Luigi Mangione, UnitedHealthcare Shooting Suspect, Fights Extradition to New York: Live Updates
Posted on 12/10/2024
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Live Updates: Suspect in C.E.O.’s Killing Fights Extradition to New York
The 26-year-old suspect was charged with murder in New York after being arrested at a McDonald’s in Altoona, Pa. He appeared in court in Pennsylvania on Tuesday afternoon.
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Dec. 10, 2024, 3:29 p.m. ET
Chelsia Rose MarciusAndy NewmanNicholas Bogel-Burroughs and
A suspect charged with murder in New York in the assassination of the chief executive of UnitedHealthcare in Midtown Manhattan will fight extradition to New York to face murder charges, potentially keeping him in custody in Pennsylvania for weeks.
“He is contesting it,” said his lawyer, Thomas Dickey.
The suspect, Luigi Mangione, 26, was charged late Monday in Manhattan with second-degree murder, forgery and three gun charges. The police had released images of him after the fatal shooting of Brian Thompson, 50, in Midtown Manhattan last week.
The suspect saw the killing as a “symbolic takedown,” according to a New York Police Department internal report that detailed parts of a three-page manifesto found with him at the time of his arrest.
He arrived at an extradition hearing Tuesday at the Blair County Courthouse in Hollidaysburg, Pa., near Altoona, and struggled against officers as they led him toward an entrance. Before he disappeared into the building, he turned toward reporters and shouted.
In New York, the internal police report, which was obtained by The New York Times, said his manifesto also indicated that he saw the killing as a direct challenge to the health care industry’s “alleged corruption and ‘power games.’”
“Frankly these parasites simply had it coming,” the manifesto was quoted as saying.
The internal report added that the suspect “likely views himself as a hero of sorts who has finally decided to act upon such injustices” and expressed concern that others might see him as a “martyr and an example to follow.”
Police officers arrested Mr. Mangione at a McDonald’s in Altoona, Pa., on Monday after an employee who had been alerted by a customer who recognized him called the local authorities. Officers found him sitting alone with a laptop and backpack, wearing a medical mask.
When asked if he had been to New York recently, he “became quiet and started to shake,” according to a complaint.
He provided a fake ID, and when the officers told him that he could be arrested for lying about his identity, he gave his true name. Asked why he had lied, he said, “I clearly shouldn’t have.”
He was charged separately in Pennsylvania earlier Monday with carrying a gun without a license, forgery, falsely identifying himself to the authorities and possessing “instruments of crime.”
Here’s what we know about the suspect:
Ongoing health issues: He described a long series of life-altering health problems over years of posts on a Reddit account. He said his back pain worsened until a surgery in 2023, and that he struggled with “brain fog.” But his only reference to insurance coverage in the posts noted that Blue Cross Blue Shield had covered testing for irritable bowel syndrome.
A fake ID: The identification that the suspect showed police officers in Pennsylvania was the same one that the man believed to be the gunman presented when he checked into a hostel on the Upper West Side of Manhattan on Nov. 24, a senior law enforcement official said. It bore the name Mark Rosario and a made-up address in Maplewood, N.J.
A privileged upbringing: He grew up in Maryland and attended high school at the Gilman School in Baltimore, where he was an athlete and the valedictorian of his graduating class in 2016. He graduated from the University of Pennsylvania with bachelor’s and master’s degrees in engineering four years later. His social media accounts and other websites offer a glimpse into his background in the technology and video games industry and his curiosity about self-improvement, clean eating and critiques of contemporary technology.
Reporting was contributed by Maria Cramer , Corey Kilgannon , Mike Isaac and Brian Conway .
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Dec. 10, 2024, 3:00 p.m. ET
In the spring of this year, a man in Japan struck up a conversation with a writer in England. The writer, Gurwinder Bhogal, had built an online following for his posts about technology, psychology and society.
The man, Luigi Mangione, now accused of fatally shooting Brian Thompson, the chief executive of UnitedHealthcare, became a paid subscriber to Mr. Bhogal’s work on Substack in early April. Mr. Bhogal shared some of their email correspondence with The New York Times.
In more than a dozen emails and a two-hour-long video call, the two men had wide-ranging discussions. They agreed on some things, Mr. Bhogal said: Both men leaned toward the political left on some issues, and aligned with the right on others. For example, he said, Mr. Mangione supported equality of opportunity but doubted the efficacy of identity politics.
“Overall, the impression I got of him, besides his curiosity and kindness, was a deep concern for the future of humanity and a determination to improve himself and the world,” Mr. Bhogal added.
According to Mr. Bhogal, Mr. Mangione mentioned health care briefly, complaining that it was too expensive in the United States and saying that he envied the nationalized health care system in the United Kingdom.
They also talked about a post Mr. Bhogal had written about gamification and about the motives of Ted Kaczynski, the so-called Unabomber.
“Luigi disapproved of the Unabomber’s actions,” Mr. Bhogal said in an email on Tuesday, “but was fascinated by his ideology, and shared his concerns about rampant consumerism gradually eroding our agency and alienating us from ourselves.”
In their last exchange, a direct message on social media on June 10, Mr. Mangione asked Mr. Bhogal for help curating his social media feeds.
“I forgot to get back to him,” Mr. Bhogal said, adding that he had since wondered whether a timely response could have done anything to change recent events.
This week, when he learned about the charges against Mr. Mangione, Mr. Bhogal was bewildered. “He was so thoughtful and soft-spoken,” he said, “that he seemed like the last person I’d suspect of murdering someone.”
Dec. 10, 2024, 2:57 p.m. ET
Reporting from New York City
The suspect in the killing of the UnitedHealthcare chief executive saw himself as a hero fighting a corrupt health insurance industry, the police said in an internal report in which they also warned about the possible threat posed by social media posts that praised the killing and encouraged similar targeted violence.
The internal report, obtained by The New York Times on Tuesday, described parts of the three-page manifesto found with the suspect at the time of his arrest Monday in Pennsylvania. It said the 26-year-old suspect, Luigi Mangione, saw himself as fighting a “parasitic” health insurance industry.
Mr. Mangione is accused of fatally shooting Brian Thompson, the chief executive of UnitedHealthcare, outside a Midtown Manhattan hotel last week. He was arrested on Monday after customers at a McDonald’s in Altoona, Pa., said he looked similar to a man the police were searching for in connection with the killing.
The internal police report said that Mr. Mangione “appeared to view the targeted killing of the company’s highest-ranking representative as a symbolic takedown and a direct challenge to its alleged corruption and ‘power games,’ and that he “views himself as a hero of sorts who has finally decided to act upon such injustices.”
“Frankly, these parasites simply had it coming,” the manifesto said, according to the report.
Police officials also expressed concern that the attack could inspire violence against similar executives or other extreme behavior, noting that members of the public had celebrated the shooting online and might have seen the suspect as “a martyr and an example to follow.”
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Dec. 10, 2024, 2:09 p.m. ET
Mike BakerMike Isaac and
The man charged in the killing of the chief executive of UnitedHealthcare reported in online writings over a period of years that he had been navigating a series of life-altering health problems.
In posts on a Reddit account, the man, Luigi Mangione, said back pain that had once been a minor issue in his life grew more extreme in 2022 after he went surfing, then grew worse again a few weeks later when he slipped on a piece of paper. He reported persistent problems, including pain when he sat down, twitching leg muscles, and numbness in his groin and bladder.
He shared details that friends have corroborated, writing that he had a spinal fusion surgery in July 2023. He wrote that within days he did not need pain meds and could sit, stand and walk just fine.
“The surgery wasn’t nearly as scary as I made it out to be in my head, and I knew it was the right decision within a week,” he wrote in one Reddit post. He went on to encourage others to consider such surgery, pointing to athletes who had done so. An X-ray that he posted on another social media account showed a spinal fusion.
The back pain was not his only struggle. He wrote at times about “brain fog” that had worsened during his college years, making studying more difficult. Doctors could not seem to figure out what was happening, he reported.
“It’s absolutely brutal to have such a life-halting issue,” he wrote.
He also posted on a page for people dealing with irritable bowel syndrome, saying that he had undergone some testing for the condition. He said the testing had been covered by Blue Cross Blue Shield — his only reference in the Reddit writings to insurance coverage.
After the back surgery, he returned to Hawaii, where he had previously been living, but by the spring of this year, he had ceased communications with most friends and family members. His family reached out to his friends in recent months in hopes of finding him.
The suspect’s comment history on Reddit gives other clues to his personal life and pursuits. He was an active commenter in the OneBag subreddit, a community that “promotes urban travel with the philosophy of carrying less” and focuses on different types of backpacks and travel gear. Photos released by the New York Police Department of the gunman in the UnitedHealthcare shooting showed what its maker identified as a backpack by Peak Design, a brand that was widely discussed in the OneBag subreddit.
The suspect also posted to the Magfest subreddit, a community dedicated to a gaming subculture and festival held annually in Maryland, where he grew up. Sarah Nehemiah, a friend during his time in Hawaii, described him as an avid gamer and Pokémon enthusiast. He posted enthusiastically to the Pokémon Go subreddit, a forum dedicated to the popular mobile augmented reality game where users catch virtual Pokémon using their mobile phones.
Gaming has long been a part of the suspect’s life. He spent much of his childhood creating games and later went into the tech and gaming industry, working as an intern at the company that created the enormously popular Civilization game franchise.
The Reddit account has since been deleted by the company, but archived versions of the posts were reviewed by The New York Times.
A Reddit spokeswoman said its policy was to suspend accounts that may potentially be related to suspects in high-profile criminal investigations.
Tech companies typically suspend accounts in such cases to avoid impersonation. On Monday, Meta suspended the suspect’s accounts on Facebook and Instagram. And GoodReads, a site dedicated to chronicling a person’s reading activities, suspended his account the same day.
Dionne Searcey contributed to this report.
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Dec. 9, 2024, 9:34 p.m. ET
If someone you know is the subject of a nationwide manhunt and the authorities are desperately trying to learn the person’s name, are you under any legal obligation to come forward with it?
The answer is, in a word, no.
“There’s no legal duty to report,” said Rachel Barkow, a professor at New York University Law School. “That’s why they offer rewards, to try to entice people to do it.”
The New York Police Department offered $10,000 for information about the killing of the chief executive of UnitedHealthcare, Brian Thompson, outside a hotel in Midtown Manhattan last week. The F.B.I. posted a $50,000 reward.
Photos of the man with distinctive eyebrows wanted in connection with the killing were circulated by the police and viewed by millions of Americans, making it likely that at least a few people who saw them recognized the subject.
Ms. Barkow said it can be illegal to harbor a wanted felon, and some people are mandated to report if they learn of certain crimes — like teachers who are required to report child abuse.
There is also a federal offense called “misprision of felony,” which requires someone who has “knowledge of the actual commission” of a federal felony to report that felony to the authorities.
But the killing of Mr. Thompson is likely to be prosecuted under New York State law, not federally, and New York has no such reporting requirement.
In any event, knowing the identity of someone who is believed to have committed a crime is not the same as knowing that the person committed the crime. In such situations, average citizens — including the suspect’s family and friends — are free to keep their mouths shut.
“We might have moral objections to people who don’t do things,” Ms. Barkow said, “but they’re not subject to criminal prosecution.”
Dec. 9, 2024, 6:17 p.m. ET
In the end, it was the simple act of distributing photos — not sophisticated facial recognition technology — that led the police to the man who has been charged in the fatal shooting of a health care executive in Midtown Manhattan last week.
After the shooting of Brian Thompson, the chief executive of UnitedHealthcare, last Wednesday, the New York Police Department began releasing a steady drip of images. The photos, taken together, appeared to show a young man with light skin and dark features. One photo — crucially — showed his entire face.
Even as the police recovered what they called an “enormous amount” of forensic evidence and video, it was that specific photo that led to the arrest of a man on Monday morning about 300 miles from New York City, according to Joseph Kenny, the Police Department’s chief of detectives.
Just after 9 a.m. on Monday, in a McDonald’s in Altoona, Pa., a customer remarked that a fellow diner resembled the man in the wanted photos, and an employee called the police, who detained the man for questioning.
The man, whom the police identified as Luigi Mangione, 26, of Maryland, was carrying a gun, a silencer and some kind of manifesto, the police said.
Chief Kenny said that it was hard to credit the break in the case to any one moment or piece of evidence, but that if he had to, “it would be the release of that photograph to the media.”
For experts, the case was a reminder of how — even as facial recognition technology grows more sophisticated — distributing photos and relying on the public to recognize a face can still play a critical role in investigations.
Sean Patrick Griffin, a former Philadelphia police officer and a criminal justice professor at The Citadel, a military college in South Carolina, said this was not a typical case. “That photo has been seen more times than in your average homicide,” said Mr. Griffin, who added that the photos also showed enough of the man’s face to play a useful role.
In the photo that appears to have led to Mr. Mangione’s arrest, the suspect has distinct facial features: dark eyes and eyebrows, high cheekbones and a broad smile that curls at the corners. “Not just dark, but prominent eyebrows,” said Mr. Griffin, who said that such a recognizable trait was not ideal for someone seeking to get away with a high-profile crime.
Robert Baer, a former C.I.A. officer and the author of several books, including “The Perfect Kill: 21 Laws for Assassins,” said he was surprised only that it had taken so long for the police to find someone. “Once they had that guy’s picture, when he pulls his mask down, it was a given he would be arrested,” he said.
Like other experts, Mr. Baer mentioned that a professional hit man would have been more careful about exposing his face on camera.
The arrest came five days after Mr. Thompson was killed outside a Hilton hotel in Midtown. Within hours, the police had released grainy images of a man wearing a backpack, his arms extended as he fired his gun, and, later, riding a bicycle as he fled.
More images of the suspect were soon released. Two photos — captured by cameras at the hostel on the Upper West Side of Manhattan where he stayed — showed a man in a hooded jacket. His face was not covered, and in one, he was smiling.
Over the weekend, two images emerged showing a man in a slightly different get-up — a surgical mask and a black coat — taken from a taxi. In one, he is seen peering through the partition in the cab, his dark eyes and eyebrows clearly visible above his mask.
The images helped fuel broad interest in the case.
Some people drew comparisons to celebrities. There was at least one look-alike contest, in a Manhattan park. The suspect even had something like fans, because, in the words of one expert, Michael C. Farkas, “people hate the health care insurance industry.”
Mr. Farkas added that many people, however, were clearly interested in helping law enforcement solve the case.
“There’s a reason why people are still doing things that would seem strange, like printing ‘Wanted’ posters,” said Mr. Farkas, a defense lawyer who has worked as a New York City homicide prosecutor. “People actually recognize photos from hard-copy sources.”
Maria Cramer contributed reporting.
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Dec. 9, 2024, 5:23 p.m. ET
The digital footprint of Luigi Mangione, the suspect in the killing of a UnitedHealthcare executive last week, indicates that he has a background in the technology and video games industry.
Investigators are only beginning to learn about Mr. Mangione, who was arrested in Altoona, Pa., on Monday on gun charges after a McDonald’s employee recognized him and called the authorities. His social media accounts and assorted other websites have offered a glimpse into his interests, including curiosity about self-improvement, clean eating and critiques of contemporary technology.
Mr. Mangione, 26, worked for a number of tech companies over the past 10 years, according to his LinkedIn profile and a former employer. He also maintained an active online presence on gaming platforms like Steam, and co-founded UPGRADE, the University of Pennsylvania’s first video game development club, when he was a student there.
Mr. Mangione’s interest in games started at a young age, when he began exploring the independent gaming community online, according to a now-deleted interview published to the University of Pennsylvania’s campus events blog, Penn Today, in 2018. He wanted to start creating games himself, and taught himself to code in high school.
“That’s why I’m a computer science major now, that’s how I got into it,” Mr. Mangione said in the 2018 interview. “I just really wanted to make games.”
The University of Pennsylvania did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Along with a handful of friends, Mr. Mangione started his own game development company, Approar Games, in high school, according to posts on his LinkedIn profile and social media accounts. The group published at least one app, called Pivot Plane.
Later, Mr. Mangione went to work as an intern at Firaxis Games, publisher of the enormously popular computer game franchise Civilization, according to his LinkedIn profile. He worked on the sixth installment of the game and, as part of a team of 10 people, fixed more than 300 bugs in the user interface, according to the profile.
A spokesman for Take-Two Interactive, the owner of Firaxis, confirmed that Mr. Mangione was a former employee but declined to comment further.
At a news conference on Monday, Joseph Kenny, chief of detectives for the New York Police Department, described Mr. Mangione as born and raised in Maryland, with ties to San Francisco, and said he had lived in Honolulu until recently.
Mr. Mangione’s passion for games and engineering ultimately led him to pursue bachelor’s and master’s degrees in computer engineering at Penn, where he graduated in 2020, according to his LinkedIn profile. He went on to work as a data engineer at TrueCar, a digital marketplace start-up in Los Angeles that connects car buyers and sellers, according to the 2018 interview.
TrueCar confirmed that Mr. Mangione worked at the company, but said he has not been an employee since 2023.
In the interview with Penn Today, Mr. Mangione said he could never imagine a future in which he would no longer make games, and that he had created his college club to rally others to see the “benefits and pure fun” of making them.
“Passion is what we’re looking for,” he said.
A correction was made on
Dec. 10, 2024
:
An earlier version of this article misidentified the installment of the computer game Civilization that Luigi Mangione worked on, according to his LinkedIn profile. It was the sixth installment, not the fifth.
When we learn of a mistake, we acknowledge it with a correction. If you spot an error, please let us know at nytnews@nytimes.com.Learn more
Dec. 9, 2024, 4:34 p.m. ET
Luigi Mangione, 26, the man who was taken into custody Monday morning in Altoona, Pa., and identified as a suspect in the killing of the chief executive of UnitedHealthcare in Midtown Manhattan last Wednesday, appears to have been a well-educated and well-traveled enthusiast of computer programming and gaming with an interest in self-improvement.
Mr. Mangione grew up in Maryland, according to Joseph Kenny, chief of detectives with the New York City Police Department.
He attended high school at the Gilman School in Baltimore, where he was an athlete and displayed a keen interest in developing video games. According to an interview that was published on the University of Pennsylvania’s campus events blog, Penn Today, in 2018 and that has now been deleted, Mr. Mangione taught himself to code in high school. He and a group of friends then started a game development company, Approar Games, according to posts on his LinkedIn profile and social media accounts.
He was the valedictorian of his graduating class in 2016. In a graduation speech, he described his class as “coming up with new ideas and challenging the world around it.”
He thanked parents in attendance for sending him and his classmates to the school, which he described as “far from a small financial investment.” Tuition at Gilman is currently $37,690 per year for high schoolers.
Mr. Mangione then attended the University of Pennsylvania, where he co-founded a game development club. He was a member of the Phi Kappa Psi fraternity and Eta Kappa Nu, an academic honor society for students in electrical and computer engineering, and graduated with both a bachelor’s degree and a master’s degree in engineering.
Stanford University confirmed that a Luigi Mangione worked as a head counselor in its Pre-Collegiate Studies program in 2019.
Mr. Mangione also had an internship at Firaxis Games, the publisher of the enormously popular computer game franchise Civilization. He went on to work as a data engineer at TrueCar, a digital marketplace start-up in Los Angeles that connects car buyers and sellers. TrueCar said he had not been an employee since 2023.
Mr. Mangione’s family is prosperous, thanks to real estate holdings and a chain of senior rehabilitation centers.
Chief Kenny said Mr. Mangione had lived in San Francisco and Honolulu and had no known criminal record in New York City. In fact, the only criminal activity that seems linked to Mr. Mangione is a citation for trespassing in Hawaii.
In recent months, Mr. Mangione appeared to maintain accounts on social media platforms including Facebook, X, Instagram and Goodreads, where he shared quotations, reviewed books he had read and reflected on algorithms, self-help texts and guides to touring Hawaii.
On X, Mr. Mangione frequently reposted content from a handful of well-known writers and academics, many of whom focus on self-improvement or the negative health consequences of modern consumption.
On Goodreads, a book review website, earlier this year, he gave four stars to “Industrial Society and Its Future,” better known as the Unabomber manifesto, by Ted Kaczynski, and described the writer as a “mathematics prodigy.”
“He was a violent individual — rightfully imprisoned — who maimed innocent people,” Mr. Mangione wrote in his review. “While these actions tend to be characterized as those of a crazy luddite, however, they are more accurately seen as those of an extreme political revolutionary.”
Posts on social media from before Mr. Mangione was apprehended indicate that he may have fallen out of touch with some of his circle. Former classmates said they had heard that he had been out of contact with his peers after suffering a spinal injury last year and having surgery, and that Mr. Mangione’s family had been trying to track him down for several months.
A handwritten manifesto found with Mr. Mangione on Monday mentions UnitedHealthcare by name, noting the size of the company and how much money it makes, and also broadly condemns health care companies for placing profits over care, according to a senior law enforcement official who saw the document. The official quoted it as saying, “These parasites had it coming” and “I do apologize for any strife and trauma, but it had to be done.”
Reporting was contributed by Mike Baker , Maria Cramer , Heather Knight , Mike Isaac , Madison Malone Kircher , Joseph Bernstein , Callie Holtermann , Dani Blum and Andy Newman .
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Dec. 9, 2024, 3:39 p.m. ET
Madison Malone Kircher and
Follow the latest updates on the killing of UnitedHealthcare’s chief executive.
The social media accounts that appear to belong to Luigi Mangione, the man the police have identified as the suspect in the killing of Brian Thompson, the chief executive of UnitedHealthcare, seemed to show an interest in self-improvement, clean eating and critiques of contemporary technology.
In the months leading up to the attack, Mr. Mangione, 26, who was arrested in a McDonald’s in Altoona, Pa., on Monday, appeared to maintain accounts on platforms including Facebook, X, Instagram and Goodreads, where he shared quotations, reviewed books he had read and reflected on algorithms, self-help texts and guides to touring Hawaii.
His LinkedIn profile lists two degrees, a master’s and a bachelor’s in computer science completed in four years, from the University of Pennsylvania. An interview with Mr. Mangione on a page on the university’s website that is now unavailable described him as having started a video game research and development club after reaching out to classmates via a Facebook group for students in the class of 2020. From there, according to his LinkedIn profile, he went on to work as a data engineer.
Mr. Mangione’s X account doesn’t include much that would mark him out from any other young man working in tech. He frequently reposted content from a handful of well-known figures, many of whom focus on self-improvement or the negative health consequences of modern consumption.
They include Andrew Huberman, a Stanford neuroscientist who hosts a popular health and science podcast; Tim Urban, a writer and illustrator with a wide readership in Silicon Valley whose most recent book is “What’s Our Problem: A Self-Help Book for Societies”; Tim Ferriss, an entrepreneur known for his book “The 4-Hour Workweek”; Michael Pollan, who writes about the hazards of processed foods; and Jonathan Haidt, a psychologist at New York University who has written about the dangers of smartphone use by young people. (Mr. Urban has already distanced himself from Mr. Mangione, writing on X on Monday afternoon, “Very much not the point of the book.”)
On the book review website Goodreads, Mr. Mangione appeared to track his reading habits. His selections include science fiction (“Ender’s Game”), airport bookstore standbys (“Freakonomics,” “Outliers”) and young adult classics like the “Harry Potter” and “Hunger Games” series.
In some of his reviews, Mr. Mangione linked to Google Docs where he kept more detailed notes. In one scanned handwritten document, he shared his thoughts on the popular science book “Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance” by Angela Duckworth.
Earlier this year, he left a four-star review for “Industrial Society and Its Future,” better known as the Unabomber manifesto, by Ted Kaczynski, whom Mr. Mangione described as a “mathematics prodigy” in his review of the work.
“It’s easy to quickly and thoughtless write this off as the manifesto of a lunatic, in order to avoid facing some of the uncomfortable problems it identifies,” Mr. Mangione wrote. “But it’s simply impossible to ignore how prescient many of his predictions about modern society turned out.”
He added: “He was a violent individual — rightfully imprisoned — who maimed innocent people. While these actions tend to be characterized as those of a crazy luddite, however, they are more accurately seen as those of an extreme political revolutionary.”
Mr. Mangione highlighted a quotation from the children’s book “The Lorax” by Dr. Seuss, which he also shared this year. (He gave the book five out of five stars.)
The selected quotation read: “Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It’s not.”
On his “wants to read” list, Mr. Mangione included a forthcoming title, “Life & the Lindy Effect” by Paul Skallas, who is known for arguing that the longer a phenomenon has been around, the better its chance of lasting far into the future.
Jessica Testa contributed reporting.
A correction was made on
Dec. 9, 2024
:
An earlier version of this story misstated Jonathan Haidt’s profession. He is a psychologist, not a sociologist.
When we learn of a mistake, we acknowledge it with a correction. If you spot an error, please let us know at nytnews@nytimes.com.Learn more
Dec. 9, 2024, 3:37 p.m. ET
Claire Fahy and
The man who was arrested on Monday in connection with the killing of the health care executive Brian Thompson was found with a handwritten document that spoke to his “motivation and mind-set,” Jessica Tisch, the commissioner of the New York Police Department, said at a news conference.
The department’s chief of detectives, Joseph Kenny, added that the document found on the man, identified as Luigi Mangione, 26, illustrated “ill will toward corporate America,” but did not otherwise describe what was written.
But two law enforcement officials who were familiar with the document’s contents said it criticized health care companies for putting profits above care.
The manifesto mentions UnitedHealthcare by name and broadly condemns health-care companies for placing profits over care, one official said.
Chief Kenny said that he did not believe that the document contained additional specific threats against any other people.
The document is currently in the possession of the Altoona police department, Chief Kenny said.
Emma Goldberg and William K. Rashbaum contributed reporting.
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Dec. 9, 2024, 2:12 p.m. ET
The man held in the killing of a health care executive, arrested on firearms charges in Pennsylvania on Monday, possessed what investigators believe was a so-called ghost gun, said Joseph Kenny, the chief of detectives for the New York police.
Ghost guns, made with parts sold online, are typically easy and relatively inexpensive to assemble. An alluring selling point for many buyers is that ghost guns do not bear serial numbers, unlike traditional firearms made by companies and bought from licensed dealers.
Ghost guns are sold as do-it-yourself kits and shipped in parts so that buyers can carry out the final assembly themselves.
They have been sold since the 1990s but have become popular in recent years, particularly among criminals barred from buying ordinary guns, and have been a major issue in the larger national debate over gun control.
The issue became central to President Biden’s initiative to address gun violence.
In 2022, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives broadened its interpretation of the definition of “firearm” in the Gun Control Act of 1968. Solicitor General Elizabeth B. Prelogar wrote in the Biden administration’s emergency application that the change was needed to respond to “the urgent public safety and law enforcement crisis posed by the exponential rise of untraceable firearms.”
The regulation did not ban the sale or possession of the do-it-yourself kits, but required manufacturers and sellers to obtain licenses, mark their products with serial numbers and conduct background checks. Opponents challenged the law, saying the regulations were not authorized by the 1968 law.
After a federal court in Texas struck the law down in 2023, the Supreme Court later revived the regulations, allowing them to remain in place while a challenge moved forward. During arguments in October, a majority of the court appeared sympathetic to the Biden administration’s restrictions, with two conservatives — Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justice Amy Coney Barrett — joining the liberal wing.
“The reason why you want a ghost gun is specifically because it’s unserialized and can’t be traced,” Ms. Prelogar said during the arguments.
In September, Mr. Biden signed an executive order to establish a task force to assess the threat posed by ghost guns.
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Live Updates: Suspect in C.E.O.’s Killing Fights Extradition to New York
The 26-year-old suspect was charged with murder in New York after being arrested at a McDonald’s in Altoona, Pa. He appeared in court in Pennsylvania on Tuesday afternoon.
Pinned
Updated
Dec. 10, 2024, 3:29 p.m. ET
Chelsia Rose MarciusAndy NewmanNicholas Bogel-Burroughs and
A suspect charged with murder in New York in the assassination of the chief executive of UnitedHealthcare in Midtown Manhattan will fight extradition to New York to face murder charges, potentially keeping him in custody in Pennsylvania for weeks.
“He is contesting it,” said his lawyer, Thomas Dickey.
The suspect, Luigi Mangione, 26, was charged late Monday in Manhattan with second-degree murder, forgery and three gun charges. The police had released images of him after the fatal shooting of Brian Thompson, 50, in Midtown Manhattan last week.
The suspect saw the killing as a “symbolic takedown,” according to a New York Police Department internal report that detailed parts of a three-page manifesto found with him at the time of his arrest.
He arrived at an extradition hearing Tuesday at the Blair County Courthouse in Hollidaysburg, Pa., near Altoona, and struggled against officers as they led him toward an entrance. Before he disappeared into the building, he turned toward reporters and shouted.
In New York, the internal police report, which was obtained by The New York Times, said his manifesto also indicated that he saw the killing as a direct challenge to the health care industry’s “alleged corruption and ‘power games.’”
“Frankly these parasites simply had it coming,” the manifesto was quoted as saying.
The internal report added that the suspect “likely views himself as a hero of sorts who has finally decided to act upon such injustices” and expressed concern that others might see him as a “martyr and an example to follow.”
Police officers arrested Mr. Mangione at a McDonald’s in Altoona, Pa., on Monday after an employee who had been alerted by a customer who recognized him called the local authorities. Officers found him sitting alone with a laptop and backpack, wearing a medical mask.
When asked if he had been to New York recently, he “became quiet and started to shake,” according to a complaint.
He provided a fake ID, and when the officers told him that he could be arrested for lying about his identity, he gave his true name. Asked why he had lied, he said, “I clearly shouldn’t have.”
He was charged separately in Pennsylvania earlier Monday with carrying a gun without a license, forgery, falsely identifying himself to the authorities and possessing “instruments of crime.”
Here’s what we know about the suspect:
Ongoing health issues: He described a long series of life-altering health problems over years of posts on a Reddit account. He said his back pain worsened until a surgery in 2023, and that he struggled with “brain fog.” But his only reference to insurance coverage in the posts noted that Blue Cross Blue Shield had covered testing for irritable bowel syndrome.
A fake ID: The identification that the suspect showed police officers in Pennsylvania was the same one that the man believed to be the gunman presented when he checked into a hostel on the Upper West Side of Manhattan on Nov. 24, a senior law enforcement official said. It bore the name Mark Rosario and a made-up address in Maplewood, N.J.
A privileged upbringing: He grew up in Maryland and attended high school at the Gilman School in Baltimore, where he was an athlete and the valedictorian of his graduating class in 2016. He graduated from the University of Pennsylvania with bachelor’s and master’s degrees in engineering four years later. His social media accounts and other websites offer a glimpse into his background in the technology and video games industry and his curiosity about self-improvement, clean eating and critiques of contemporary technology.
Reporting was contributed by Maria Cramer , Corey Kilgannon , Mike Isaac and Brian Conway .
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Dec. 10, 2024, 3:00 p.m. ET
In the spring of this year, a man in Japan struck up a conversation with a writer in England. The writer, Gurwinder Bhogal, had built an online following for his posts about technology, psychology and society.
The man, Luigi Mangione, now accused of fatally shooting Brian Thompson, the chief executive of UnitedHealthcare, became a paid subscriber to Mr. Bhogal’s work on Substack in early April. Mr. Bhogal shared some of their email correspondence with The New York Times.
In more than a dozen emails and a two-hour-long video call, the two men had wide-ranging discussions. They agreed on some things, Mr. Bhogal said: Both men leaned toward the political left on some issues, and aligned with the right on others. For example, he said, Mr. Mangione supported equality of opportunity but doubted the efficacy of identity politics.
“Overall, the impression I got of him, besides his curiosity and kindness, was a deep concern for the future of humanity and a determination to improve himself and the world,” Mr. Bhogal added.
According to Mr. Bhogal, Mr. Mangione mentioned health care briefly, complaining that it was too expensive in the United States and saying that he envied the nationalized health care system in the United Kingdom.
They also talked about a post Mr. Bhogal had written about gamification and about the motives of Ted Kaczynski, the so-called Unabomber.
“Luigi disapproved of the Unabomber’s actions,” Mr. Bhogal said in an email on Tuesday, “but was fascinated by his ideology, and shared his concerns about rampant consumerism gradually eroding our agency and alienating us from ourselves.”
In their last exchange, a direct message on social media on June 10, Mr. Mangione asked Mr. Bhogal for help curating his social media feeds.
“I forgot to get back to him,” Mr. Bhogal said, adding that he had since wondered whether a timely response could have done anything to change recent events.
This week, when he learned about the charges against Mr. Mangione, Mr. Bhogal was bewildered. “He was so thoughtful and soft-spoken,” he said, “that he seemed like the last person I’d suspect of murdering someone.”
Dec. 10, 2024, 2:57 p.m. ET
Reporting from New York City
The suspect in the killing of the UnitedHealthcare chief executive saw himself as a hero fighting a corrupt health insurance industry, the police said in an internal report in which they also warned about the possible threat posed by social media posts that praised the killing and encouraged similar targeted violence.
The internal report, obtained by The New York Times on Tuesday, described parts of the three-page manifesto found with the suspect at the time of his arrest Monday in Pennsylvania. It said the 26-year-old suspect, Luigi Mangione, saw himself as fighting a “parasitic” health insurance industry.
Mr. Mangione is accused of fatally shooting Brian Thompson, the chief executive of UnitedHealthcare, outside a Midtown Manhattan hotel last week. He was arrested on Monday after customers at a McDonald’s in Altoona, Pa., said he looked similar to a man the police were searching for in connection with the killing.
The internal police report said that Mr. Mangione “appeared to view the targeted killing of the company’s highest-ranking representative as a symbolic takedown and a direct challenge to its alleged corruption and ‘power games,’ and that he “views himself as a hero of sorts who has finally decided to act upon such injustices.”
“Frankly, these parasites simply had it coming,” the manifesto said, according to the report.
Police officials also expressed concern that the attack could inspire violence against similar executives or other extreme behavior, noting that members of the public had celebrated the shooting online and might have seen the suspect as “a martyr and an example to follow.”
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Dec. 10, 2024, 2:09 p.m. ET
Mike BakerMike Isaac and
The man charged in the killing of the chief executive of UnitedHealthcare reported in online writings over a period of years that he had been navigating a series of life-altering health problems.
In posts on a Reddit account, the man, Luigi Mangione, said back pain that had once been a minor issue in his life grew more extreme in 2022 after he went surfing, then grew worse again a few weeks later when he slipped on a piece of paper. He reported persistent problems, including pain when he sat down, twitching leg muscles, and numbness in his groin and bladder.
He shared details that friends have corroborated, writing that he had a spinal fusion surgery in July 2023. He wrote that within days he did not need pain meds and could sit, stand and walk just fine.
“The surgery wasn’t nearly as scary as I made it out to be in my head, and I knew it was the right decision within a week,” he wrote in one Reddit post. He went on to encourage others to consider such surgery, pointing to athletes who had done so. An X-ray that he posted on another social media account showed a spinal fusion.
The back pain was not his only struggle. He wrote at times about “brain fog” that had worsened during his college years, making studying more difficult. Doctors could not seem to figure out what was happening, he reported.
“It’s absolutely brutal to have such a life-halting issue,” he wrote.
He also posted on a page for people dealing with irritable bowel syndrome, saying that he had undergone some testing for the condition. He said the testing had been covered by Blue Cross Blue Shield — his only reference in the Reddit writings to insurance coverage.
After the back surgery, he returned to Hawaii, where he had previously been living, but by the spring of this year, he had ceased communications with most friends and family members. His family reached out to his friends in recent months in hopes of finding him.
The suspect’s comment history on Reddit gives other clues to his personal life and pursuits. He was an active commenter in the OneBag subreddit, a community that “promotes urban travel with the philosophy of carrying less” and focuses on different types of backpacks and travel gear. Photos released by the New York Police Department of the gunman in the UnitedHealthcare shooting showed what its maker identified as a backpack by Peak Design, a brand that was widely discussed in the OneBag subreddit.
The suspect also posted to the Magfest subreddit, a community dedicated to a gaming subculture and festival held annually in Maryland, where he grew up. Sarah Nehemiah, a friend during his time in Hawaii, described him as an avid gamer and Pokémon enthusiast. He posted enthusiastically to the Pokémon Go subreddit, a forum dedicated to the popular mobile augmented reality game where users catch virtual Pokémon using their mobile phones.
Gaming has long been a part of the suspect’s life. He spent much of his childhood creating games and later went into the tech and gaming industry, working as an intern at the company that created the enormously popular Civilization game franchise.
The Reddit account has since been deleted by the company, but archived versions of the posts were reviewed by The New York Times.
A Reddit spokeswoman said its policy was to suspend accounts that may potentially be related to suspects in high-profile criminal investigations.
Tech companies typically suspend accounts in such cases to avoid impersonation. On Monday, Meta suspended the suspect’s accounts on Facebook and Instagram. And GoodReads, a site dedicated to chronicling a person’s reading activities, suspended his account the same day.
Dionne Searcey contributed to this report.
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Dec. 9, 2024, 9:34 p.m. ET
If someone you know is the subject of a nationwide manhunt and the authorities are desperately trying to learn the person’s name, are you under any legal obligation to come forward with it?
The answer is, in a word, no.
“There’s no legal duty to report,” said Rachel Barkow, a professor at New York University Law School. “That’s why they offer rewards, to try to entice people to do it.”
The New York Police Department offered $10,000 for information about the killing of the chief executive of UnitedHealthcare, Brian Thompson, outside a hotel in Midtown Manhattan last week. The F.B.I. posted a $50,000 reward.
Photos of the man with distinctive eyebrows wanted in connection with the killing were circulated by the police and viewed by millions of Americans, making it likely that at least a few people who saw them recognized the subject.
Ms. Barkow said it can be illegal to harbor a wanted felon, and some people are mandated to report if they learn of certain crimes — like teachers who are required to report child abuse.
There is also a federal offense called “misprision of felony,” which requires someone who has “knowledge of the actual commission” of a federal felony to report that felony to the authorities.
But the killing of Mr. Thompson is likely to be prosecuted under New York State law, not federally, and New York has no such reporting requirement.
In any event, knowing the identity of someone who is believed to have committed a crime is not the same as knowing that the person committed the crime. In such situations, average citizens — including the suspect’s family and friends — are free to keep their mouths shut.
“We might have moral objections to people who don’t do things,” Ms. Barkow said, “but they’re not subject to criminal prosecution.”
Dec. 9, 2024, 6:17 p.m. ET
In the end, it was the simple act of distributing photos — not sophisticated facial recognition technology — that led the police to the man who has been charged in the fatal shooting of a health care executive in Midtown Manhattan last week.
After the shooting of Brian Thompson, the chief executive of UnitedHealthcare, last Wednesday, the New York Police Department began releasing a steady drip of images. The photos, taken together, appeared to show a young man with light skin and dark features. One photo — crucially — showed his entire face.
Even as the police recovered what they called an “enormous amount” of forensic evidence and video, it was that specific photo that led to the arrest of a man on Monday morning about 300 miles from New York City, according to Joseph Kenny, the Police Department’s chief of detectives.
Just after 9 a.m. on Monday, in a McDonald’s in Altoona, Pa., a customer remarked that a fellow diner resembled the man in the wanted photos, and an employee called the police, who detained the man for questioning.
The man, whom the police identified as Luigi Mangione, 26, of Maryland, was carrying a gun, a silencer and some kind of manifesto, the police said.
Chief Kenny said that it was hard to credit the break in the case to any one moment or piece of evidence, but that if he had to, “it would be the release of that photograph to the media.”
For experts, the case was a reminder of how — even as facial recognition technology grows more sophisticated — distributing photos and relying on the public to recognize a face can still play a critical role in investigations.
Sean Patrick Griffin, a former Philadelphia police officer and a criminal justice professor at The Citadel, a military college in South Carolina, said this was not a typical case. “That photo has been seen more times than in your average homicide,” said Mr. Griffin, who added that the photos also showed enough of the man’s face to play a useful role.
In the photo that appears to have led to Mr. Mangione’s arrest, the suspect has distinct facial features: dark eyes and eyebrows, high cheekbones and a broad smile that curls at the corners. “Not just dark, but prominent eyebrows,” said Mr. Griffin, who said that such a recognizable trait was not ideal for someone seeking to get away with a high-profile crime.
Robert Baer, a former C.I.A. officer and the author of several books, including “The Perfect Kill: 21 Laws for Assassins,” said he was surprised only that it had taken so long for the police to find someone. “Once they had that guy’s picture, when he pulls his mask down, it was a given he would be arrested,” he said.
Like other experts, Mr. Baer mentioned that a professional hit man would have been more careful about exposing his face on camera.
The arrest came five days after Mr. Thompson was killed outside a Hilton hotel in Midtown. Within hours, the police had released grainy images of a man wearing a backpack, his arms extended as he fired his gun, and, later, riding a bicycle as he fled.
More images of the suspect were soon released. Two photos — captured by cameras at the hostel on the Upper West Side of Manhattan where he stayed — showed a man in a hooded jacket. His face was not covered, and in one, he was smiling.
Over the weekend, two images emerged showing a man in a slightly different get-up — a surgical mask and a black coat — taken from a taxi. In one, he is seen peering through the partition in the cab, his dark eyes and eyebrows clearly visible above his mask.
The images helped fuel broad interest in the case.
Some people drew comparisons to celebrities. There was at least one look-alike contest, in a Manhattan park. The suspect even had something like fans, because, in the words of one expert, Michael C. Farkas, “people hate the health care insurance industry.”
Mr. Farkas added that many people, however, were clearly interested in helping law enforcement solve the case.
“There’s a reason why people are still doing things that would seem strange, like printing ‘Wanted’ posters,” said Mr. Farkas, a defense lawyer who has worked as a New York City homicide prosecutor. “People actually recognize photos from hard-copy sources.”
Maria Cramer contributed reporting.
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Dec. 9, 2024, 5:23 p.m. ET
The digital footprint of Luigi Mangione, the suspect in the killing of a UnitedHealthcare executive last week, indicates that he has a background in the technology and video games industry.
Investigators are only beginning to learn about Mr. Mangione, who was arrested in Altoona, Pa., on Monday on gun charges after a McDonald’s employee recognized him and called the authorities. His social media accounts and assorted other websites have offered a glimpse into his interests, including curiosity about self-improvement, clean eating and critiques of contemporary technology.
Mr. Mangione, 26, worked for a number of tech companies over the past 10 years, according to his LinkedIn profile and a former employer. He also maintained an active online presence on gaming platforms like Steam, and co-founded UPGRADE, the University of Pennsylvania’s first video game development club, when he was a student there.
Mr. Mangione’s interest in games started at a young age, when he began exploring the independent gaming community online, according to a now-deleted interview published to the University of Pennsylvania’s campus events blog, Penn Today, in 2018. He wanted to start creating games himself, and taught himself to code in high school.
“That’s why I’m a computer science major now, that’s how I got into it,” Mr. Mangione said in the 2018 interview. “I just really wanted to make games.”
The University of Pennsylvania did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Along with a handful of friends, Mr. Mangione started his own game development company, Approar Games, in high school, according to posts on his LinkedIn profile and social media accounts. The group published at least one app, called Pivot Plane.
Later, Mr. Mangione went to work as an intern at Firaxis Games, publisher of the enormously popular computer game franchise Civilization, according to his LinkedIn profile. He worked on the sixth installment of the game and, as part of a team of 10 people, fixed more than 300 bugs in the user interface, according to the profile.
A spokesman for Take-Two Interactive, the owner of Firaxis, confirmed that Mr. Mangione was a former employee but declined to comment further.
At a news conference on Monday, Joseph Kenny, chief of detectives for the New York Police Department, described Mr. Mangione as born and raised in Maryland, with ties to San Francisco, and said he had lived in Honolulu until recently.
Mr. Mangione’s passion for games and engineering ultimately led him to pursue bachelor’s and master’s degrees in computer engineering at Penn, where he graduated in 2020, according to his LinkedIn profile. He went on to work as a data engineer at TrueCar, a digital marketplace start-up in Los Angeles that connects car buyers and sellers, according to the 2018 interview.
TrueCar confirmed that Mr. Mangione worked at the company, but said he has not been an employee since 2023.
In the interview with Penn Today, Mr. Mangione said he could never imagine a future in which he would no longer make games, and that he had created his college club to rally others to see the “benefits and pure fun” of making them.
“Passion is what we’re looking for,” he said.
A correction was made on
Dec. 10, 2024
:
An earlier version of this article misidentified the installment of the computer game Civilization that Luigi Mangione worked on, according to his LinkedIn profile. It was the sixth installment, not the fifth.
When we learn of a mistake, we acknowledge it with a correction. If you spot an error, please let us know at nytnews@nytimes.com.Learn more
Dec. 9, 2024, 4:34 p.m. ET
Luigi Mangione, 26, the man who was taken into custody Monday morning in Altoona, Pa., and identified as a suspect in the killing of the chief executive of UnitedHealthcare in Midtown Manhattan last Wednesday, appears to have been a well-educated and well-traveled enthusiast of computer programming and gaming with an interest in self-improvement.
Mr. Mangione grew up in Maryland, according to Joseph Kenny, chief of detectives with the New York City Police Department.
He attended high school at the Gilman School in Baltimore, where he was an athlete and displayed a keen interest in developing video games. According to an interview that was published on the University of Pennsylvania’s campus events blog, Penn Today, in 2018 and that has now been deleted, Mr. Mangione taught himself to code in high school. He and a group of friends then started a game development company, Approar Games, according to posts on his LinkedIn profile and social media accounts.
He was the valedictorian of his graduating class in 2016. In a graduation speech, he described his class as “coming up with new ideas and challenging the world around it.”
He thanked parents in attendance for sending him and his classmates to the school, which he described as “far from a small financial investment.” Tuition at Gilman is currently $37,690 per year for high schoolers.
Mr. Mangione then attended the University of Pennsylvania, where he co-founded a game development club. He was a member of the Phi Kappa Psi fraternity and Eta Kappa Nu, an academic honor society for students in electrical and computer engineering, and graduated with both a bachelor’s degree and a master’s degree in engineering.
Stanford University confirmed that a Luigi Mangione worked as a head counselor in its Pre-Collegiate Studies program in 2019.
Mr. Mangione also had an internship at Firaxis Games, the publisher of the enormously popular computer game franchise Civilization. He went on to work as a data engineer at TrueCar, a digital marketplace start-up in Los Angeles that connects car buyers and sellers. TrueCar said he had not been an employee since 2023.
Mr. Mangione’s family is prosperous, thanks to real estate holdings and a chain of senior rehabilitation centers.
Chief Kenny said Mr. Mangione had lived in San Francisco and Honolulu and had no known criminal record in New York City. In fact, the only criminal activity that seems linked to Mr. Mangione is a citation for trespassing in Hawaii.
In recent months, Mr. Mangione appeared to maintain accounts on social media platforms including Facebook, X, Instagram and Goodreads, where he shared quotations, reviewed books he had read and reflected on algorithms, self-help texts and guides to touring Hawaii.
On X, Mr. Mangione frequently reposted content from a handful of well-known writers and academics, many of whom focus on self-improvement or the negative health consequences of modern consumption.
On Goodreads, a book review website, earlier this year, he gave four stars to “Industrial Society and Its Future,” better known as the Unabomber manifesto, by Ted Kaczynski, and described the writer as a “mathematics prodigy.”
“He was a violent individual — rightfully imprisoned — who maimed innocent people,” Mr. Mangione wrote in his review. “While these actions tend to be characterized as those of a crazy luddite, however, they are more accurately seen as those of an extreme political revolutionary.”
Posts on social media from before Mr. Mangione was apprehended indicate that he may have fallen out of touch with some of his circle. Former classmates said they had heard that he had been out of contact with his peers after suffering a spinal injury last year and having surgery, and that Mr. Mangione’s family had been trying to track him down for several months.
A handwritten manifesto found with Mr. Mangione on Monday mentions UnitedHealthcare by name, noting the size of the company and how much money it makes, and also broadly condemns health care companies for placing profits over care, according to a senior law enforcement official who saw the document. The official quoted it as saying, “These parasites had it coming” and “I do apologize for any strife and trauma, but it had to be done.”
Reporting was contributed by Mike Baker , Maria Cramer , Heather Knight , Mike Isaac , Madison Malone Kircher , Joseph Bernstein , Callie Holtermann , Dani Blum and Andy Newman .
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Dec. 9, 2024, 3:39 p.m. ET
Madison Malone Kircher and
Follow the latest updates on the killing of UnitedHealthcare’s chief executive.
The social media accounts that appear to belong to Luigi Mangione, the man the police have identified as the suspect in the killing of Brian Thompson, the chief executive of UnitedHealthcare, seemed to show an interest in self-improvement, clean eating and critiques of contemporary technology.
In the months leading up to the attack, Mr. Mangione, 26, who was arrested in a McDonald’s in Altoona, Pa., on Monday, appeared to maintain accounts on platforms including Facebook, X, Instagram and Goodreads, where he shared quotations, reviewed books he had read and reflected on algorithms, self-help texts and guides to touring Hawaii.
His LinkedIn profile lists two degrees, a master’s and a bachelor’s in computer science completed in four years, from the University of Pennsylvania. An interview with Mr. Mangione on a page on the university’s website that is now unavailable described him as having started a video game research and development club after reaching out to classmates via a Facebook group for students in the class of 2020. From there, according to his LinkedIn profile, he went on to work as a data engineer.
Mr. Mangione’s X account doesn’t include much that would mark him out from any other young man working in tech. He frequently reposted content from a handful of well-known figures, many of whom focus on self-improvement or the negative health consequences of modern consumption.
They include Andrew Huberman, a Stanford neuroscientist who hosts a popular health and science podcast; Tim Urban, a writer and illustrator with a wide readership in Silicon Valley whose most recent book is “What’s Our Problem: A Self-Help Book for Societies”; Tim Ferriss, an entrepreneur known for his book “The 4-Hour Workweek”; Michael Pollan, who writes about the hazards of processed foods; and Jonathan Haidt, a psychologist at New York University who has written about the dangers of smartphone use by young people. (Mr. Urban has already distanced himself from Mr. Mangione, writing on X on Monday afternoon, “Very much not the point of the book.”)
On the book review website Goodreads, Mr. Mangione appeared to track his reading habits. His selections include science fiction (“Ender’s Game”), airport bookstore standbys (“Freakonomics,” “Outliers”) and young adult classics like the “Harry Potter” and “Hunger Games” series.
In some of his reviews, Mr. Mangione linked to Google Docs where he kept more detailed notes. In one scanned handwritten document, he shared his thoughts on the popular science book “Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance” by Angela Duckworth.
Earlier this year, he left a four-star review for “Industrial Society and Its Future,” better known as the Unabomber manifesto, by Ted Kaczynski, whom Mr. Mangione described as a “mathematics prodigy” in his review of the work.
“It’s easy to quickly and thoughtless write this off as the manifesto of a lunatic, in order to avoid facing some of the uncomfortable problems it identifies,” Mr. Mangione wrote. “But it’s simply impossible to ignore how prescient many of his predictions about modern society turned out.”
He added: “He was a violent individual — rightfully imprisoned — who maimed innocent people. While these actions tend to be characterized as those of a crazy luddite, however, they are more accurately seen as those of an extreme political revolutionary.”
Mr. Mangione highlighted a quotation from the children’s book “The Lorax” by Dr. Seuss, which he also shared this year. (He gave the book five out of five stars.)
The selected quotation read: “Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It’s not.”
On his “wants to read” list, Mr. Mangione included a forthcoming title, “Life & the Lindy Effect” by Paul Skallas, who is known for arguing that the longer a phenomenon has been around, the better its chance of lasting far into the future.
Jessica Testa contributed reporting.
A correction was made on
Dec. 9, 2024
:
An earlier version of this story misstated Jonathan Haidt’s profession. He is a psychologist, not a sociologist.
When we learn of a mistake, we acknowledge it with a correction. If you spot an error, please let us know at nytnews@nytimes.com.Learn more
Dec. 9, 2024, 3:37 p.m. ET
Claire Fahy and
The man who was arrested on Monday in connection with the killing of the health care executive Brian Thompson was found with a handwritten document that spoke to his “motivation and mind-set,” Jessica Tisch, the commissioner of the New York Police Department, said at a news conference.
The department’s chief of detectives, Joseph Kenny, added that the document found on the man, identified as Luigi Mangione, 26, illustrated “ill will toward corporate America,” but did not otherwise describe what was written.
But two law enforcement officials who were familiar with the document’s contents said it criticized health care companies for putting profits above care.
The manifesto mentions UnitedHealthcare by name and broadly condemns health-care companies for placing profits over care, one official said.
Chief Kenny said that he did not believe that the document contained additional specific threats against any other people.
The document is currently in the possession of the Altoona police department, Chief Kenny said.
Emma Goldberg and William K. Rashbaum contributed reporting.
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Dec. 9, 2024, 2:12 p.m. ET
The man held in the killing of a health care executive, arrested on firearms charges in Pennsylvania on Monday, possessed what investigators believe was a so-called ghost gun, said Joseph Kenny, the chief of detectives for the New York police.
Ghost guns, made with parts sold online, are typically easy and relatively inexpensive to assemble. An alluring selling point for many buyers is that ghost guns do not bear serial numbers, unlike traditional firearms made by companies and bought from licensed dealers.
Ghost guns are sold as do-it-yourself kits and shipped in parts so that buyers can carry out the final assembly themselves.
They have been sold since the 1990s but have become popular in recent years, particularly among criminals barred from buying ordinary guns, and have been a major issue in the larger national debate over gun control.
The issue became central to President Biden’s initiative to address gun violence.
In 2022, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives broadened its interpretation of the definition of “firearm” in the Gun Control Act of 1968. Solicitor General Elizabeth B. Prelogar wrote in the Biden administration’s emergency application that the change was needed to respond to “the urgent public safety and law enforcement crisis posed by the exponential rise of untraceable firearms.”
The regulation did not ban the sale or possession of the do-it-yourself kits, but required manufacturers and sellers to obtain licenses, mark their products with serial numbers and conduct background checks. Opponents challenged the law, saying the regulations were not authorized by the 1968 law.
After a federal court in Texas struck the law down in 2023, the Supreme Court later revived the regulations, allowing them to remain in place while a challenge moved forward. During arguments in October, a majority of the court appeared sympathetic to the Biden administration’s restrictions, with two conservatives — Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justice Amy Coney Barrett — joining the liberal wing.
“The reason why you want a ghost gun is specifically because it’s unserialized and can’t be traced,” Ms. Prelogar said during the arguments.
In September, Mr. Biden signed an executive order to establish a task force to assess the threat posed by ghost guns.
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