US police say Luigi Mangione’s notebook described rationale for UnitedHealthcare CEO killing

NEW YORK – Luigi Mangione, who has been charged with

killing the chief executive of UnitedHealthcare

outside a company investors’ day in Manhattan, was arrested with a notebook that detailed plans for the shooting, according to two law enforcement officials.

The notebook described going to a conference and killing an executive, the officials said.

“What do you do? You wack the CEO at the annual parasitic bean-counter convention. It’s targeted, precise and doesn’t risk innocents,” was one passage written in the notebook, the officials said.

The shooting of the CEO, Mr Brian Thompson, occurred early on Dec 4 as he arrived at a Hilton hotel on West 54th Street to prepare for the UnitedHealthcare investors’ meeting. His assailant escaped on a bicycle and then disappeared.

Police officials in New York were able to match Mangione’s fingerprints to those on a water bottle and a Kind snack bar wrapper recovered near the crime scene, Commissioner Jessica Tisch said at a news conference on Dec 11.

She said the New York police now have the unregistered gun that was found in Mangione’s possession when he was arrested in Altoona, Pennsylvania, on Dec 9. The police brought it to the department’s crime lab, where they matched it to the three shell casings that were found at the crime scene, she said. The crime lab confirmed they matched the accused’s, police officials said in a briefing with reporters on the afternoon of Dec 11.

Mangione, 26,

was captured on Dec 9 after a tip from an employee at a McDonald’s in Altoona,

who was alerted by a customer who recognised him. He has been denied bail on a murder charge and is fighting extradition to New York, a process that could take weeks.

“He is contesting it,” his lawyer Thomas Dickey said on Dec 10.

When Mangione was arrested, he had the so-called ghost gun, a suppressor and false identification cards similar to those believed to have been used by the killer, officials said. He also had identification bearing his real name.

He also had a 262-word handwritten note with him, which begins by appearing to take responsibility for the murder. The note, which officials described as a manifesto, also mentioned the existence of a notebook.

The suspect saw the killing as a “symbolic takedown”, according to a New York Police Department internal report. He “likely views himself as a hero of sorts who has finally decided to act upon such injustices”, the report said. NYTIMES