Close X
Friday, January 10, 2025
ADVT 
International

Suspect arrested in shooting of CEO of largest US health insurer

Darpan News Desk IANS, 09 Dec, 2024 06:08 PM
  • Suspect arrested in shooting of CEO of largest US health insurer

New York, Dec 10 (IANS) After a six-day manhunt for the killer of the CEO of the largest US health insurer, authorities have had a breakthrough with the arrest of a suspect in the shooting.

Mayor Eric Adams said at a news conference that a man matching the suspect's description was arrested Monday morning in Altoona, 450 km from New York, and police were on their way there to question him. The man was identified as 26-year-old Luigi Mangione.

The killing of Brian Thompson, the CEO of UnitedHealthcare (UHC), on Wednesday outside a New York hotel when he was going there for an investor’s conference sent shockwaves at the higher echelons of corporate America.

Acting on a tip from a McDonald’s fast-food restaurant employee, local police arrested him. “He matches the description of the identification we've been looking for, and he's also in possession of several items that we believe will connect him to this incident,” Adams said.

New York Chief of Detectives Joseph Kenny said Altoona police found on Mangione a “ghost gun” – made with a 3D printer – capable of firing .9 mm bullets that killed Thompson, a silencer, fake IDs like the one used by the suspect, and a three-page handwritten document.

The document, he said, listed grievances against the health insurance sector and corporate America.

He is reported to have graduated from the Ivy League University of Pennsylvania, where he studied computer science and lived in Hawaii.

The shooter displayed sophistication in carrying out the attack, waiting for Thompson outside the hotel around the time he would be there, getting away after the shooting on an electric bicycle, ditching a backpack in Central Park, taking a taxi to a bus station, and heading out of the city on a bus.

He wrote on the bullets, “deny,” “depose”, and “defend”, which are terms used by insurance companies when they refuse to pay for treatments claiming they are not covered by the policies.

They had some similarities to the title of a book criticising the insurance industry, “Delay Deny Defend: Why Insurance Companies Don’t Pay Claims and What You Can Do About It”, by Jay Feinman.

Now police say that the document found on him had messages against the insurance industry.

He also left behind a backpack with play money from a game.

Thompson, 50, became the CEO of the Minnesota-based UHC in 2021 after working his way up during his 20-year career with the company.

His annual salary was nearly $10 million heading the company with 140,000 employees and annual revenues of $281 billion.

A Senate panel’s report criticised UHC for a high rate of denial of claims.

Many people shockingly expressed sympathy on social media with him because of their own grievances against health insurance companies and ideological opposition to big corporations.

Despite his careful planning and hiding his identity, Mangione dropped his mask when checking into a cheap hostel, and his full face was captured.

He was being held in Altoona on charges of using fake ID and illegally carrying a gun.

Under US laws, a person arrested in a state cannot automatically be sent to another state and police have to go through an extradition process in a local court to move a suspect.

MORE International ARTICLES

Palestinian death toll in Gaza exceeds 18,000

Palestinian death toll in Gaza exceeds 18,000
Ministry spokesman Ashraf al-Qedra said on Monday during a press conference that the bodies of 208 dead Palestinians were transferred to hospitals in the Gaza Strip during the past 24 hours, and 416 Palestinians were wounded in the Israeli raids, Xinhua news agency reported.

Palestinian death toll in Gaza exceeds 18,000

Sunak fights to save his Premiership as MPs seek revised immigration bill

Sunak fights to save his Premiership as MPs seek revised immigration bill
The UK's Indian-origin British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, 43, was looking at an uncertain future on Monday afternoon, following a right-wing faction of his Conservative party being informed that a parliamentary Bill on which he has virtually staked his future was a "partial and incomplete solution" to the problem of sending back illegal asylum seekers from Britain. The UK government wants to deport such arrivals to Rwanda, with which it has signed a treaty.

Sunak fights to save his Premiership as MPs seek revised immigration bill

Haley, Ramaswamy to spar at 4th GOP presidential debate as Christie expected to attack Trump

Haley, Ramaswamy to spar at 4th GOP presidential debate as Christie expected to attack Trump
Nikki Haley, the closest rival to former President Donald Trump, and Indian American entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy are expected to spar with each other in the fourth GOP-sponsored presidential debate at the University of Alabama on Tuesday night as former ex-New Jersey Governor Chris Christie is expected to hold his own on his anti-Trump stance. Yet former President Donald Trump is most likely to loom large over the debate with his fundraising event in Florida, media reports said.

Haley, Ramaswamy to spar at 4th GOP presidential debate as Christie expected to attack Trump

Israel strikes Hamas stronghold in Jabalia refugee camp

Israel strikes Hamas stronghold in Jabalia refugee camp
Israeli media has reported that Israeli forces had captured a main Hamas outpost in the area, and found tunnels and weapons, the BBC reported. A UN report from Wednesday indicated that "more than 100 people were killed, and many others injured, in heavy bombardments of multiple residential buildings in the Jabalia camp".

Israel strikes Hamas stronghold in Jabalia refugee camp

Gunman among 3 killed in shooting on university campus in Las Vegas

Gunman among 3 killed in shooting on university campus in Las Vegas
In Washington, D.C., the White House said it is monitoring the shooting reported at UNLV. UNLV has a student enrollment of about 25,400 undergraduates and 4,300 graduates.  

Gunman among 3 killed in shooting on university campus in Las Vegas

Trump's top Indian-origin ally says his admin will target media if re-elected

Trump's top Indian-origin ally says his admin will target media if re-elected
A top Indian-origin aide to Donald Trump has threatened action against people in the media -- "criminally or civilly" -- if the former president storms back to power in 2024. Kashyap 'Kash' Patel, who was Trump's counter-terrorism adviser on the National Security Council and chief of staff to the acting secretary of defence, made the remarks on Steve Bannon's War Room podcast.

Trump's top Indian-origin ally says his admin will target media if re-elected