A 26-year-old man named as a person of interest in the fatal shooting of UnitedHealth Group Inc. executive Brian Thompson was arrested in Altoona, Pennsylvania, on Monday.
The man, identified as Luigi Mangione, was recognized while he was eating at a McDonald’s restaurant by an employee. He was found with a manifesto, multiple fake identifications and a so-called ghost gun with a suppressor, similar to the one used in the shooting, according to police. The document found on the man speaks to both his “motivation and mindset,” New York Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch said Monday.
It’s the biggest break in the case since Thompson, 50, was shot in the back and leg early Wednesday morning outside of the New York Hilton Midtown, in what police say was a targeted and premeditated killing. The company was hosting its investor day at the hotel, where Thompson, the chief executive of UnitedHealth’s insurance division, was slated to speak that morning.
Detectives from the New York Police Department are headed to Altoona, where Mangione is being held on gun charges unrelated to the shooting, to assist in the investigation with local authorities. Police combed thousands of videos, used dogs and scuba divers, and relied on the help of the public to aid in their investigation, Tisch said.
A person familiar with the matter described the manifesto, which the man was carrying on his body, as anti-capitalist and critical of health care companies’ profit motives. Mangione’s last known address was in Honolulu, but he was born in Maryland, according to the police, and he has no known prior arrests.
Altoona is in central Pennsylvania, about 280 miles west of New York City.
Mangione carried a fake New Jersey identification, which police believe was used by the shooting suspect to check in to a hostel in Manhattan. His gun will be taken for ballistic testing.
