New York City officials clearly wanted to send a message when they took Luigi Mangione, the 26-year-old accused in the brazen and fatal shooting of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, on a long walk surrounded by law enforcement officials in Manhattan — but many wondered if… The long, slow escort from the helipad to a federal prison in New York only serves to increase the suspected killer’s popularity and charisma.
Mangione arrived by helicopter from Pennsylvania to New York on Thursday and was greeted by more than a dozen heavily armed law enforcement officials, as well as New York City Mayor Eric Adams, who escorted him away from the helipad and paraded him in front of a pickup truck. An army of media cameras.
The Ivy League graduate, wearing an orange prison jumpsuit with his hands in handcuffs, was then taken away and formally charged with federal murder and stalking charges in a Manhattan courtroom, along with murder and terrorism charges previously announced by New York prosecutors.
Luigi Mangione, the suspect in the fatal shooting of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, is escorted by police, Thursday, Dec. 19, 2024, in New York.
Pamela Smith/Associated Press
The highly publicized escort has reignited the debate over so-called “crime rallies,” with many wondering if the media spectacle seen on Thursday only serves to enhance Mangione’s reputation and notoriety.
Even before Mangione was taken into custody at a McDonald’s restaurant in Pennsylvania last week, when police launched a days-long manhunt for the suspect, he was being hailed as a folk hero of sorts. Police released several surveillance photos of the alleged masked killer, and many couldn’t help but comment on his appearance, likening him to a handsome modern-day Robin Hood.
This photo provided by the New York City Police Department shows a man wanted for questioning in connection with the investigation into the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson outside a Manhattan hotel, Wednesday, December 4, 2024.
New York City Police Department via AP
If Thursday’s rally was meant to paint Mangione as a villain, many saw the spectacle as having the opposite effect and argued that it only added to his appeal.
“This was a big performance by the NYPD that backfired spectacularly. Their goal was to make Luigi Mangione look like a Batman villain. Instead they made him She looks like a folk hero Who resisted a system that puts profits over our lives,” one account on X mused.
“Sorry, but What is this procession?? Did they deploy the army just to escort a handcuffed graduate ten meters away? Is Christopher Nolan directing this? Another commented on the plays.
Jorge Camacho, policy director of the Justice Collaborative at Yale Law School, told USA Today that he believes authorities undertook the high-profile march to send a message.
“Obviously this practice is as controversial as it can be Very harmful “Seeing someone walking around with their hands handcuffed behind their back and surrounded by a cadre of police officers is kind of a hint that this person is actually guilty, and is indeed very dangerous,” he said, adding that in a case like Mangione’s, the suspect was paid a lot of money. With some sympathy and applause from people frustrated with the greed of health care insurance companies, this tactic may backfire.
Robert Weisberg, a law professor at Stanford University, said the scene appeared “particularly orderly.”
“Its coordination is almost too transparent. The FBI and DEA could have secretly transferred Mangione, but they did.” Choose a public view. “This seems designed to send a message,” he said.
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The federal complaint on Thursday charged Mangione with two counts of stalking, one count of murder with a firearm and a firearms offence. Murder with a firearm carries the possibility of the death penalty, though federal prosecutors will determine whether to pursue that path in the coming months.
Luigi Mangione, center, sits in court reading the federal complaint while wearing orange slip-on shoes with his ankles shackled in Manhattan federal court, Thursday, Dec. 19, 2024, in New York. He is flanked by his attorney, Karen Agnifilo, left, and Mark Agnifilo.
Elizabeth Williams via The Associated Press
In an indictment issued in state court earlier this week, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office charged Mangione with murder as an act of terrorism, which carries a potential penalty of life in prison without parole. New York does not have the death penalty.
Mangione’s attorney, Karen Friedman Agnifilo, said it was a “highly unusual situation” for a defendant to face simultaneous state and federal cases.
Suspect Luigi Mangione was transported to Blair County Court on Tuesday, December 10, 2024, in Hollidaysburg, Pennsylvania.
Benjamin B. Brown/Pittsburgh Post-Gazette via AP
“Honestly, I’ve never seen anything like what’s happening here,” said Friedman Agnifilo, a former top deputy in the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office.
She reserved the right to seek bail at a later date and declined to comment as she left the courtroom.
Mangione, of Towson, Maryland, is accused of ambushing the 50-year-old Thompson when the CEO arrived at a Manhattan hotel for an investor conference.
Surveillance video showed a masked gunman shooting Thompson in the back. Police say the words “delay,” “denial” and “deposit” were scrawled on the ammunition investigators found at the scene, echoing a phrase commonly used to describe insurance companies’ tactics to avoid paying claims.
The gunman then rode a bicycle through Central Park, took a taxi to a bus station and then took the subway to a train station before fleeing into Pennsylvania, authorities said.
There, a McDonald’s customer noticed that Mangione resembled the person in surveillance photos police released of the gunman, prosecutors said.
They say that when he was arrested, Mangione was carrying the gun used to kill Thompson, a passport, fake IDs and about $10,000.
According to the federal complaint, Mangione also had a notebook that included several handwritten pages expressing hostility toward the health insurance industry and wealthy executives. UnitedHealthcare is the largest health insurer in the United States, although the insurer said Mangione was never a client.
One August entry said the “goal is insurance” because it “checks every box,” according to the filing. The October entry “describes an intent to ‘bother’ the CEO of an insurance company at its investor conference,” the document said.
The killing unleashed a torrent of stories about resentment toward American health insurers, while also rocking corporate America after some social media users described the shooting as retaliation.
— With files from The Associated Press
&Copy 2024 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.
