The suspect arrested in connection with the shooting death of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson last week has been identified as Luigi Mangione, a 26-year-old Ivy League graduate from Towson, Maryland.
Mangione was taken into custody in Altoona, Penn., on Dec. 9 after he was recognized at a McDonald’s and reported to local authorities.
[time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”]Police found Mangione in possession of a fake New Jersey ID that matches the one used by the suspect to check into a hostel on the Upper West Side of Manhattan 10 days before the shooting. Police also recovered a firearm similar to the one used in the killing, a silencer, and a three-page handwritten manifesto that investigators say sheds light on his motivations, though its specific contents have not been revealed. The New York Times reported that the document criticized health care companies for putting profits above care.
“We don’t think there’s any specific threats to other people mentioned in that document, but it does seem that he has some ill will towards corporate America,” NYPD Chief of Detectives Joseph Kenny said.
Mangione is facing firearm charges, among others, in Pennsylvania, but has not yet been formally charged in connection with Thompson’s death on Dec. 4.
The shooting of Thompson, 50, was described by New York Police Department officials as a “premeditated, preplanned targeted attack.” Thompson was outside the New York Hilton Midtown when he was shot multiple times, including once in the back and once in the right calf, as he made his way to the company’s annual investor conference conference. The shooter, who was wearing a mask, fled the scene on foot and later hopped on a bicycle into Central Park. A backpack believed to be owned by the gunman was later recovered by police in Central Park. It contained Monopoly money. Investigators recovered shell casings at the scene, which were engraved with the words “deny,” “delay,” and “depose,” a cryptic message that has raised questions about the shooter’s motives.
Here’s what to know about Mangione.
He attended the University of Pennsylvania
Mangione graduated from the University of Pennsylvania in 2020 with bachelor’s and master’s degrees in computer science, a spokesperson for the University told the Associated Press. Authorities confirmed that the 26-year-old suspect attended college in Pennsylvania.
During Mangione’s time at Penn, he served as a teaching assistant, head of the recitation committee, and co-founded the university’s Game Research And Development Environment club, according to his LinkedIn profile. He is quoted in a 2018 press release posted by Penn Engineering as saying that he decided to major in computer science because he wanted to make video games. Mangione’s social media posts suggest that he belonged to the fraternity Phi Kappa Psi.
While in college, he was employed as a head counselor in the Stanford Pre-Collegiate Studies Program from May through September of 2019.
In 2016, he graduated from Gilman School, an all-boys private high school in the Baltimore area, where he wrestled and became valedictorian.
He worked as a data engineer
Mangione has held various tech jobs and internships since he was in high school, and was employed as a data engineer for TrueCar, a car shopping website, since Nov. 2020, according to his LinkedIn profile. While in high school, he was co-founder and lead programmer for AppRoar Studios, a gaming app development company in Baltimore. He also held a robotics research internship at Johns Hopkins Whiting School of Engineering and a UI programming internship at Firaxis Games, a Baltimore-based video game developer.
Investigators said he was last known to be living in Honolulu, Hawaii. Mangione has no prior criminal record in New York. He is believed to have traveled to New York City by bus in late November, and later arrived in Altoona by Greyhound from Philadelphia, investigators said.
Social media accounts show media habits and views
Social media profiles that appear to belong to Mangione show that he subscribed to anti-capitalist causes and had previously expressed admiration for the notorious Unabomber, Ted Kaczynski, a former mathematics professor who carried out a nationwide bombing campaign in the United States from 1978 to 1995.
Mangione had written on Goodreads that Kaczynski’s anti-technology essay, “Industrial Society and Its Future,” contained prescient insights into modern society, though he condemned the violent methods used by the Unabomber. The reviewer wrote: “It’s easy to quickly and thoughtless[ly] write this off as the manifesto of a lunatic, in order to avoid facing some of the uncomfortable problems it identifies. But it’s simply impossible to ignore how prescient many of his predictions about modern society turned out.”
In the months leading up to the attack, Mangione frequently posted on X about the negative health consequences of modern technology. He shared content from prominent figures in the wellness and self-improvement spheres, including Andrew Huberman, a neuroscientist known for his health podcast, and Tim Ferriss, the entrepreneur behind The 4-Hour Workweek. Mangione expressed concern over the negative health consequences of modern life, often reposting material from writers like Michael Pollan, who critiques processed foods, and Jonathan Haidt, a sociologist who has examined the impact of smartphones on young people.
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