dickens, Café Lam (May 19, 2025)

📖 Original Source: https://cafelam.co.uk/deny-defend-depose-meaning/

🧷 “Deny. Defend. Depose.” — The System Gave It Meaning

On January 10, 2025, award-winning health care journalist Trudy Lieberman published a piece titled “Deny. Defend. Depose: The Chilling Legacy of Managed Care and the American Health Care Crisis”.

In it, she traces the phrase not to violence—but to decades of documented corporate behavior in the American health insurance industry.

“Paying less for care meant more profits and return to investors, so it is no wonder that the alleged killer of the UnitedHealthcare chief executive reportedly left the chilling message: ‘DENY. DEFEND. DEPOSE,’ words associated with insurance company strategies for denying claims.”

Lieberman names what the public already knew: “Deny. Defend. Depose.” is industry-standard conduct—not extremism.

It didn’t come from fringe rhetoric. It came from the managed care model itself, born in the 1990s, refined through mergers, and enforced through denial algorithms and profit-based care limits.

For decades, patients have described the same pattern:

First, deny the claim.

Then, defend the denial.

Finally, depose the patient—through paperwork, delay, appeals, or silence.

The phrase has lived in the public domain longer than UnitedHealthcare would like to admit.

This Isn’t About a Slogan. It’s About a Pattern. Lieberman’s reporting confirms what whistleblowers, case managers, and patients have all described—what I named, and what UnitedHealthcare tried to criminalize.

“Deny. Defend. Depose.” is not a threat. It’s a policy.

📎 Read the full article by Trudy Lieberman: Click Here

📎 Preserved Copy: A PDF archive of “Deny. Defend. Depose: The Chilling Legacy of Managed Care and the American Health Care Crisis” by Trudy Lieberman (January 10, 2025) is preserved and available HERE for public reference and evidentiary purposes.

🧷 When I said “Deny. Defend. Depose.” on the phone with UnitedHealthcare, I wasn’t threatening anyone—I was speaking a truth that made them uncomfortable.

That phrase wasn’t invented by me. It’s already embedded in legal, academic, and cultural conversations about how corporations dodge accountability. It names a real pattern. And I was far from the only one who saw it.

In December 2024, a sharp and controversial article titled “Deny. Defend. Depose: A New Model of Corporate Accountability?” was published on the Peter A. Allard School of Law Blog by a contributor using the name lukaszk. It reflected on the public reaction to the assassination of UnitedHealth Group CEO Brian Thompson, and examined why so many people saw his death not as tragedy—but as retribution.

“The words engraved on Mangione’s bullets were about legal procedure and are related to how insurance companies weaponize legal procedure against vulnerable people.”

That article didn’t glorify violence. It interrogated why those words—legal, procedural, bureaucratic—were seen as justifiable targets for outrage. It recognized that for many marginalized people, corporate abuse doesn’t look like a villain in a cape. It looks like a denial letter, a phone tree, an escalation team. A system designed to delay until you break.

That article remains live. But another one does not.

A second piece—attributed to law student Serena Kaul—was also published on the Allard Blog in 2024 under the same title: “Deny. Defend. Depose.” That one is now gone. Removed without explanation.

Kaul’s version wasn’t about vigilante justice—it was about legal architecture. She dissected the phrase as a symptom of deeper systemic failure: how administrative actors use procedure to silence dissent, punish the vulnerable, and make civil rights technically compliant but functionally unreachable. Her analysis warned that institutional actors might one day try to criminalize protest language under the guise of public safety.

Her piece was less visceral, more academic—but no less dangerous to those in power.

It’s no coincidence that her article was taken down. We’re working to recover and preserve a copy for public record.

🔥 UnitedHealthcare Didn’t Misunderstand Me. They Recognized the Pattern. I used the phrase Deny. Defend. Depose. not on a weapon. Not in rage. But on a phone call—while trying to survive.

I used it:

After my hormone therapy was illegally denied

After two weeks of delay and misdirection

While pleading—lawfully—for the medication that Colorado state law required them to cover

UnitedHealthcare didn’t treat my speech as policy critique. They treated it as a threat.

They stripped it of context. They reframed it as “instability.” And they sent my audio, gender status, psychiatric medications, and call transcripts to the Grand Junction Police Department— without a subpoena, without redaction, and without lawful justification.

But as the Allard blog post and Kaul’s removed article made clear:

This wasn’t just my language. It was the language of protest. The language of systems being named. The language of people who have had enough.

We will update this page with a link to the preserved Kaul article if and when it becomes available. Until then, remember:

My words weren’t dangerous. What’s dangerous is a system that treats truth as threat.