Luigi Mangione, a graduate of the Gilman School in Baltimore, has been charged with second-degree murder and gun charges in last week’s brazen shooting of United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson.
Police on Monday arrested Mangione on firearms charges after he was recognized by an employee at a McDonald’s near Altoona, Pennsylvania, west of New York City. Police found a gun, a silencer and fake IDs, a law enforcement official told the Associated Press.
Prosecutors have charged Mangione with five counts, including second-degree murder and gun charges.
At a news conference Monday, NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch said police found a three-page document with writings suggesting that Mangione had ill will toward corporate America. The handwritten document “speaks to both his motivation and mindset,” Tisch said.
Mangione was the valedictorian of his Gilman School graduating class in 2016, and was featured in a Baltimore Fishbowl story that year about graduation speeches.
Mangione felt that the environment at Gilman fostered his ability to excel academically. “The teachers at Gilman influenced me especially,” he wrote in an email, adding that they encouraged less of a desire to achieve high grades in his classes and instead encouraged “more of an excitement to explore academic topics outside of the classroom.”
Henry P. A. Smyth, Head of School at Gilman, acknowledged Mangione’s arrest in an email message to the school’s community Monday.
“We recently became aware that the person arrested in connection with the killing of the UnitedHealthcare CEO is a Gilman alumnus, Luigi Mangione, Class of 2016,” Smyth wrote. “We do not have any information other than what is being reported in the news.”
“This is deeply distressing news on top of an already awful situation. Our hearts go out to everyone affected.”
Smyth added, “Here on campus, our focus will remain on caring for and educating the boys. Thank you for your understanding.”
Mangione, 26, was born and raised in Maryland and has had a Towson address. He is the son of Louis and Kathleen Zannino Mangione, and Maryland voter registration records show him registered to vote at the Hayfields Road address in Cockeysville where his family lives, adjacent to their golf course. He received a Maryland absentee ballot in 2020.
His mother, Kathleen, is a member of the family that owns and operates the Charles S. Zannino Funeral Home in Highlandtown.
Mangione played soccer throughout grade school and college, former classmates said.
He earned his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in computer and information science at the University of Pennsylvania. After graduating, he moved to Honolulu, Hawaii, where he was a data engineer for the car buying website TrueCar, according to his LinkedIn account.
Mangione lost contact with friends and family and sustained a serious injury after college, according to sources who knew him. A medical image of a back injury is part of the header of Mangione’s X account.
NBC News and other sources are confirming that Mangione is a member of a prominent family of landowners and developers who own and operate Turf Valley in Ellicott City and Hayfields Country Club in Baltimore County. Baltimore Fishbowl’s calls for comment from Turf Valley and Hayfields were not immediately returned.
Mangione is a cousin of Baltimore County Delegate Nino Mangione, R-District 42A. The delegate put out a statement on behalf of the Mangione family on Tuesday morning, saying they are “shocked and devastated” by their family member’s arrest.
Aaron Cranston, a former classmate of Mangione, described him as “surprisingly social for his obvious intelligence.”
Cranston said he and Mangione had been classmates since fifth or sixth grade.
“He was so smart that he knew that middle school didn’t matter, and he [messed] around the whole time,” Cranston said. “Then, as soon as ninth grade, he pretty much maintained a 4.0 GPA because he knew that it actually mattered.”
Cranston recalls while in middle school Mangione developed a video game app in which the player had to steer a paper airplane through a series of cascading obstacles. That love of gaming continued into college, where Mangione founded a video game development club.
“He was definitely kind and a pretty social guy. I would say a curious and pretty entrepreneurial guy who was always working on some kind of extra project,” Cranston said.
The news that police had apprehended Mangione as a person of interest in Thompson’s murder was a shock to Cranston.
“Luigi always seemed to be a problem-solver or someone who can kind of figure out anything,” Cranston said. “He never shied away from trying to find a solution to a complex problem. So for him to resort to violence is just mind-boggling.”
Thompson, 50, was killed Wednesday in what police said was a “brazen, targeted” attack as he walked alone to the Hilton from a nearby hotel, where UnitedHealthcare’s parent company, UnitedHealth Group, was holding its annual investor conference, police said.
The FBI released a photo of the man suspected of killing Thompson and offered a reward of up to $50,000 for information leading to the suspect’s arrest.
In the days since Thompson’s murder, many have condemned the killing and joined calls for the shooter to be found. Still, others lionized the shooter for what they saw as standing up to corporations.
In a Goodreads review of the Unabomber’s manifesto, Mangione wrote that “[h]e was a violent individual – rightfully imprisoned – who maimed innocent people. While these actions tend to be characterized as those of a crazy luddite, however, they are more accurately seen as those of an extreme political revolutionary.”
This article has been updated.
He is a murderer, nothing else.
Destructive abuse is never the answer. While drawing attention to the systemic abuses perpetuated by the healthcare industry—such as denying people coverage for essential procedures and medications—feels urgent, *resorting to violence or extremism will ultimately fail to bring about the meaningful change many may hope for.* This failure of imagination, much like the tragic example of Ted Kaczynski, results in harm rather than transformation. Despite his intellectual justifications, Kaczynski’s actions caused suffering and totally failed to create the lasting change he desired. (The Unabomber reportedly had an if IQ 167.) He did grab attention too though. Unfortunately, attention, like talk, can be cheap, so to speak.
A far more effective approach would be one that fosters *constructive, interdisciplinary collaboration and long-term, impactful change.* An attitude grounded in cooperation and far better informed ethics and empathy is far more likely to penetrate the fabric of our society and create lasting solutions.
Consider the concept of a “Solutionary” [suh-LOO-shuh-ner-ee]: a person who identifies inhumane, unsustainable, and unjust systems and works to develop humane, sustainable solutions that benefit people, animals, and the environment. This definition comes from the Institute of Humane Education, and it is further explored in the book The Solutionary Way by Zoe Weil. While I am not affiliated with these sources, they offer valuable insights into how interdisciplinary, cooperative efforts can work.
Of course, we can leverage tools like AI and advanced communication to create desired ethical solutions. I read that Luigi was interested in AI. AI and ethics can and should help develop each other. Same goes for critical thinking. And emotional intelligence. AI trains on us, so we should see this as a call for excellence.
Academic institutions’ role in shaping future leaders/solutionaries is crucial. Schools should actively nurture the following pairs of qualities to promote ethics, progress, and responsible decision-making:
Imagination and cognition
Emotional intelligence and intellect
The arts and sciences
Vertical morality (hierarchical ethics) and horizontal morality (our impact on others—civil rights, ethics, public health, reciprocity)
It’s then that we have a chance of bringing fact checks, heart checks and people together to great effect.
History has repeatedly shown that intellectual brilliance alone is woefully insufficient to ensure wise or ethical choices. The failure of imagination, when intellect is not tempered with emotional intelligence and better opportunities/points are then missed, can lead to distorted decision-making. It is essential that intellect and emotional intelligence be developed in tandem, constantly informing and balancing each other, or else they risk leading us down dangerous, misguided paths.
Somewhere in this young man’s timeline, he went nuts. He shot another man in cold blood and was photographed smiling. His life is over if he is the perp.