After a 24-hour manhunt, UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson was arrested in Pennsylvania and charged with murder in New York for his shooting death.
After Luigi Mangione, 26, of Towson, Maryland, was taken into custody in Altoona, Pennsylvania, on Monday, he was charged with three misdemeanors and two felonies. Later that evening, authorities in New York charged him with Thompson’s murder.
Two senior law enforcement authorities claim that Mangione was apprehended in a McDonald’s restaurant in Altoona, Pennsylvania, with several forged identification documents, including one using the name Marc Rosario. During a press conference, New York Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch stated that a restaurant employee had identified him and had contacted the local police.
Investigators are investigating whether Mangione recently took a bus from Philadelphia, which is 240 miles distant, to Altoona.
Mangione was accused in Pennsylvania of carrying a firearm without a permit, forging documents, altering identification or records, having criminal tools, and giving police a false identity.
He was charged with one crime of murder, three counts of criminal possession of a weapon, and one count of possession of a forged instrument by New York officials hours later, according to court documents available online.
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Last week, police said that the guy accused of the shooting had taken a bus to New York City in late November and had stayed at a hostel in Manhattan.
Three people with knowledge of the investigation said that the individual who checked into the hostel also used a phony New Jersey ID using the same name, Marc Rosario.
“A three-page handwritten document that speaks to his motivation and mindset was found by investigators,” Tisch added.
Mangione also carried a ghost gun, which is hard to track down and can be made at home.
According to information we’re now receiving from Altoona, the pistol looks to be a ghost gun that might have been manufactured using a 3D printer and is able to fire a 9 mm bullet, stated NYPD Chief of Detectives Joseph Kenny.
According to a university spokesman, Mangione earned a bachelor’s degree in computer science and a minor in mathematics from the University of Pennsylvania in 2020. She also obtained a master’s degree in computer and information science.
He received his diploma from Baltimore’s Gilman School, an all-male secondary school, in 2016.
In a statement, Gilman’s headmaster, Henry P.A. Smyth, stated, “This is extremely upsetting news on top of an already terrible situation.” Our thoughts and prayers are with all those impacted.
With profiles utilizing his name and images going back years, Mangione seemed to have a sizable internet presence.
He claimed to have read 65 books on subjects ranging from diets to Elon Musk on one of his busiest profiles on the book review website Goodreads.
The account did not show any record of his having read or commented on Delay, Deny, Defend, a book about the health insurance industry; police saidshell casingsfound at the scene of the shooting had the words “delay,” “deny” and “depose” written on them.
Mangione reviewed Ted Kaczynski’s Industrial Society and Its Future, popularly known as the Unabomber Manifesto, on Goodreads in January. The manifesto provided the intellectual justification for Kaczynski’s postal bombing campaign, which resulted in three fatalities and twenty-three injuries.
In order to avoid dealing with some of the painful issues it raises, it is simple to dismiss this as the manifesto of a madman in a hurry and without much consideration. However, Mangione argued that it’s hard to deny how accurate many of his forecasts about contemporary culture ended up becoming.
Mangione also cited an article he claimed to have seen online that said, in part: Violence is required to survive when all other means of communication are ineffective. Even if you disagree with his tactics, from his point of view, it’s war and revolution rather than terrorism.
Additionally, it stated: These businesses have no regard for you, your children, or your grandchildren. Since they don’t mind destroying the earth to get money, why should we feel bad about destroying them in order to live?
In other online news, Mangione resumed posting and reposting content on Twitter, now called as X, in 2021 after a five-year hiatus.
He followed and endorsed some of the most influential thinkers in the new conservative-leaning tech space, including neuroscientist and podcaster Andrew Huberman, author and social media critic Jonathan Haidt and writer Tim Urban. His posts focused on what he viewed as failures of modern society, including falling birth rates, the political gender divide and the compulsive use of social media.
A gym and wellness enthusiast, Mangione retweeted posts about masculinity and health, as well as the growing role and potential of artificial intelligence in reshaping society. Content he shared linked declining mental health and procreation to the increased reliance on technology. He also shared content that made fun of and criticized inclusive and woke political views.
An apparent fan of food writer Michael Pollan, Mangione shared content that interrogated the consumption of alcohol, psychedelic drugs and even coffee. According to Mangione s Goodreads account, he was reading Pollan s 2006 bestseller, The Omnivore s Dilemma.
Mangione also displayed an interest in Japanese culture, posting a list of ideas to increase the birth rate in the country that included advocating against some of its cultural institutions. His cover image on X was a composite that included an image of a Pok mon, an X-ray of a spine with instrumentation in it and a picture that appeared to be of him hiking shirtless in Hawaii. His location on X was set to Honolulu.
Meantime, in New York on Monday, police continued to investigate the death of Thompson, 50, who was gunned down Wednesday morning in front of the New York Hilton Midtown as he walked to an investor conference.
Police said the shooter appeared to wait for his target in what Tisch, the police commissioner, described as a premeditated, preplanned targeted attack.
The masked shooter approached Thompson from behind and shot him at least once in the back and once in the right calf.
The gunman fled on foot, then on a bike into Central Park, according to police.
CORRECTION(Dec. 9, 2024, 9:39 p.m. ET): Due to an editing error, a previous version of this article misstated when Luigi Mangione graduated from the University of Pennsylvania. He graduated in 2020, not 2022.
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