For five days, the man who killed a health insurance C.E.O. on a Manhattan street seemed to have vanished. But yesterday morning, a McDonald’s employee in Altoona, Pa., noticed a familiar-looking young man eating a meal and called the police.
Two officers arrived and asked the man if he had been to New York recently. He became quiet, the officers said, and started to shake.
The man, 26-year-old Luigi Mangione, appeared to be the one they had been searching for, the police said. In his backpack, he had a gun, a silencer and a manifesto that, officials told The Times, derided health care companies for putting profits above care. He was charged in Manhattan with murder.
The killing, and the dayslong search for the person responsible, brought together three political issues.
First, surveillance. The McDonald’s employee called the police after recognizing Mangione from images that the police released last week. The police were able to get those images — including one where the suspect appeared without a mask — by combing through hundreds of hours of camera footage from streets, a hostel and a taxicab.
Privacy rights activists have criticized these tools in the past. Some thought the police would feed the images into facial recognition technology to find the shooter. But the police credited distributing the photos with cracking this case: Asked about the most important element of the manhunt, the N.Y.P.D. chief of detectives Joseph Kenny said, “It would be the release of that photograph from the media.”
Second, health care. The victim was Brian Thompson, the chief executive of the insurer UnitedHealthcare. Bullet casings at the scene had the words “depose,” “deny” and “delay” written on them, likely references to health insurers and how they treat claims. Mangione’s manifesto, which the police recovered after his arrest, mentioned UnitedHealthcare by name and declared, “These parasites had it coming.”
The killing set off a wave of anger on social media. People used the shooting as a chance to express frustration with the American health care system, and some even hailed the shooter as a hero. Experts warn that the glorification of a killer could help inspire copycats.
Third, ghost guns. When Mangione was arrested, he had a 3-D-printed gun and silencer in his backpack, officials said. These ghost guns are cheap and easy to assemble, and criminals have used them to avoid getting caught. Until recently, people could purchase the parts for these firearms online without a background check. And the components typically did not include serial numbers, preventing the police from tracing them.
The Biden administration imposed regulations on ghost guns, requiring manufacturers and sellers to get licenses, mark the parts with serial numbers and conduct background checks. But people can circumvent the rules by using online instructions to print and assemble their own parts.
What we know about the suspect
Mangione came from a life of privilege and promise. He was a high school valedictorian and Ivy League tech graduate. Read more about him.
He was from a prominent family in the Baltimore area. The Mangiones own country clubs, a nursing home company and a talk radio station. Nino Mangione, Luigi’s cousin, is a Republican state delegate in Maryland.
People who knew Mangione in Hawaii, where he had lived recently, said he suffered debilitating back pain and had recently undergone surgery. He fell out of contact with friends and family about six months ago.
He also had a robust online presence. On Goodreads, where users rate books, he wrote a glowing review of the Unabomber’s manifesto.
More on the shooting
“I never got the impression he would self-destruct”: Friends and family of the suspect were in shock, CNN reports.
People have been selling shirts and hats with the words from ammunition found at the scene of the killing. Amazon pulled listings down, The Washington Post reports.
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N.F.L.: The Cincinnati Bengals eked past the Dallas Cowboys, 27-20, winning in fittingly cartoonish fashion while ESPN aired a “Simpsons”-themed simulcast.
M.L.B.: Juan Soto’s decision to join the New York Mets was swayed by money, of course, but the owner Steve Cohen’s personal touch helped seal his commitment.
College football: Four finalists, including Colorado’s two-way star Travis Hunter, will travel to New York this weekend for the Heisman Trophy ceremony.
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GAMES
Here is today’s Spelling Bee. Yesterday’s pangram was unknowing.
And here are today’s Mini Crossword, Wordle, Sudoku, Connections and Strands.
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