In the shooting death of United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson, which shocked the country and led to a 24-hour manhunt for his perpetrator, Pennsylvania officials detained a strong person of interest on Monday.
Luigi Mangione, 26, of Towson, Maryland, was accused of possessing criminal tools, forging documents or identification, carrying weapons without a permit, and giving police a false identity.
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. At a press conference, Jessica Tisch, the commissioner of the New York Police Department, stated that a restaurant employee recognized him and called the local police.
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Investigators are investigating if Mangione recently took a bus from Philadelphia, which is around 240 miles distant, to Altoona.
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.
Magione 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 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 accounts on the book review website Goodreads.
According to authorities, round shells discovered at the shooting site with the phrases “delay,” “deny,” and “depose” inscribed on them. However, the investigation revealed no evidence that he had read or commented on the book Delay, Deny, Defend, which was about the health insurance industry.
Mangione reviewed Ted Kaczynski’s Industrial Society and Its Future, popularly known as the Unabomber Manifesto, on Goodreads in January 2024. The manifesto provided the intellectual justification for Kaczynski’s postal bomb 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. But, as Mangione noted in his assessment, “it’s just impossible to ignore how prescient many of his predictions about modern society turned out.”
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?
After not posting or reposting anything for five years, Mangione’s activity on X increased dramatically in 2021.
He supported and followed some of the most prominent figures in the emerging conservative-leaning tech industry, such as author and social media critic Jonathan Haidt, journalist Tim Urban, and neuroscientist and podcaster Andrew Huberman. He wrote about what he saw as the shortcomings of contemporary society, such as declining birthrates, the gender gap in politics, and obsessive social media use.
Mangione, who loves going to the gym and being healthy, retweeted messages about health and masculinity as well as the expanding role and promise of artificial intelligence in changing society. He posted content that connected growing dependency on technology to deteriorating mental health and reproductive outcomes. Additionally, he disseminated content that ridiculed and attacked woke and inclusive political viewpoints.
Mangione, who seemed to be an admirer of food writer Michael Pollan, posted articles that questioned the use of psychedelic substances, alcohol, and even coffee. Mangione was reading Pollan’s 2006 book, The Omnivore’s Dilemma, according to his Goodreads account.
Mangione also shown interest in Japanese culture by promoting opposition to certain of its cultural organizations in a list of suggestions to boost the nation’s birth rate. An X-ray of a spine with equipment, a composite image of a Pok mon, and what looked to be a photo of him hiking shirtless in Hawaii made up his X cover image. Honolulu was his designated place on X.
Police in New York were still looking into the death of Thompson, 50, who was shot and killed on the morning of December 4 while he was walking to an investor meeting in front of the New York Hilton Midtown.
In what New York Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch called a deliberate, preplanned targeted crime, police said the gunman seemed to wait for his chosen victim.
Thompson was shot at least once in the back and once in the right calf by the masked shooter who came up behind him.
Police said the gunman went into Central Park on foot and later on a bike.
Correction made at 9:39 p.m. ET on December 9, 2024: An earlier version of this page misstated Luigi Mangione’s graduation date from the University of Pennsylvania due to an editing error. He did not graduate in 2022, but in 2020.
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