The shooting was "premeditated" and "well planned," according to the Manhattan district attorney
Luigi Mangione, the prime suspect in the shooting death of Brian Thompson, CEO of UnitedHealthcare, in midtown Manhattan (New York) earlier this month, has been formally charged on Tuesday with one count of first-degree murder.
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg has charged Mangione with two additional counts of second-degree murder, as well as several counts of forgery and illegal possession of weapons, according to a statement picked up by CNN.
Bragg has described the shooting as “premeditated” and has assured that it was “well planned,” while also aimed at “causing commotion, attention and intimidation,” as it occurred in one of the “busiest” areas of the city.
For her part, New York Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch said the indictment allows for “reaffirming the primacy of the rule of law” in the state. “It brings us one step closer to ensuring justice for Brian Thompson and his family,” she added.
She also said the shooting was “a senseless act of violence.” “It was a cold, calculated crime that stole a life and put New Yorkers at risk,” she said, adding that they do not “glorify the murder of anyone,” according to NBC News.
The 26-year-old, arrested last week at a McDonald’s in the city of Altoona, in the state of Pennsylvania, faces 20 years in prison if convicted on a first-degree murder charge, while the second-degree charge carries a sentence of up to 15 years in prison.
Mangione was carrying several fake IDs at the time of his arrest, as well as a pistol and a silencer built with a 3D printer. Tisch said there are matches between his fingerprints and those discovered at the crime scene.
The young man, who was born in Maryland and belongs to a wealthy family in Baltimore, attended a segregated private high school and later graduated from the prestigious University of Pennsylvania, considered elite in the United States.
Mangione suffered from back pain since childhood, a health problem for which he underwent surgery. Investigators suspect that the motive for the crime would be his rejection of the insurance industry, which he accuses of corruption.
UnitedHealth Group CEO Andrew Witty acknowledged on Friday that the US health system “does not work as well as it should.” “We understand people’s frustrations about it,” he stressed in an opinion piece published in The New York Times.
Thompson, 50, with a two-decade career at UnitedHealth Group, took over the leadership of UnitedHealthcare’s insurance division in 2021. At the time of the murder, he was on his way to attend the multinational’s annual investor conference.
