Police detained a 26-year-old man on firearm charges Monday and officially identified him as a person of interest in the murder of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, who was gunned down on a crowded midtown Manhattan sidewalk last week.
According to the New York Authorities Department, the man was apprehended near Altoona, Pennsylvania, after a McDonald’s employee noticed him and reported him to authorities.
“At this time, he is believed to be our person of interest in the brazen, targeted murder of Brian Thompson, CEO of UnitedHealthcare, last Wednesday in midtown Manhattan,” stated NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch during a press conference alongside Mayor Eric Adams.
Tisch identified the person of interest as Luigi Mangione. The commissioner stated that he carries a three-page document that discusses his claimed “motivation and mindset” in the assassination.
Currently, he has not been charged with Thompson’s killing.
“We don’t think there is any specific threats to other people mentioned in that document, but it does seem that he has some ill-will towards corporate American,” the chief of detectives, Joe Kenny, said.
When authorities arrived at the police station, they discovered the man in possession of a gun similar to the one used in Thompson’s murder, as well as a silencer and a false New Jersey ID. According to sources, the suspected gunman checked into a Manhattan hostel last month with a false New Jersey ID.
Investigators said Mangione possessed a ghost gun, a sort of weapon that can be constructed at home from parts with no serial number, making it difficult to trace.
Two senior law enforcement sources claimed the man being questioned in Altoona had the name “Mark Rosario” on his false New Jersey ID. According to three persons acquainted with the situation, the alleged gunman entered the hostel with a phony New Jersey ID bearing the name “Mark Rosario.”
Luigi Mangione has ties to the Bay Area, authorities said.
In 2016, Mangione graduated as valedictorian from Gilman School, an all-boys high school in Baltimore, Maryland. According to a spokeswoman, he attended the University of Pennsylvania and graduated with a bachelor of science in engineering and a master of science engineering degree in May 2020. His interests were computer science and mathematics.
According to police, the 26-year-old was born and reared in Maryland has ties to San Francisco, and his last known address was in Honolulu, Hawaii.
Stanford University announced on Monday that Luigi Mangione worked as a head counselor for the Pre-Collegiate Studies program from May to September of 2019. It was not immediately clear whether the Mangione previously hired by Stanford was the same man police identified as a subject of interest.
In 2019, social media photos appear to show Mangione alongside numerous other Stanford counselors. A LinkedIn page that appears to belong to Mangione shows that he works as an artificial intelligence teaching assistant, preparing lesson plans and teaching AI to gifted high school students.
According to Mangione’s LinkedIn profile, he has been working for TrueCar in Santa Monica since 2022. A spokesman for the company stated that Mangione has not worked for them since last year.
According to Kenny, authorities did not know Mangione’s name before Monday, and he has no prior arrests in the country.
Mangione was being jailed in Pennsylvania on firearms charges and would eventually be extradited to New York to face charges related to Thompson’s death.
Tracking a killer
Police were able to trace the shooter’s movements thanks to security cameras installed in practically every structure and street.
They know he ambushed Thompson at 6:44 a.m., as the CEO arrived at the Hilton for his company’s annual investor meeting, with a 9 mm pistol that resembled the firearms farmers use to kill animals quietly. They know that ammo found near Thompson’s body contained the words “delay,” “deny,” and “depose,” which resembles a term used by insurance industry critics.
Kenny speculated that the gunman may have been a dissatisfied employee or client because he was aware that the UnitedHealthcare organization was hosting a meeting at the hotel and knew the route Thompson would take to arrive.
Surveillance video shows the shooter fleeing into Central Park on a bicycle and abandoning it at 7 a.m. around 85th Street.
He then walked a few yards before getting into a taxi and arrived at 7:30 a.m. at the George Washington Bridge Bus Station, which is near Manhattan’s northern point and provides commuter service to New Jersey as well as Greyhound services to Philadelphia, Boston, and Washington.
Investigators do not know what happened next. They are going through additional surveillance footage but have yet to find footage of the shooter boarding a bus or exiting the station.
According to camera evidence, the gunman was in the city for ten days before to the shooting. He landed at Manhattan’s main bus terminal on a Greyhound bus from Atlanta, though it’s unclear whether he boarded there or at one of the route’s about a half-dozen stops.
Kenny stated that he immediately took a cab to the Hilton and remained there for approximately a half-hour.
He arrived about 11 p.m. and took a taxi to the HI New York City Hostel. While interacting with a staffer in the lobby, he quickly removed his mask and grinned, providing detectives with the brief glimpse they are now using to identify and apprehend a murderer.
