Luigi Mangione, a 26-year-old engineering graduate and IT enthusiast, was arrested Monday at a McDonald's in the rural town of Altoona, 300 miles west of New York. He is suspected of having dejected shot last Wednesday at dawn and in the middle of the street in midtown Manhattan Brian Thompson, UnitedHealthCare CEOthe country’s leading private health insurer.
Charged with murderhe appeared Tuesday in a court in Blair County, Pennsylvania. He contested his transfer to New York, where justice is waiting to judge him, which will slow down the procedure and create “plus d’obstacles”, County Attorney Peter Weeks acknowledged.
Luigi Mangione's lawyers have 14 days to file their arguments against their client's transfer to New York. One of them, Thomas Dickey, told reporters in Pennsylvania he planned to plead not guilty.
“I have not seen any evidence that proves he is the shooter,” said Mr. Mangione's defender, according to ABC News television.
“Insult to intelligence”
Images showed the athletic-looking young man, with curly black hair and an orange prison jumpsuit, exiting a police vehicle handcuffed to be taken to court. We suddenly see him become agitated, forcing the police officers who escort him to hold him down and pin him against a wall. He vehemently throws the words “unfair” et “It is an insult to the intelligence of the American people.”
Six days after the crime, the police are trying to explain why this brilliant former student at the prestigious University of Pennsylvania and originally from a wealthy Baltimore family coldly shot Brian Thompson at the foot of a hotel in the heart of Manhattan.
According to the court document indicting him for murder, he was in particular in possession of a false driving license and“a semi-automatic pistol with what appears to be a 3D printed magazine and silencer, as well as a written confession to the crime”when he was arrested. The document does not detail its “confessions”, but the police indicated on Monday that a three-page text had been found on the suspect.
“I was able to read this manifesto. It is a handwritten text. He suggests that he is frustrated with the health system in the United States”explained the head of investigators of the New York police, Joseph Kenny, on the show Good Morning America on the ABC channel.
“We don’t kill”
“More precisely”, Luigi Mangione “explains that our health care system is the most expensive in the world, while the life expectancy of an American is ranked 42nd in the world. He has written extensively about his disdain for American business and particularly for industry of health”he added.
The death of Brian Thompson caused great emotion, but it was also accompanied by hateful comments on social networks against American health insurance programs, illustrating deep anger in the country towards a lucrative system accused of enriching itself on the backs of patients.
In an internal memo cited by the New York Times, police are concerned that the suspect will be perceived “like a martyr” by some and “an example to follow”. “The use of violence to combat corporate greed is unacceptable,” condemned White House spokesperson Karine Jean-Pierre on Tuesday.
“We don’t kill people in cold blood for political reasons or to express a point of view,” also condemned Pennsylvania Democratic Governor Josh Shapiro on Monday.
According to people who knew him, quoted in the New York Times, the young man suffered from serious back problems which handicapped him in his daily and intimate life. Among the photos posted on his X profile is a medical X-ray image that appears to show pins implanted in a person's lower back. Another shows Luigi Mangione all smiles, shirtless and muscular, during a hike in a superb mountain setting.
Police say the suspect's last known address is in Honolulu, Hawaii.
