On Monday, ABC News reported the arrest of 26-year-old Luigi Mangione in Pennsylvania in connection to the murder of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson on December 4 in New York City. The attack, which took place before Thompson was set to appear at a shareholder meeting, sparked a chase for the alleged shooter.
Mangione was taken in on Monday morning, found with a gun, fake IDs, a passport, and a manifesto railing against the healthcare industry at a McDonald's in Altoona, a Pennsylvanian town almost 300 miles west of New York City. A computer science graduate from the University of Pennsylvania, he's described by one former student as "super normal."
The culmination of Mangione's arrest concludes a five-day coordinated manhunt from New York to Atlanta. Online, however, was a completely different story.
On December 5, the NYPD released the first image of the suspect, dressed in a hoodie, showing a semi-pixelated image of him smiling. And the internet response was WILD!
After releasing the name, outlets and netizens quickly found photos of Luigi online, ranging from a pic of him smiling with a McDonald's happy meal to a thirst trap photo of him shirtless with that 'killer' smile.
And, once again, the internet did not fail.
The attack became a divisive topic on social media: some praised the attack on a man whose career–and salary–is built on denying coverage for medical needs; others found it shocking netizens were praising a cold-blooded killer. Even as the discourse over the attack was politicized by right-wing commentators like Ben Shapiro and Matt Walsh, their followers were quick to point out that frustrations over healthcare and insurance industries And as the likes of Ben Shapiro and others tried to position the shooting as a "liberal" attack, even some of their followers were quick to admit that frustrations with the insurance industry isn't a one-sided issue.
So is the internet's new babygirl a cold-blooded killer? Perhaps. But 2024 has presented weirder things.
After all: who would've thunk we'd have a convicted felon as President-elect?
