Luigi Mangione may have influenced mass shooting at Manhattan's NFL headquarters: Prosecutors
Luigi Mangione, the accused UnitedHealthcare CEO killer, may have influenced last month's deadly attack on NFL headquarters in New York City, federal prosecutors argued in a new court filing.
By carrying out the assassination-style killing of CEO Brian Thompson last year on a Midtown Manhattan street, Mangione "hoped to normalize the use of violence," instead of reasoned dialogue, to achieve political objectives, prosecutors said. The prosecutors used last month's mass shooting attack on the NFL headquarters in Midtown as an example.
On July 28, Shane Tamura brought an assault-style rifle to 345 Park Avenue, not far from where Mangione allegedly gunned down Thompson. Tamura shot and killed four people and, like Mangione, left behind writings for investigators to find. Tamura, in a letter found on his body, blamed the NFL and football for causing CTE. Tamura played football in high school, but not beyond that level. (
CTE, or chronic traumatic encephalopathy, is a brain disease linked to repeated hits to the head, often seen in military veterans and athletes, including football players, hockey players and boxers. It can only be diagnosed after a person's death.
Mangione allegedly wrote "deny," "depose" and "delay" on the bullets used to kill Thompson, authorities said. In a notebook found after his arrest, Mangione allegedly wrote in a journal, "The target is insurance" because "it checks every box."
"The murder was thus, by the defendant’s own admission, calculated to resonate beyond this specific victim and to generate scorn, outrage, or fear toward the health insurance sector more broadly," prosecutors said. "Simply put, the defendant hoped to normalize the use of violence to achieve ideological or political objectives. Since the murder, certain quarters of the public -- who openly identify as acolytes of the defendant -- have increasingly begun to view violence as an acceptable, or even necessary, substitute for reasoned political disagreement."
The government believes Mangione deserves the death penalty in part because he poses a continuing danger by seeking to influence others.
Federal prosecutors elaborated on their reasoning for pursuing capital punishment as they urged a federal judge to deny a defense motion that asked for additional evidence to support the government’s theories.
Prosecutors said Mangione is not entitled to additional information at this stage of the case and argued "the defendant is already in possession of the evidentiary support for the Government’s aggravating factors and there is no risk of surprise."
Mangione has pleaded not guilty to Thompson's Dec. 4 killing. Mangione is accused of shooting the CEO several times using a 9 mm handgun equipped with a silencer. He was captured in Altoona, Pennsylvania, several days later.
