Police say suspect in CEO’s killing likely saw himself as hero

Luigi Mangione is escorted by police to his arraignment at the Blair County Courthouse in Hollidaysburg, Pa., Monday, Dec. 9, 2024. The 26-year-old Maryland native was arrested in Altoona, Pa., on gun charges and for questioning in connection with last week’s killing of a health insurance executive in Midtown Manhattan that prompted a manhunt up and down the East Coast, the New York Police Department said. (Rachel Wisniewski/The New York Times)

By Chelsia Rose Marcius, Andy Newman, Nicholas Bogel-Burroughs and Michael Wilson

A suspect charged with murder in New York in the assassination of the CEO of UnitedHealthcare in midtown Manhattan saw the killing as a “symbolic takedown,” according to an internal police report that detailed parts of a three-page manifesto found with him at the time of his arrest.

The suspect, Luigi Mangione, 26, was charged late Monday in Manhattan with second-degree murder, forgery and three gun charges. The New York Police Department had released images of him after the fatal shooting of Brian Thompson, 50, last week.

An extradition hearing for Mangione was scheduled to take place Tuesday at the Blair County Courthouse. Mangione arrived and struggled against officers as they led him toward a courthouse entrance. Before he disappeared into the building, he turned toward reporters and shouted.

The internal police report, which was obtained by The New York Times, said his manifesto also indicated that he saw the killing as a direct challenge to the health care industry’s “alleged corruption and ‘power games.’”

“Frankly these parasites simply had it coming,” the manifesto was quoted as saying.

The internal report added that Mangione “likely views himself as a hero of sorts who has finally decided to act upon such injustices,” and expressed concern that others might see him as a “martyr and an example to follow.”

Police officers arrested Mangione at a McDonald’s in Altoona, Pennsylvania, on Monday after an employee was alerted by a customer who recognized him and called local authorities. The officers found him sitting alone with a laptop and backpack, wearing a medical mask.

When asked if he had been to New York recently, “the male became quiet and started to shake,” according to a complaint.

He gave them a fake ID, and when the officers told him he could be arrested for lying about his identity, he gave his true name. Asked why he had lied, he said, “I clearly shouldn’t have.”

He was charged separately in Pennsylvania earlier Monday and arraigned that evening. He was charged there with carrying a gun without a license, forgery, falsely identifying himself to the authorities and possessing “instruments of crime.” On Tuesday, he was being held at a state correctional facility in Huntingdon, Pennsylvania, east of Altoona.

Here’s what we know about Mangione:

— Fake ID: The identification he showed police officers in Pennsylvania was the same one that the man believed to be the gunman presented when he checked into a hostel on the Upper West Side of Manhattan on Nov. 24, a senior law enforcement official said. It bore the name Mark Rosario and a made-up address in Maplewood, New Jersey.

— A privileged upbringing: Mangione grew up in Maryland and attended high school at the Gilman School in Baltimore, where he was an athlete and the valedictorian of his graduating class in 2016. He graduated from the University of Pennsylvania with bachelor’s and master’s degrees in engineering four years later. His social media accounts and other websites offer a glimpse into his background in the technology and video games industry and his curiosity about self-improvement, clean eating and critiques of contemporary technology.