Alleged UnitedHealthcare CEO Assassin Captured: Implications for Security
Police in Altoona, Pennsylvania, arrested a suspect in last week’s assassination of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson on Monday, 9 December.
In Pennsylvania, Luigi Mangione, 26, was charged with carrying a gun without a license, forgery, falsely identifying himself, and possessing instruments of crime. In New York, he has been charged with second-degree murder for Thompson's death, in addition to other charges.
A customer at a McDonald’s in Altoona recognized Mangione from images the New York City Police Department (NYPD) had released, according to the Associated Press. The customer alerted a McDonald’s employee, who also saw the resemblance, and the employee called the police.
When police arrived at the scene, Mangione was seated with food and a laptop, and he wore a blue surgical mask. Officers on the scene asked him to pull his mask down and they, too, recognized him from the NYPD photos and arrested him.
In Mangione's possession were an unserialized firearm that had been assembled from parts—a so-called “ghost gun,” a noise suppressor for the firearm, fake identification matching the name used at New York City hostel the day before the murder, and a hand-written document condemning the healthcare industry, including direct mention of Thompson.
The murder has obvious implications for those tasked with executive protection.
“CEOs and high-profile executives are not only the faces of their organizations; this visibility inherently increases their risk, making them attractive targets for those with malicious intent,” Jonathan Wackrow, senior manager director and COO of Teneo Risk, told Security Management in an examination of the incident last week.
That Security Management article examined several aspects of how this murder is likely to affect executive protection in the short- and possibly long-term, including a look at threat assessments for CEOs, elements and challenges of executive protection, and a list of resources from ASIS International.
“The one thing that I’ve learned in this business… is that tragedy forces change,” said Fred Burton, executive director, protective intelligence for Ontic. “And it usually takes tragedy for security protocols to change.”
Here are additional security aspects to consider as more is learned and confirmed about this attack.
Surveillance Played a Key Role
What led to the arrest of the alleged killer was as old school as it gets—the modern day equivalent of the “Wanted” posters. In this case, it was the NYPD’s Crime Stopper program, which released several photos of a person of interest connected to Thompson’s murder. These photos were made from diverse sources, including security footage from a coffeeshop, a taxi, a hostel, and on the streets of New York City.
“In the photo that appears to have led to Mr. Mangione’s arrest, the suspect has distinct facial features: dark eyes and eyebrows, high cheekbones and a broad smile that curls at the corners,” The New York Times reported. “Not just dark, but prominent eyebrows,” said The Citadel criminal justice professor Sean Patrick Griffin, who told the Times that such a “recognizable trait was not ideal for someone seeking to get away with a high-profile crime.”
Investigators found video of the suspect that showed him on a bike in the vicinity of Central Park and additional footage at a bus station where it is believed he boarded a bus and left the city.
“The city has one of the most advanced surveillance systems of any major U.S. city, largely built after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks,” said Felipe Rodriguez, a former NYPD detective sergeant who is now an adjunct professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York, in an interview with Reuters. “There are thousands of cameras in New York and all feeds can be monitored in real time, as well as reviewed for previous footage, aided by facial recognition software.”
Despite the capability, law enforcement indicated that facial recognition was not a factor in apprehending the suspect. Instead, it was quick work on the part of investigators finding and releasing footage from among the thousands of cameras and sources to examine, and it was an alert member of the public seeing the released photos and making the connection.
“We should never underestimate the power of the public to be our eyes and ears in these investigations,” New York City Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch said.
A Lone Actor and the Celebration of a Heinous Action
The document found in Mangione’s possession during arrest had a message to law enforcement: “To the Feds, I’ll keep this short, because I do respect what you do for our country. To save you a lengthy investigation, I state plainly that I wasn’t working with anyone.”
From the first news reports, the murder was described as a targeted assassination. Some evidence released by authorities included the fact that bullet casings at the scene had the words “deny,” “defend,” and “depose” written on them. And the murder brought out the worst of many people.
Prior to Mangione’s arrest, there were corners of social media and the Internet where the suspect was being celebrated as folk hero. More than 77,000 people used a laughing emoji response to a UnitedHealthcare’s social media message on the murder. Saturday Night Live ran a skit making fun of some of the public response to the killing.
“I have studied CEO and business leadership for 40 years, and such dancing on the grave of a murdered business executive is one of the most abhorrent things I have ever seen. This vitriol and violence against business and business leaders is plainly un-American,” Jeffrey A. Sonnenfeld and Steven Tian wrote in an online newsletter published by the Yale University School of Management. “While abhorrent, it was sadly not surprising to see so many influencers mocking and celebrating Thompson’s death, and fits an emerging pattern of populists on both the far left and far right increasingly coming together to attack business, both drawing on a shared populist resentment of pillars of American society.”
The Network Contagion Research Institute noted that “of the top ten most engaged posts on Twitter/X that mention Brian Thompson or UnitedHealthcare, six either expressed explicit or implicit support for the killing or denigrated the victim.”
In other corners of the Internet, CNN reported that merchandise such as hats, T-shirts, and pint glasses bearing the words “delay,” “deny,” and “defend” were for sale on Amazon—though the CNN article does not say if the merchandise was on the site prior to the shooting or appeared afterward. It did, however, say that Amazon was removing the merchandise from its site.
In addition, people began leaving poor reviews for the McDonald’s where Mangione was arrested to punish the business for supporting the capture of an alleged murderer whom they see as a hero. Yelp disabled the review function for the location. Similarly, the hostel that provided footage to the police received poor online reviews.
Since his arrest, people have set up GoFundMe pages they say are to help pay legal fees for Mangione—but again, it’s not clear if these were intended to show support or to scam people. GoFundMe has removed the pages.
Motivation and Radicalization
Grievance is a well-documented precursor to violence. Details on Mangione’s background are only just beginning to emerge. He is from a well off family in Maryland, though the 26-year-old suspect appears to have mostly lost touch with family and friends from his youth. He did, however, appear to maintain accounts on Facebook, X, Instagram, and Goodreads.
Of notable interest is a review he wrote praising Ted Kaczynski’s Industrial Society and Its Future, aka, the Unabomber Manifesto, in which he called Kaczynski “rightfully imprisoned” but also described him as a “political revolutionary.” Not much else has thus far been reported about his social media presence that would indicate radicalization, though there was a recent emphasis on self-help and health-conscious materials.
Interviews of former classmates and colleagues note a spinal injury that required surgery in 2023.
Ghost Guns
“As Luigi Mangione was handcuffed and placed under arrest in Pennsylvania on Monday, police searched the backpack he'd been carrying and found what they described as a loaded 3D-printed firearm, a suppressor, and a single loose bullet,” ABC News reported.
Described as “ghost guns,” such weapons are often partially 3D-printed and assembled from gun parts that anyone can order online. The guns do not contain a serial number, as is required by U.S. law. To get around federal gun regulations, businesses sold kits that contained the necessary technology, parts, and instructions for building ghost guns.
The U.S. Justice Department enacted a rule limiting this activity, a rule challenged by guns-rights organizations but that was ultimately upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court in a 5-4 decision last year. Individuals can skirt this rule, however, by printing parts to create firearms themselves.
Despite the efforts to regulate ghost guns, it remains legal to manufacture a personal firearm at the federal level. Gun control advocate Everytown for Gun Safety Support Fund has an up-to-date list of states that regulate ghost guns.
