A 26-year-old man was arrested Monday after the targeted killing of a top health insurance executive on the streets of New York was attributed to a McDonald’s employee in Pennsylvania who noticed a suspicious-looking customer, police said .
New York Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch said investigators were questioning a man named Luigi Mangione in connection with the murder of a senior person at UnitedHealthcare last week.
He has been captured by authorities in Altoona, Pennsylvania, after he was found with a weapon, described by New York’s Chief of Detectives Joseph Kenny as a “ghost gun” that fires 9MM rounds. Capable of and equipped with a suppressor.
The man was spotted at a McDonald’s in the city, about 300 miles (500 kilometers) west of New York, said Jessica Tisch, who notified authorities.
The New York Times, citing a law enforcement source, said he had the fake ID used by the killer before the murder, as well as a handwritten manifesto about the evils of the insurance industry.
New York detectives were headed to Altoona, Tisch said, while Kenney, the chief of detectives, said Mangione had material showing he had “an ill will toward corporate America.”
Police were looking into the possibility that the shooter had used a long-barreled veterinary gun – which is typically used to euthanize animals – to commit the murder.
The gunman went after Brian Thompson, a senior executive at UnitedHealthcare — one of the nation’s largest medical insurers — and shot him dead in front of an audience last Wednesday, an attack captured by a surveillance camera and since watched by millions. .
Brian Thompson was attending an investor conference in the Midtown Business District.
enough video footage
Detectives said the suspect fled the crime scene on foot, rode a bike to Central Park and then boarded a bus from a terminal north of the city connecting New York to surrounding states and beyond.
Police would not confirm media reports that the words “delay” and “denial” – language often used by insurance companies to reject claims – were written on the shell casings found at the scene.
Video footage shows Thompson on the sidewalk outside the New York Hilton Midtown as a hooded man, whose lower face was covered, approaches from behind, then fires several shots at his 50-year-old victim, who falls to the ground. Is.
A photograph of the smiling suspect was obtained from a youth hostel where the gunman apparently stayed before the attack, with media reports suggesting he had lowered his mask to flirt with a receptionist.
US media reported that authorities later found a gray backpack in Central Park, believed to be the killer’s, containing a jacket and Monopoly money.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
