UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson was murdered by a gunman in broad daylight on the streets of New York City last Wednesday. In the five days since then, a massive manhunt has been under way for the suspect.
This suspect was seen in surveillance footage pulling out a gun and shooting Thompson multiple times on a Manhattan sidewalk. The suspect then fled, with police losing his trail in Central Park. Afterwards, the words “deny,” “defend,” and “depose” were found on the bullet casings. This was seemingly to send a message to the healthcare industry.
On Monday, a strong “person of interest” was arrested. Police appear to be confident that he is the person who killed Thompson.
From Daily Mail:
The suspect in the death of healthcare CEO Brian Thompson has been named as Luigi Mangione.Mangione, 26, is being held after the UnitedHealthcare CEO was shot dead on the streets of Manhattan after his arrest Monday morning. He was detained at McDonald’s in Pennsylvania around 9am ET on firearm charges and is said to have been found with a ‘ghost gun’ that may have been made using a 3D printer.
He has not been charged in connection to the death of Thompson, but was angry at the way the medical insurance industry treated a sick relative, according to the New York Post. Further details on that relative or their identity have not been shared, although online obituaries show Mangione lost a grandmother in 2013 and a grandfather in 2017.
Mangione originally hails from Towson, Maryland. He attended the Gilman School, a $40,000-a-year Baltimore private school. Mangione graduated from there as the valedictorian of his class in 2016.
From there, Mangione attended the University of Pennsylvania, an Ivy League school. There, he completed a Master of Science in Engineering (MSE), Computer and Information Science.
Mangione’s LinkedIn page claims that he is a data engineer at a car company based in California. However, it also lists his residence as being Honolulu, Hawaii. His Facebook account, which had not been update recently, states that Mangione is the co-founder of AppRoar Studios. This business describes itself as “an app development start-up founded to provide the simplest and most engaging gaming experience.”
Police Arrest Mangione
Police apprehended Mangione inside a McDonald’s in Altoona, Pennsylvania. They had been called at 9:15 by an “elderly patron” who recognized Mangione from surveillance footage that had been released during the manhunt.
“We should never underestimate the power of the public to be our eyes and ears,” said NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch.
Aside from the ghost gun, Mangione was caught with a silencer, a US passport, four fake IDs with names used during the killer’s stint in New York City and a manifesto. This manifesto included quotes from the anti-establishment Ted Kaczynski, the infamous “Unabomber’’ who terrorized America for nearly twenty years by mailing deadly bombs before he was finally apprehended in 1996.
The manifesto made it clear that Mangione was furious about the healthcare industry and its profits.
“He had ill will against corporate America,” said NYPD Chief of Detectives Joseph Kenny.
Law enforcement sources claim that Mangione’s online activity shows that he subscribed to anti-capitalist and climate-change causes. In 2019, Mangione shared a Wall Street Journal article on Facebook called “Obstacle to Deficit Cutting: A Nation on Entitlements.”
We will update you further as this story develops.
Sources: Daily Mail, The New York Post
