Luigi Mangione: The Case for a Robust Police Officer in the Era of the Killing of United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson

Some companies put the biographies and photos of their executives off of their websites as they received praise for the act of violent vigilantism.

With the arrest of Luigi Mangione, police have apprehended a person of interest in the killing of United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson, though many questions remain unanswered.

Prior to Mangione’s arrest, NYPD investigators mapped the alleged shooter’s movements around New York City since late November, including his stay at a Manhattan hostel, where an image of the suspect was captured without a face mask. The suspect fled following the shooting and his backpack was found in Central Park. The person is thought to have left New York City on a bus.

During a press conference featuring the NYPD police chief and Mayor Eric Adams, police said an employee at a Mcdonald’s in Pennsylvania recognized Mangione from the photos taken of him by police.

Despite the shooting being in public, police have been looking for Thompson’s killer for almost a week. The manhunt has thus far relied on just a few grainy images of a man whose face is largely obscured by a mask and hoodie. Investigators have reportedly been looking for more surveillance images of the suspect to load into facial recognition software.

There were expressions of support for the shooter across the political spectrum. The Goodreads account that Mangione left a favorable review of Industrial Society and Its Future is one of several online profiles that have been identified by online sleuths.

In one online review by “Luigi Mangione” of the book Industrial Society and Its Future, the anti-technology essay penned by the “Unabomber,” Ted Kaczynski, the reviewer wrote: “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. But it’s simply impossible to ignore how prescient many of his predictions about modern society turned out.”

In the aftermath of the shooting, some vocal critics of the U.S. health care system expressed that the shooter’s actions could have been the inevitable outcome of a system that prioritizes profits over people’s well-being.

On social media, images of the suspected shooter — mask down and smiling in surveillance camera footage — were circulated as the face of a modern-day folk hero who had taken action against a system perceived to be rife with corruption.

Police were led to Mangione via a “combination of old-school detective work and new age technology,” Tisch said. “We deployed drones, K9 units, and scuba divers. We used the domain awareness system, argos cameras and aviation canvases.

Associated Tech Worker, Theodore Kakaczynski, and the Faint Family of Brian Thompson: Indictment of a Newly Arrested Black Hole

The bullets that were recovered at the scene of Thompson’s shooting were probably referring to how health insurance companies refuse to cover customers’ medical claims. According to the Times, authorities say Mangione was carrying a “manifesto” that included passages “criticizing health care companies for putting profits above care.”

He was, according to his social media accounts, an Ivy League-educated tech worker who was interested in philosophy, health and the self-help advice of some people.

He graduated with a degree in computer science from the University of Pennsylvania in 2020. While at Penn, Mangione founded a game development club that grew to include over 50 members, as reported by the student newspaper the Daily Pennsylvanian.

Mangione most recently worked as a data engineer at TrueCar, according to his LinkedIn page. A company spokesman said via email that Mangione had not been an employee of the company in the last three years.

A Goodreads account in his name left a positive review for the writings of Theodore Kaczynski, also known as the Unabomber, whose targets included a president of United Airlines.

A man was arrested in the state of Pennsylvania on Monday, and police say he was connected to the death of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson.

UnitedHealthcare didn’t respond to the request for comment. The company has provided a statement to other media outlets, which said that it hopes that apprehension will bring some relief to the family and friends of Brian. We are thankful for the work done by law enforcement on this investigation. We ask that everyone respect the family’s privacy as they mourn.”