NEW YORK (AP) — Police have arrested a 26-year-old man with a weapon consistent with the gun used to kill the head of the largest U.S. health insurer, New York’s police commissioner said Monday.
The man was taken into custody after police got a tip that he had been spotted at a McDonald’s in Pennsylvania, NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch said said at a news conference.
“They also recovered clothing, including a mask consistent with those worn by our wanted individual,” Tisch said. “Also recovered was a fraudulent New Jersey ID matching the ID our suspect used to check into his New York City hostel before the shooting incident,” Tisch said.
Luigi Nicholas Mangione was taken into custody, Chief of Detectives Joseph Kenny said. Mangione was born and raised in Maryland, has ties to San Francisco and his last known address in Honolulu, Hawaii, Kenny said.
The man taken into custody had a ghost gun, a type of weapon that can be assembled at home from parts without a serial number, making them difficult to trace, investigators said. Police found a three-page document with writings suggesting that Mangione had “ill will toward corporate America,” Kenny said.
“As of right now the information we’re getting from Altoona is that the gun appears to be a ghost gun that may have been made on a 3D printer, capable of firing a 9 mm round,” Kenny said.
UnitedHealth CEO Brian Thompson, 50, was killed last 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 shooter appeared to be “lying in wait for several minutes” before approaching the executive from behind and opening fire, NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch said. He used a 9 mm pistol that police said resembled the guns farmers use to put down animals without causing a loud noise.
In the days since the shooting, police turned to the public for help by releasing a collection of photos and video — including footage of the attack, as well as images of the suspect at a Starbucks beforehand.
Photos taken in the lobby of a hostel on Manhattan’s Upper West Side showed the suspect grinning after removing his mask, police said.
Investigators have suggested the gunman may have been a disgruntled employee or client of the insurer.
Ammunition found near Thompson’s body bore the words “delay,” “deny” and “depose,” mimicking a phrase used by insurance industry critics.
The gunman concealed his identity with a mask during the shooting yet left a trail of evidence, including a backpack he ditched in Central Park, a cellphone found in a pedestrian plaza and a water bottle and protein bar wrapper that police say he bought at Starbucks minutes before the attack.
Monday’s development came as dogs and divers returned to New York’s Central Park while the dragnet for Thompson’s killer stretched into a sixth day.
Investigators have been combing the park since the Wednesday shooting and have been searching at least one of its ponds for three days.
On Friday, police found the backpack that they say the killer discarded as he fled from the crime scene to an uptown bus station, where they believe he left the city on a bus.
