New York City officials clearly wanted to send a message when they escorted Luigi Mangione, the 26-year-old charged in the brazen, fatal shooting of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, on a long walk flanked by law enforcement officials in Manhattan — but many are wondering if the lengthy, slow escort from a helipad to a New York federal prison only further feeds the fandom and allure of the suspected killer.
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, parading him in front of a small army of media cameras.
The Ivy League graduate, dressed in an orange prison jumpsuit with his arms restrained in handcuffs, was then transported and formally charged with federal murder and stalking crimes in a Manhattan courtroom, alongside state murder and terrorism charges previously announced by New York prosecutors.
Luigi Mangione, a suspect in the fatal shooting of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, is escorted by police, Thursday, Dec. 19, 2024, in New York.
Pamela Smith / The Associated Press
The highly publicized escort has reignited debate about these so-called “perp walks,” with many questioning whether the media spectacle seen Thursday only catapults Mangione’s notoriety and fame.
Even before Mangione was taken into custody in a Pennsylvania McDonald’s last week, as police executed a days-long manhunt for the suspect, he was hailed as a folk hero of sorts. Police released several surveillance photos of the alleged hooded assassin, and many couldn’t help but comment on his looks, likening him to a handsome, modern-day Robin Hood.
This image provided by the New York City Police Department shows a man wanted for questioning in connection to the investigation of the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson outside a Manhattan hotel, Wednesday, Dec. 4, 2024.
New York City Police Department via AP
If Thursday’s perp walk was meant to cast Mangione as a villain, many saw the spectacle as having the opposite effect and argued it only adds to his appeal.
“That was one big performance by the NYPD and it backfired spectacularly. Their goal was to make Luigi Mangione look like a Batman villain. Instead it made him look like a folk hero who fought back against the system that puts profits over our own lives,” one account on X mused.
“Sorry, but what is this procession? Did they deploy the army just to escort a handcuffed graduate for ten meters? Is Christopher Nolan directing this?” another commented on the theatrics.
Jorge Camacho, policy director for the Justice Collaboratory at Yale Law School, told USA Today he believes authorities pulled off the high-profile walk to send a certain message.
“Obviously, the practice is highly controversial because it can be very prejudicial to see someone walking around with handcuffs behind their back and surrounded by a cadre of police officers, kind of insinuating that this person is already guilty, already highly dangerous,” he said, adding that in a case like Mangione’s, where the suspect has garnered some sympathy and applause from people frustrated with greedy health-care insurance companies, the tactic can backfire.
Robert Weisberg, a Stanford law professor, said the spectacle seemed “particularly staged.”
“The orchestration of it is almost too transparent. The FBI and NYDA could have transported Mangione discreetly, but they opted for a public show. This one looks designed to send a message,” he said.
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The federal complaint filed Thursday charges Mangione with two counts of stalking and one count each of murder through the use of a firearm and a firearms offence. Murder by firearm carries the possibility of the death penalty, though federal prosecutors will determine whether to pursue that path in the coming months.
Luigi Mangione, centre, sits in court reading the federal complaint while wearing orange slip-on shoes and with his ankles shackled in Manhattan federal court, Thursday, Dec. 19, 2024, in New York. He is flanked by his attorneys, Karen Agnifilo, left, and Marc Agnifilo.
Elizabeth Williams via The Associated Press
In a state court indictment announced earlier this week, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office charged Mangione with murder as an act of terrorism, which carries a possible sentence of life in prison without parole. New York does not have the death penalty.
Mangione’s lawyer, Karen Friedman Agnifilo, said it’s a “highly unusual situation” for a defendant to face simultaneous state and federal cases.
Suspect Luigi Mangione is taken into the Blair County Courthouse on Tuesday, Dec. 10, 2024, in Hollidaysburg, Pa.
Benjamin B. Braun/Pittsburgh Post-Gazette via AP
“Frankly I’ve never seen anything like what is 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 point and declined to comment as she left the courthouse.
Mangione, of Towson, Md., is accused of ambushing the 50-year-old Thompson as the executive arrived at a Manhattan hotel for an investor conference.
Surveillance video showed a masked gunman shooting Thompson from behind. Police say the words “delay,” “deny” and “depose” were scrawled on the ammunition investigators found at the scene, echoing a phrase commonly used to describe insurer tactics to avoid paying claims.
The gunman then pedalled a bicycle through Central Park, took a taxi to a bus station and then rode the subway to a train station before fleeing to Pennsylvania, authorities said.
There, a McDonald’s customer noticed that Mangione looked like the person in surveillance photos police were circulating of the gunman, prosecutors said.
When he was arrested, they say, Mangione had the gun used to kill Thompson, a passport, fake IDs and about US$10,000.
According to the federal complaint, Mangione also had a spiral notebook that included several handwritten pages expressing hostility toward the health insurance industry and wealthy executives. UnitedHealthcare is the largest health insurer in the U.S., though the insurer said Mangione was never a client.
An August entry said that “the target is insurance” because “it checks every box,” according to the filing. An entry in October “describes an intent to ‘wack’ the CEO of one of the insurance companies at its investor conference,” the document said.
The killing unleashed an outpouring of stories about resentment toward U.S. health insurance companies while also shaking corporate America after some social media users called the shooting payback.
— With files from The Associated Press
© 2024 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.
