What We Know About Luigi Mangione, ‘Person of Interest’ Arrested in UnitedHealthcare CEO Shooting

The New York City Police Department on Dec. 5, 2024, released photos of a 'person of interest' wanted for questioning in the shooting death of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson a day earlier. NYPD News via The Epoch Times

Police on Dec. 9 arrested a “strong person of interest” in the shooting death of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson in Manhattan, New York City officials said at a Dec. 9 press conference.

The individual, identified as Luigi Mangione, was arrested in Pennsylvania on gun charges and will face questioning, according to officials.

“We believe we have a strong person of interest,” New York Mayor Eric Adams said at the news conference.

Individual Faces Gun Charges

NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch, also speaking at the briefing, said that the person of interest in the case was identified as Mangione, 26. He was apprehended by authorities in Altoona, Pennsylvania, at a McDonald’s.

Mangione was born and raised in Maryland, he has ties to San Francisco, and his last known address is in Honolulu, NYPD Chief of Detectives Joseph Kenny said at the briefing.

Police officials said that Mangione will face gun charges in Altoona, but Kenny said that officials will work through extradition to bring him back to New York to face charges, “working with the Manhattan district attorney’s office.”

“This just happened this morning,” Kenny said. “We’ll be working, backtracking his steps from New York to Altoona, Pennsylvania.”

NYPD officers and Manhattan District Attorney’s Office prosecutors will interview Mangione further, authorities also said.

McDonald’s Employee Spotted Him

Tisch said that the individual was spotted by a McDonald’s employee who recognized him.

After the employee called the police, responding officers “questioned the suspect, who was acting suspiciously and was carrying multiple fraudulent IDs, as well as a U.S. passport,” Tisch said.

“Upon further investigation, officers recovered a firearm on his person as well as a suppressor, both consistent with the weapon used in the murder,” she said.

“They also recovered clothing, including a mask consistent with those worn by our wanted individual. Also recovered was a fraudulent New Jersey ID matching the ID our suspect used to check into his New York City hostel before the shooting incident.”

Handwritten Note, ‘Ghost Gun’ Found

Tisch later said that police officers found a “handwritten document that speaks to both his motivation and mindset” in the shooting and that he possessed an “ill will toward corporate America.”

Mangione was in possession of a “ghost gun” that was capable of firing a 9 mm round and had a suppressor, or silencer, attached, Kenny told the news conference.

Kenny did not provide other details about the weapon or the handwritten document.

Video footage of the Thompson shooting showed a masked individual in a hooded jacket approaching Thompson, 50, from behind before firing multiple shots. The suspect appears to have manually racked the gun’s slide as he fired the shots, drawing intense online speculation about the model and whether it had a silencer attached.

“As of right now, the information we’re getting from Altoona is that the gun appears to be a ghost gun that may have been made on a 3D printer, capable of firing a 9 mm round,” Kenny said.

Social Media Accounts

An account on social media platform X with Mangione’s name, reviewed by The Epoch Times on Dec. 9, showed that the user had degrees in computer science at the University of Pennsylvania, an Ivy League school. The majority of his posts or reposts are related to artificial intelligence, technology, and related topics.

It does not appear that the account made any posts related to health insurance or UnitedHealthcare, and it made no comments on contemporary politics.

As of the afternoon of Dec. 9, the account had not been taken down by X.

LinkedIn and Facebook accounts that appear to be associated with Mangione show that he studied at the University of Pennsylvania and is from Maryland, with his LinkedIn account showing he worked as a data engineer for TrueCar, based in Santa Monica. An Epoch Times review of the accounts also showed that no posts indicated an animus toward Thompson, the health insurance industry, or corporate America.

The X account followed a wide range of accounts, including New York Times writer Ezra Klein, OpenAI founder Sam Altman, Edward Snowden, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), conservative rapper Zuby, statistician Nassim Nicholas Taleb, and the Erowid Center, a website that provides information and accounts on psychoactive chemicals and plants.

The Epoch Times has not been able to independently verify the authenticity of the three social media accounts.

May Have Left City by Bus

Last week, Tisch and Kenny told CNN in an interview that the suspect appeared to have left New York City via bus after he took a cab to a Port Authority bus station in Manhattan that offers Greyhound bus travel.

Over the past several days, the NYPD has shared one video and multiple photos of the suspect and a “person of interest” in the case, with one showing the individual with his mask down and smiling. Authorities have asked the public to provide any tips to the NYPD’s Crime Stoppers line, and anyone who provides information leading to the suspect’s arrest and capture is eligible to receive a $10,000 reward.

The FBI also posted a $50,000 reward for information leading to the arrest of the gunman.

On the morning of Dec. 8, the NYPD released two more photos of the person of interest, showing a masked individual in what appears to be a taxi.

During the Dec. 4 incident, Thompson was walking to a Midtown Manhattan Hilton hotel for a UnitedHealthcare conference when he was shot several times in what authorities described as a “brazen” and “targeted” attack. The suspect, they said, waited for bystanders to pass before opening fire on Thompson.

As of Dec. 9, authorities had not released a motive in the slaying.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.