Tag: shooting

  • Police Arrest UHC CEO Shooting Suspect, App Developer Luigi Mangione

    Police Arrest UHC CEO Shooting Suspect, App Developer Luigi Mangione

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    Authorities arrested a man in Pennsylvania on Monday who police say is connected to the shooting death of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson in New York City last week.

    Police apprehended Luigi Mangione, 26, in Altoona five days after Thompson was shot in Midtown Manhattan in the early hours of Wednesday, December 4, setting off a manhunt for the shooter, whose identity remained unknown. Mangione was detained after he visited a McDonald’s location in Altoona, where other guests noticed his resemblance to images of the suspected shooter released by the New York Police Department and contacted authorities, according to The New York Times.

    The NYPD did not immediately respond to WIRED’s request for comment.

    Prior to Mangione’s arrest, NYPD investigators mapped the alleged shooter’s movements around New York City since late November, including his stay at a Manhattan hostel, where an image of the suspect was captured without a face mask. Police later found the suspect’s backpack in Central Park, where he fled following the shooting, according to the NYPD. Authorities reportedly believe he left New York City on a bus.

    Online records show that Luigi Mangione is an app developer who graduated with bachelor’s and master’s of science in engineering degrees from the University of Pennsylvania in May 2020. A GitHub account that appears to be Mangione’s and an Instagram account for the game development company AppRoarr Studios indicate that he is a cofounder there. AppRoarr did not immediately respond to WIRED’s request for comment.

    At the scene of Thompson’s shooting outside the New York Hilton Midtown, NYPD investigators discovered bullet casings bearing the words “delay,” “depose,” and “deny,” likely references to the ways in which health insurance companies refuse to cover customers’ medical claims. According to the Times, authorities say Mangione was carrying a “manifesto” that included passages “criticizing health care companies for putting profits above care.”

    UnitedHealthcare did not immediately respond to a request for comment from WIRED. In a statement provided to other media outlets, a company spokesperson said: “Our hope is that today’s apprehension brings some relief to Brian’s family, friends, colleagues and the many others affected by this unspeakable tragedy. We thank law enforcement and will continue to work with them on this investigation. We ask that everyone respect the family’s privacy as they mourn.”

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  • No, Tim Walz Is Not Friends with School Shooters

    No, Tim Walz Is Not Friends with School Shooters

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    “Did Tampon Tim just say he has ‘become friends with school shooters?’” Trump wrote on Truth Social using the nickname he has given Walz. “He isn’t even qualified to be Governor, let alone Vice President. Walz and Kamala DO NOT HAVE WHAT IT TAKES!”

    Trump then posted two video clips of Walz making the comment and two graphics with Walz’s picture alongside the quote about school shooters. Trump also shared a screenshot of a post on X from Andrew Pollack, the father of a victim of a school shooting, who wrote: “My daughter was killed in the Parkland school shooting. It’s absolutely abhorrent that Tim Walz has befriended school shooters. Disqualifying.” Pollack’s post on X, which quotes a post from the official Trump War Room account, has been viewed 3.8 million times.

    Moments later, Trump posted a meme of a mocked-up Trump-Vance yard sign with the tagline “Not Friends of School Shooters —a meme that was originally posted to X by Laura Loomer, a close ally of Trump who has, until recently, been seen traveling with the former president to campaign events.

    Loomer, an antisemitic, far-right troll, took the conspiracy further, asking: “Was @Tim_Walz friends with Thomas Matthew Crooks and Ryan Routh too?”—a reference to the men charged with attempting to assassinate Trump in recent months. Loomer also posted a mock-up poster for the sitcom Friends with the actors’ faces replaced by Walz and a number of mass shooters.

    While most of the post-debate conversation on television focused on other aspects of the event, Trump was clearly unhappy that more people were not focusing on Walz’s gaffe. “Why aren’t the after shows talking about the fact that Walz said, ‘I’m friends with school shooters,’” Trump wrote around midnight on Tuesday.

    But across the right-wing ecosystem of talking heads and pundits, the claim that Walz was friends with school shooters quickly took hold.

    “Calling it right now but Tim Walz saying he’s “friends with school shooters” will be the #1 thing remembered about this debate,” Jack Posobiec, the far-right troll and Pizzagate promoter who was part of the official Trump campaign war room for the debate, wrote on Telegram. “It’s the ‘eating the cats’ of the VP debate.”

    “Is it normal to befriend school shooters?” Charlie Kirk, the founder of the pro-Trump Turning Point USA group, wrote on Telegram.

    Posobiec also posted multiple memes about the situation, including one showing Walz superimposed into a video of an actual school shooting. He also posted a video recorded by Chaya Raichik, who runs the hate-fiulled anti-LGBTQ account LibsofTikTok and was also in the GOP’s debate war room.

    Tucker Carlson, the former Fox News host and close ally of Trump, opened his post-debate show discussing the incident, claiming it “raises a lot of other questions” and failing to account for the fact that Walz misspoke.

    Hundreds of other right-wing accounts on X posted clips of Walz’s comment without any context, dozens of them racking up millions of views on their posts. Others posted a clip of Walz after the debate getting pizza with his wife, when a reporter asked: “Can you clarify what you meant when you said you became friends with school shooters?” Walz refused to answer the question.

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