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Police State Implications of “The Adjuster’s” Assassination of UnitedHealth’s CEO [with UPDATE]

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By Lambert Strether of Corrente.

I had started this post with a quest for a nickname: I couldn’t, after all, keep writing “the alleged assassin of Unitedhealth CEO Brian Thompson” over and over, and “CEO assassin” seemed too generic for the case. The internet, amusingly, settled on “The Claims Adjuster,” or “The Adjuster.” The earliest example I could find:

Memed immediately:

Memed again:

UPDATE Plot twist: Now we have a name. From the New York Post: “Suspect in fatal shooting of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson ID’d as Luigi Mangione, an ex-Ivy League student“:

Mangione was valedictorian of his 2016 high school graduating class at the Gilman School in Baltimore, where he played soccer, according to online sites. High school tuition at the all-boys school is nearly $40,000 a year.

He said at the time of graduation that he planned to seek a degree in artificial intelligence, focused on the areas of computer science and cognitive science at the University of Pennsylvania, according to an interview with the Baltimore Fishbowl.

The tech hotshot graduated cum laude from the private Ivy League institution in Philadelphia with a Bachelor of Science in Engineering (BSE), Computer and Information Science in 2020, according to his LinkedIn profile.

He also completed a Master of Science in Engineering (MSE), Computer and Information Science at the University of Pennsylvania, his profile states.

So it goes. (Since Mangione hasn’t been convicted, I’m going to continue to use “The Adjuster.”) From a Yahoo News live blog:

Mangione was detained by Altoona, Pa., police at a McDonald’s restaurant roughly 300 miles west of New York City at approximately 9:15 a.m. An employee at the fast food chain recognized Mangione from photos released by New York police and contacted local law enforcement, Tisch said. [NYPD Chief of Detectives Joseph Kenny] added later that Mangione “was sitting there eating” when police approached. They found several items that they believe link him with the fatal shooting in Manhattan, including a ghost gun consistent with the weapon seen in video footage of the crime, a silencer, a fake New Jersey ID that matched the one used when the suspect checked in to a Manhattan hostel, a U.S. passport with his real name, a handwritten document or manifesto that police say speaks to Mangione’s motivation and mindset, and clothing, including a mask, that match those worn by the suspect. Kelly said that, based on the document found in Mangione’s possession, it appeared that he “has some ill will toward corporate America.”

(The Times live blog says a customer called 911, not an employee. Also, “a mask” is wrong; the Adjuster wore two: One black, one a baggy blue. Inconsistencies abound.) Labor reporter Kim Kelly comments:

The Adjuster also had a Twitter account:

I must ask you to click through; but Yang is correct: An X account by the name “Luigi Mangione” did in fact write “the idea that phenomenon are the results of amorphous systems outside of our control is scary.” OK, but if that idea is true, then why hold a CEO accountable, very personally[1], for the results of an “amorphous system outside our control”, in this case, the health insurance industry? Again, inconsistencies abound. And speaking of inconsistencies, why did the Adjuster hang onto all that stuff? Why not ditch it? Is the plan jury nullification?

* * *

With that, I want to return to the original, extremely simple plan for this post, which I can put in the form of a question: If I were in the employ of one of the organs of state security, what would I regard as the salient features of the case? And where would I seek more control than I already have? ABC’s summarizes The Adjuster’s stay in Manhattan. I have underlined the relevant topics:

The gunman used a fake ID and paid cash during the 10 days he was in the city, NYPD Chief of Detectives Joseph Kenny told reporters Friday. He also kept his face covered except while checking in at a hostel. He was captured on some of the thousands of surveillance cameras blanketing Manhattan, allowing police to build a timeline of his movements.

Now I’ll present aggregations of these three topics — Cash, Masking, Fake IDs — showing that the discourse is already primed to regard them as problems to be solved, if future copy cat Adjusters are to be avoided.

Cash

From ABC:

The 10-day period has been the focus of investigative efforts. Police have collected a lot of video of the suspect all over the city — in the subway, in cabs, in a McDonald’s, according to sources. Each place he paid with cash and he made sure to keep his mask on, according to sources.

From the Washington Post:

Images released by police also seemed to show that person had used cash to buy something at a Starbucks before the shooting.

From The Times:

Police have searched the hostel, where it has been reported he presented fake identity documents and paid in cash, staying in a room with two men he did not know.

From FOX:

The suspect is said to have paid in cash at the Starbucks.

From the New York Times:

The police said they have a passenger list for the Greyhound bus, but the suspect did not need identification or a credit card to board.

So, if you want to look at it this way, cash makes it easier for assassins to get around, and so should be deprecated.

Masking

From AP:

The gunman made sure to conceal his identity with a mask during almost all of his time in the city, including during the attack and while he ate, yet left a trail of evidence in view of the nation’s biggest city and its network of security cameras. “From every indication we have from witnesses, from the Starbucks, from the hostel, he kept his mask on at all times except for the one instance where we have him photographed with the mask off,” Kenny said.

From the New York Times:

After that, he went to the hostel on the Upper West Side. The suspect kept his mask on the entire time, even at meals, and used cash. Kenny said that the only time he lowered his mask was to talk to a clerk at the hostel and smile at her.

From Slate:

A gunman dressed in dark clothing and wearing a mask over his lower face ambushed UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson on Wednesday morning in midtown Manhattan, where Thompson’s company was hosting a conference.

From WaPo:

The shooter, wearing a hood and a mask, fired multiple rounds at Thompson before fleeing the area on a bicycle and disappearing into Central Park.

From the Boston Globe:

Late Saturday, police released two additional photos of the suspected shooter that appeared to be from a camera mounted inside a taxi. The first shows him outside the vehicle and the second shows him looking through the partition between the back seat and the front of the cab. In both, his face is partially obscured by a blue, medical-style mask.

From CNBC:

[Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch] said the assailant was last seen in Central Park on Center Drive early this morning. Kenny said the gunman wore a black face mask, black and white sneakers, and a “very distinctive” gray backpack. The video of the shooting showed the shooter wearing a hooded jacket.

So, if you want to look at it that way, masks make it easier for assassins to conceal their identities, and so should be deprecated.

Fake ID

From AP:

Investigators believe the suspect used a fake identification card and paid cash, Kenny said, when he checked in at the hostel, which has a café along with shared and private rooms and is blocks from Columbia University.

From FOX:

The suspect wanted for the brutal slaying of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson used a fake ID to check into a New York City hostel before the brazen execution-style killing, police sources tell Fox News.

From the New York Post:

The suspect had used the ID to book a space at the HI New York City Hostel at 891 Amsterdam Ave. in Manhattan back on Nov. 30, according to sources. A subsequent probe, however, revealed the ID was fake, the sources said.

From the New York Times:

[A] senior law enforcement official said he used a fake New Jersey identification to book a room at a hostel on Manhattan’s Upper West Side where he stayed before the killing.

Once again, if you want to look at it that way, fake IDs make it easier for assassins to conceal their identities, and so should be deprecated.

Conclusion

Obviously, corporate security reacted to The Adjuster’s claims adjustment immediately. From the New York Times:

Dozens of chief security officers from Fortune 500 corporations around the world joined a video call on Wednesday afternoon, hours after the fatal shooting of the UnitedHealthcare C.E.O. Brian Thompson in Midtown Manhattan, to discuss additional protective measures for executives moving around the area, according to a security expert who participated in the conversation.

The discussion included best practices and reviews of executive protection programs, according to the expert, Dave Komendat, a retired chief security officer at Boeing and president of DSKomendat Risk Management Services, a consultancy based in the Seattle area. He said that all of the security officers on the video call were facing upper-echelon requests for presentations on the current state of their security programs and scrutinizing their own practices.

And the “upper-echelon” wasn’t only in fear of their lives. From Yahoo Finance:

Shares of UnitedHealth Group (NYSE: UNH) fell for the second session in a row today as investors seem to be reckoning with the backlash against the company following the murder of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson on Wednesday morning.

However, cash, masking, and fake IDs are not in corporate security’s purview; they are matters for the State. And fortunately, efforts are in train to allow the organs of state security to police all of them.

• Cash. NC’s Nick Corbishley has written often of “The Dystopian Dream of Global Central Bank Digital Currencies” (and the preference of dull normals for coins and paper). The discourse, as I show above, is primed for the “War on Cash” to be intensified; the public relations spadework has already been done.

• Masking. NC has written up mask bans already. The discourse is also primed for more bans. Here’s a little over-the-top rhetoric from New York’s Mayor Adams:

‘Let him continue to believe he can hide behind the mask. We revealed his face. We’re going to reveal who he is….

• Fake IDs. For that, we have the long-delayed Read ID Act: “Americans will need Real ID to travel in 2025: Here are the requirements.” Here again, the discourse is primed.

Of course, we as a society could avoid these draconian measures with a health care system that doesn’t produce rage in those subjected to its ministrations. But who wants that?

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About Lambert Strether

Readers, I have had a correspondent characterize my views as realistic cynical. Let me briefly explain them. I believe in universal programs that provide concrete material benefits, especially to the working class. Medicare for All is the prime example, but tuition-free college and a Post Office Bank also fall under this heading. So do a Jobs Guarantee and a Debt Jubilee. Clearly, neither liberal Democrats nor conservative Republicans can deliver on such programs, because the two are different flavors of neoliberalism (“Because markets”). I don’t much care about the “ism” that delivers the benefits, although whichever one does have to put common humanity first, as opposed to markets. Could be a second FDR saving capitalism, democratic socialism leashing and collaring it, or communism razing it. I don’t much care, as long as the benefits are delivered. To me, the key issue — and this is why Medicare for All is always first with me — is the tens of thousands of excess “deaths from despair,” as described by the Case-Deaton study, and other recent studies. That enormous body count makes Medicare for All, at the very least, a moral and strategic imperative. And that level of suffering and organic damage makes the concerns of identity politics — even the worthy fight to help the refugees Bush, Obama, and Clinton’s wars created — bright shiny objects by comparison. Hence my frustration with the news flow — currently in my view the swirling intersection of two, separate Shock Doctrine campaigns, one by the Administration, and the other by out-of-power liberals and their allies in the State and in the press — a news flow that constantly forces me to focus on matters that I regard as of secondary importance to the excess deaths. What kind of political economy is it that halts or even reverses the increases in life expectancy that civilized societies have achieved? I am also very hopeful that the continuing destruction of both party establishments will open the space for voices supporting programs similar to those I have listed; let’s call such voices “the left.” Volatility creates opportunity, especially if the Democrat establishment, which puts markets first and opposes all such programs, isn’t allowed to get back into the saddle. Eyes on the prize! I love the tactical level, and secretly love even the horse race, since I’ve been blogging about it daily for fourteen years, but everything I write has this perspective at the back of it.

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117 comments

  1. Amateur Socialist

    If this case goes to trial it will be OJ scale spectacle. Not easy imagining a voir dire process that will suit a prosecutor. I keep wondering if/when Jury Nullification will be allowed to be discussed in the MSM or will be carefully censored ala C-19, Gaza etc. Speculation abounds!

    Also difficult to imagine a plea deal given the publicly available evidence. Manslaughter? Reckless endangerment? One wonders.

    1. ArvidMartensen

      I can’t see this going to trial. This guy is way too popular and oligarchs won’t want to give him a soapbox.

      He may mysteriously die in prison where for some mysterious reason all the cameras weren’t working just at the time, and the guards were mysteriously asleep.

      1. John Merryman

        Though the “oligarchs” might see the healthcare companies as useful distraction. Not like it’s the MIC or DC.

          1. lyman alpha blob

            Nobody remembers Christopher Dorner either. Or Joseph Stack. I had to look up Stack’s name myself – all I could remember was a guy flew his plane deliberately into a building in TX.

            Those who had a point to make tend to get memory holed quickly.

    2. IM Doc

      How are they ever going to get a jury through voix dire?

      QUESTION TO POTENTIAL JUROR – Have you, your family or friends ever had any issues with a medical claim from an insurance company? That would eliminate the entire country.

      1. ChrisRUEcon

        > That would eliminate the entire country.

        Can’t wait to see a jury composed of healthcare and pharma VC’s …

      2. TomDority

        It would be a murder trial – a person kills another in a premeditated way- Voir dire of jurors would probably avoid those questions and keep questions of potential motivation, irrelevant.
        But I don’t know.

    3. griffen

      Well may yet prove to be true, largely depending on the case and where he is placed on trial. Not a lawyer so I’m gonna presume this cat is facing an extended stay in a cozy NYC adjacent prison cell.

      Instead of the OJ Simpson trial, which at that time set or just completely reset all manner of both broadcast TV and cable TV precedents for the coverage, the build up to and including the aftermath that followed his acquittal, what about a different and 2025 sort of televised court procedure? The trial at the time ( 1995 to 1996 ) featured a lot of everything for everyone, including the crucial cross sections for both race and class ( a retired professional athlete can build a nice life for himself, especially a former Heisman winner tied into his elite alumni base ). The Simpson murder trial for the double homicide was truly a once a generation occurrence. I am nearly 52 today, while I don’t remember the daily trial events well but wow the lengthy police chase scene in the white Bronco is a legendary recall.

      In this case today…that is not applicable. Instead I suggest a recent example, the Patriot Day bombing at the Boston marathon; I just don’t really remember closely what followed after the extended chase and ensuing manhunt. Obviously that was recapped in film a few years back.

      https://www.history.com/news/boston-marathon-bombing-timeline

      1. steppenwolf fetchit

        I don’t remember the year or date of White Bronco Chase Day. But I remember the day. I was watching CSPAN and sometime during the CSPAN programming I remember Brian Lamb telling us the audience that CSPAN was not covering the Bronco Chase and WOULD NOT COVER the LEAST SINGLE LITTLE BIT of it.

        I kept right on watching CSPAN. To this day I am proud of myself for not having watched any of the White Bronco Chase “Live!” as it was happening.

  3. JSacks

    All of the above thug caste wet dream rendered a moot point if the perp could care less whether he/she is caught. Why would anyone even care if they’re caught avenging the murder by spreadsheet of a loved one by taking out the entire board of directors?

    1. Cat Burglar

      What more would there be to lose? That’s the problem with a situation when many people are backed into a corner. The cost of doing business as usual is going to go up.

      If that teleconference of corporate security chiefs didn’t cover giving the help and their families good health insurance, they made a big mistake.

      1. Carla

        Well, full-time nurses working at the major hospitals in my area have crappy insurance through their employers.

        2. Giovanni Barca

          Nurses in the family in five states. All of these are “in your area,” Carla, economically if not on a map. It’s so bad.

  4. scott s.

    You could add to your list “ghost gun” which we are told “could have been made with a 3D printer”.

    2. gk

      And add:
      taxis make it easier to get around and should be deprecated
      same for e-bikes
      Starbucks make it easier to wait for your victim without being noticed and should be deprecated

  5. Kurtismayfield

    It appears the gunman made too many mistakes (Showing your face in a retail establishment right before the shooting is a mistake if you are going to run), or wanted to be caught. Being found in a public place days after the shooting screams that he didn’t have a long term plan after he got out of NYC. If he did he wouldn’t have been near anything public for a long time.

    2. vidimi

      presumably, he needed to show his face at the hostel counter to check out and get his ID back. He could have maybe booked another day and fled but he would have left behind his fake ID with his real photo. A bit of a lose/lose.

      1. lyman alpha blob

        If he could get one fake ID, why not two or three? I was really hoping he would get away and be the next DB Cooper, but after being apprehended in a public place wearing the same or similar clothes as in the ubiquitous photo, with the murder weapon and a manifesto on him, it seems like he might have wanted to get caught.

  6. Mikel

    “He said at the time of graduation that he planned to seek a degree in artificial intelligence, focused on the areas of computer science and cognitive science at the University of Pennsylvania, according to an interview with the Baltimore Fishbowl.

    The tech hotshot graduated cum laude from the private Ivy League institution in Philadelphia with a Bachelor of Science in Engineering (BSE), Computer and Information Science in 2020, according to his LinkedIn profile.

    He also completed a Master of Science in Engineering (MSE), Computer and Information Science at the University of Pennsylvania, his profile states.

    Seems like he was working more on a electronic security thesis than doing any “claims adjusting.”

        2. ambrit

          So was Ted Kozynski, the Unabomber. He is said to have also been a subject, while in college, of personality control experiments by CIA affiliated professors.
          Ye Bomber was a maths prodigy.
          One thing that connects this group is their intellectual ability to see through the Social Narrative. Thus, I assume, (with proper caveats,) that NC adjacent persons are automatically entered upon the Organs of State Security list of “Probable Non-compliant Persona” (PNP.)
          Stay safe. Go Grey Man.

      2. bloodnok

        which raises the question of why has the thomas crooks story been so thoroughly memory-holed. seen almost nothing about him, his peers, his motivation, &c. he’s just a cypher. or (to indulge in some tinfoil hat thinking) a setup from some larger, more nebulous organisation. our lovely three letter spooks, perhaps?

    2. ChrisPacific

      Ivy League graduate. Sounds like the cops need to be keeping a closer eye on those. Maybe pull a few over for questioning? They should be pretty easy to spot, since they put those stickers in the car windows.

  7. TimH

    So per Fox, the shooting is a brutal slaying. Wonder what the description would be for a hacking attack with an axe?

    1. IM Doc

      I would very much like to call Fox – and discuss with them anonymously 2 patients that I have had that were covered by United Healthcare that died because of a severe delay in care because of their claims posturing. I would be happy to fill in the patients’ families as to what I was doing – and if they would like to discuss their feelings, their grief, their altered lives with Fox.

      I have 2 patient disasters resulting in death. Several others resulting in permanent life status changes.
      All of which may very well have been prevented. There are generally about 65K practicing General Internists across the land. We all have stories. We share them all the time with one another. It is likely tens of thousands of patient deaths when added all together. Maybe many more. Certainly many more than died on 9-11. And we really made a big deal about that.

      I wonder if Fox would consider those patient deaths “a brutal slaying”? And I wonder how they would handle the grief of those family members. And in one case, look into the eyes of little kids who have been forever robbed of a dad?

      At some point, my soul is just tired of all of this. No one listens. No one cares. What this young man allegedly did was heinous. But you have to consider what these companies are unleashing upon our landscape as well – and it is as evil as anything I have ever confronted in my life. And I feel powerless.

          2. steppenwolf fetchit

            Engels didn’t live long enough to see global warming or read Overshoot by Bruce Catton.

            I remember once reading a set of articles called Exterminism by someone named Stan Goff whose nom d’blog was The Feral Scholar. The articles and ” The Feral Scholar” itself have been deeply memory-holed by the Search Prevention Engines. At least Stan Goff himself has a wiki.
            https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stan_Goff

              1. steppenwolf fetchit

                Thank you. While I am embarrassed by the memory failure, it shows that an informed fellow body of commenters can catch and correct mistakes.

                I will claim that I knew who I meant to mean.

      4. sfglossolalia

        Does UnitedHealthcare advertise on Fox? That may have something to do with the tone of the reporting.

      5. earthling

        I know you and those working hard in good faith are not to blame for any of this. Your professional associations, however, are a cruel joke and in years past contributed mightily to create this horrid system we have.

        Maybe it’s long past time for an actual doctor’s union, or twelve, that would make actual demands for a humane system.

        We have no leadership in this fight and sick patients going into bankruptcy can’t fight the fight. It’s sad when an unbalanced gunman is the closest we have to a courageous leader.

  8. paul

    It could be argued that the oligarchy through its ecology has immunity and impunity all tucked up already.

    But just about everything is never enough.

    Why not go for everything?

    1. John Merryman

      They really are a scab over a festering wound and the more brittle and disconnected the top gets, the more the feedback turns negative.

  9. steppenwolf fetchit

    The photograph offered in this post is a photograph of Starbucks Guy. The photograph of Shooter Guy that we are not being shown very much of at all anymore showed Shooter Guy wearing a coat which sure looks different to me than the coat on Starbucks Guy. Here is an article with a side-by-side image in the Newsweek article. https://www.newsweek.com/brian-thompson-killer-shooter-possible-accomplice-professional-1996812

    The two coats look different to me. And not just because of muddier quality of Shooter Guy’s photo.
    Even with the image being muddier, I see a ” textured cloth fabric” type cuff on Shooter Guy’s photo which I do not see on Starbucks Guy’s coat.

    I hope someone preserves these images beyond the reach of the professional Spook Photoshoppers before all the images within digital reach are given the same identical coat, one way or the other.

    ” So which one is The Adjuster? Starbucks Guy or Shooter Guy? “

    1. Alice X

      The coat on the right has a flap over the zipper and chest pockets with flaps, neither in evidence (to me) on the other coat. And they’re not the same color.

    2. AndrewJ

      And, the eyebrows look different. Luigi has an impressive set of brows that nearly meet in the middle. Shooter Guy does not. Is it a trick of the camera resolution?
      The different coats and backpack colors are really weird.

  10. TimH

    Passport and passport card are Real ID. No need for get your drivers license updated if you have a passport.

    1. lambert strether

      > passport = Real ID

      Yes.

      All the more reason to get one! Sooner rather than later, because you never know

      1. TimH

        A couple of points… to get your first ever aUS passport, have to get a USPS interview, which can get booked up. If you lose either passport or passport card, or forget to renew for I think 6 months, interview again. But the nice thing about the passport card is that you have evidence of citizenship that you can keep easily in your wallet.

  11. mrsyk

    It occurs to me that, going forward, when encountering anti-woke messaging, there’s a new brand of woke in town. As you mention, real id already a done deal. Cash is populist, so is the Adjuster, those battle lines might stay firm. As for masks I’m having a chuckle at the prospect of upcoming rethinks on public position, in both directions. Masks are soooo not populist, but methinks a new emphasis as a toll to protect one’s identity may cause some indigestion.

  12. Socal Rhino

    I saw Dr Jha comment today that the executives at UH might not realize that their AI was rejecting claims, which struck me as either grossly insulting the public’s intelligence or, offering a diplomatic path for healthcare executives to correct their ways without admitting fault. A better comment, IMO, was that claim rejection rates should be published and reviewed by regulators.

    1. IM Doc

      That comment is just like everything else Dr. Jha says – it is coming from someone who has either no idea what he is talking about – OR someone who is a compete liar. Indeed, pretty much everything he says is a complete joke – coming from someone who does not really take care of patients but gets to tell the rest of us how to do it. That is how I would take anything coming from his mouth.

    3. Cat Burglar

      Humans have known how to keep accurate business records since at least the time of ancient Sumer. If the biggest insurance corporations today can’t keep them, that’s not a mistake, it is a business plan.

      1. Socal Rhino

        From working at a major life insurer and attending regulatory meetings (mainly the National Association of Insurance Commissioners) I can attest that insurers are intensely data obsessive. I’d be shocked if health insurance executives are not reviewing reports of claims made, paid, and rejected vs. projections, at least monthly. Probably broken out by region, zip code, and other factors. It’s what drives their bottom line.

        1. Cat Burglar

          Agreed. The mass deaths are not a mistake, though they are presented as a tragic oversight of a flawed system, they are one of the products.

        2. John Wright

          I remember speaking with someone whose father was a life insurance actuary.

          He said the industry knew about the dangers of smoking for asbestos miners as it showed up in their claims data.

          This was well before computer data bases.

          I’d assume insurance companies are extremely competent in gathering and using data now, with well paid staffers that “run the numbers”.

          But senior executives may prefer to have some “plausible deniability” and claim ignorance.

    4. lyman alpha blob

      These executives direct human beings to deny claims all the time. I’ve talked with claims adjusters who confirmed this – they really hated their jobs. If they made people do it in the past, I’m positive they’ve made sure their algorithms do the same thing. This Dr.’s pants are on fire.

  13. Rip Van Winkle

    I guess I’m the only one who watched the Dr. Phibes movies and got the plot/motive.

    There will never be another Vincent Price –

    “Somewhere…over the rainbow …”

    1. ambrit

      True! Dr. Phibes was an early ‘Claims Adjuster.’
      Price had the ability to make fun of himself, not a common trait in Hollywood.

  14. Es s Ce Tera

    Another essential element of the police state is citizens dutifully reporting on each other.

    2. lambert strether

      > citizens dutifully reporting on each other

      The J6 aftermath did provide the unfortunate spectacle of citizens hunting each other down. Good training!

      Amusingly, all the Yelp reviews of that McDonald’s are now complaining about the rats….

  16. Bugs

    McDonald’s has cameras everywhere and I would not be surprised if there’s one in the order kiosk they force you to use now. Perhaps it wasn’t a fellow diner that turned him in, but rather facial recognition technology that we’re not being told about. I can open my iPhone wearing a mask, after all.

  17. Joe Well

    These two things do not track:

    *Eating in public

    *Keeping all that incriminating evidence..

    But if it really is him…

    Is it possible they used facial ID tech and some other technical means they don’t want the public or the eventual judge to know about and then McD’s was a cover story?

    2. lambert strether

      I’ve heard parallel construction mentioned…

      I’m torn between demanding an account of all the incongruities (the various jacket colors; none of the photos look alike to me) and an acceptance that “real life” is messy and incongruous…

      1. lambert strether

        More incongruities–

        The handwritten manifesto…. Kids these days don’t write. Was he scribbling it down on the bus?

        Also: He had a laptop in the McDonalds. Surely not in his backpack? Did he have s pied a terre in Altoona? Why?

      2. IM Doc

        The mug shot has a unibrow. The hostel photo does not. It is impossible to grow a unibrow in 5 days. Among other irregularities as you point out above.

        1. Joe Well

          If he checked into the hostel on the first day of his 10-day stay, and then it’s been how many days since? More to the point: would the unibrow have shown up on the Starbucks cam?

    3. vidimi

      For sure. Going through his last few months of google searches would have probably revealed a bit of an obsession with Thompson.

      Also, you’re required to have a backup email whenever you sign up a new account which will eventually lead to your real ID.

      Really hard to commit the perfect crime these days.

      1. lambert strether

        I’m wrong. A transcription has been made. From the Times live blog:

        The 262-word handwritten manifesto that the police found on Luigi Mangione begins with the writer appearing to take responsibility for the murder, according to a senior law enforcement official who saw the document. It notes that as UnitedHealthcare’s market capitalization has grown, American life expectancy has not. “To save you a lengthy investigation, I state plainly that I wasn’t working with anyone,” he wrote. The note condemns companies that “continue to abuse our country for immense profit because the American public has allowed them to get away with it.”

        And:

        The handwritten manifesto found on Mangione contained the passages “These parasites had it coming” and “I do apologize for any strife and trauma, but it had to be done,” according to a senior law enforcement official who saw the document

      2. Acacia

        This one has a completely different tone than the first alleged manifesto.

        And:

        The primary driver of my decision was the CEO’s inability to adapt to the evolving needs of the market.

        He makes it sound like he was hired by other members of the C-suite.

        1. begob

          The first one contains the key to the neoliberal credo: “I am my own chief executive.”

          I wonder what he feels about The Matrix movie. Earlier this year I spoke several times with an unhinged computer engineer who took its gnosticism as the way, the truth, and the light – in the gospel sense.

    4. Kurtismayfield

      I can’t tell if he is referencing to be “His own chief executive” sarcastically or as a way to show that he and his shooting victim are both responsible for their crimes Also imagine seeing your mother going through all of that, and then knowing you are doomed to the same fate.

    5. ChrisFromGA

      Thanks … seems that in a Wild-West, frontier justice kind of way, Mangione killed Thompson over a breach of contract.

  21. lambert strether

    Mangione’s arrest record, allegedly.

    https://x.com/ms_harmony58/status/1866295280636772797?s=61

    I can’t get the tweet to embed, but the arrest record (not “criminal complaint”) is top left. The inventory doesn’t mention a document (i.e., the manifesto), or the laptop. I’m not sure whether that’s normal procedure or not.

    At bottom is a chunk of prose, presumably from Mangione, that does not occur in the manifesto linked immediately above.

  23. lambert strether

    And at the arraignment:

    Mangione was denied bond at his arraignment and disputed two of the judge’s claims: that he was in possession of a substantial amount of cash when he was arrested ($8,000 plus additional foreign currency), and that he used a case that cloaked his electronic transmissions to evade detection. Asked if he was in contact with family, Mangione said “until recently.”

    The currency wasn’t listed on the arrest record either; I don’t know whether that’s procedurally correct or not. The argument has been made that the foreign currency shows Mangione intened to flee the country, but from Altoona?

    2. ambrit

      The cash has probably already been handed off to the Feds as part of a Civil Assets Forfeiture filing.

  24. vidimi

    I presume that Fake IDs are already illegal so more effort will be put into deprecating the first two.

    Also, I’m surprised they caught him alive.

    2. Kurtismayfield

      Considering how easy it is to get a fake (talk to any college aged person), I doubt that it is stoppable.

  25. Zagonostra

    The “Adjuster” it is, great name. I live close to Altoona. I received a couple of text yesterday that he was apprehended at the McDonalds. I’m glad it was a “customer” and not an employee, that called him in. I’m still dubious about everything I’ve read, there are many restaurants much closer to the main highway, I99 that he could have stopped to eat.

  26. Samuel Conner

    If cash is to be deprecated because of its utility in concealment of identity, that would, at least superficially, not seem to augur well for the DJT pro-Bitcoin posture.

    1. steppenwolf fetchit

      As long as Elon Stench and Vivek Ramaswindle support crypto currency and as long as Trump himself can understand and appreciate its scamulous possibilities, Trump’s pro-crypto stance won’t change, no matter how much crypto gets deprecated.

  28. Eclair

    Oh my! I may be reading more into the Altoona, PA location for the apprehension of The Adjuster than is warranted, but there are so so many luscious links and references here!

    Of course, the unibrow/ Unabomber (Dr Theodore Kaczinski’ handwritten (?) manifesto is one of my most vivid memories of his 1996 apprehension. There must be a whole section of the FBI, dedicated to producing off-the-shelf ‘handwritten manifestos’ to be instantly available in times of need.

    And, the choice of apprehension location: I have been writing and commenting about certain areas of Pennsylvania for years, living as I do in western New York, in a small town bordering that state. My husband’s extended family have lived in north-western Pennsylvania for generations. Plus, I drive through the eastern part of Pennsylvania when visiting family in New Jersey. This is the former coal mining, now economically depressed area around Scranton. The state, outside of Pittsburgh and Philadelphia, is affectionately known as Pennsyltucky, home of Trump supporters par excellence, who painted Trump signs on their decaying barns and hung enormous Trump banners from their 1960 Allis-Chalmers tractors back in 2016 and never removed them.

    Now, a bit of Altoona history: a big railroad town, until the Pennsylvania RR went bankrupt back in the mid-twentieth century. Fast food moved in, so the working class drifted from union railroad jobs with pensions, to 30 hours per week at McDonalds at minimum wage. And so began the slow drift downward of health and life expectancy outcomes in that area.

    Sheetz (that’s pronounced with a long ‘e’, not a short ‘i.’) began here and became a local Pennsylvania chain of enormous gas stations with fast food attached (subs and pizza and an awesome selection of a Pennsylvania speciality, potato chips, with an ever increasing variety of flavors, my favorite being Mike’s Hot Honey.). The combo of maximum carbon emissions with unhealthy food is a profit center.

    The largest employer in town is UPMC, the University of Pittsburg Medical Center, an entity that has bought up hospitals and doctors’ practices, not only in Pennsylvania, but also in Western New York. It’s a growth industry, what with the availability and low cost of greasy, salty fast food and the prevalence of ultra-processed foods packed with high-fructose corn syrup. The closest Whole Foods is 80 miles away. Not that most Altoonans could afford to shop there.

    But, as I mentioned, I am probably reading more into this location than warranted. OTOH … ?

  29. Tom Stone

    If Mangione or one of his admirers starts a “Go Fund Me” legal defense fund, how long would it take to raise $1MM?
    My guess is less than a week.
    Also, will he be held in the same cell Epstein was at the MDC?
    Asking for a friend…

    1. steppenwolf fetchit

      If Mangione or his lawyers are invited to make some sort of statement to the public, it might be along the lines of . . . ” I look forward to being allowed to live long enough to defend myself against these charges in a Court of Law”.

      And once again, Mangione and/or his lawyers should immediately start preserving all the images they can of both Starbucks Guy and Shooter Guy and locking them away beyond the reach of the authorities and their photoshop and videoshop experts. Because I think the authorities will work to put the same coat ( and the same eyebrows now that I read about the eyebrows) on all the images, to retro-make Shooter Guy and Starbucks Guy look like the same guy. The Defense needs to have a kangaroo-proof chain-of-custody demostration for the preserved images from before the change is made.

  30. Steven A

    “Images released by police also seemed to show that person had used cash to buy something at a Starbucks before the shooting.”

    There are Starbucks locations in NYC that accept cash? Last year I visited a Starbucks with a British friend in DC. This particular shop did not accept cash. What’s more, their system would not accept my British friend’s UK-issued Barclaycard, so I had to put our order on my AMEX. (FWIW, it was the location near 13th and F Sts.)

    “The discourse, as I show above, is primed for the “War on Cash” to be intensified; the public relations spadework has already been done.”

    Would a Starbucks gift card be traceable if it has not been registered?

  31. Copeland

    He had all of his stuff with him at Micky Ds? I thought the shooter discarded the backpack and it’s contents in Central Park, as per camera evidence?

  32. Rabbit

    They sure are concerned about our “safety” when their guys are getting tagged. Too bad that concern ends when money is concerned.

  34. ChatET

    Here’s a new one I have heard. The shooter was taking revenge on UHC for non payment and attempted forced buyout. Supposedly the shooter’s family owns some nursing homes. It explains the Monopoly money and I’m willing to bet that the face amount of the fake money adds up to the buyout amount offered to his family business.

    1. steppenwolf fetchit

      If that is what this was about, that would make it a kind of “War in Heaven” type of action. A scion of the gentry class getting personal revenge on a Head Butler for the Corporate Globalonial Plantation Class.

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