While some cash in on Maryland native Luigi Mangione's fame, others warn "high risk" of copycat attacks
BALTIMORE -- The killing of United Healthcare's CEO Brian Thompson has touched a raw nerve across the country—with some turning Baltimore-born Luigi Mangione into a folk hero—and there is concern about copycat crimes.
In just days, Mangione, the wealthy heir to a prominent Baltimore family, has become a household name.
A crowdsourced fundraiser for his legal fund has generated more than $100,000, CBS News reported. People erupted in cheers when his face was shown on the screen at a dance party in Boston over the weekend.
The non-profit Center for Internet Security, which partners with law enforcement, warned over the weekend that sympathizers could be "emboldened and encouraged."
"The narratives supporting Mangione's targeted attack likely serve to encourage like-minded individuals, particularly as Mangione continues to be viewed by the public as an 'American hero' and sympathetic figure," the center wrote in a bulletin.
The non-profit Center for Internet Security, which partners with law enforcement, warned over the weekend that sympathizers could be "emboldened and encouraged."
"The narratives supporting Mangione's targeted attack likely serve to encourage like-minded individuals, particularly as Mangione continues to be viewed by the public as an 'American hero' and sympathetic figure," the center wrote in a bulletin.
Mangione is fighting the charges according to his lawyer Thomas Dickey. He has also retained Karen Friedman Agnifilo, a former New York prosecutor, to his defense team.
Maryland researcher warns of copycat risk
Police have accused Mangione of the targeted assassination of Brian Thompson, the CEO of United Healthcare, the nation's largest private insurer. It has some hailing him a hero—far from the condemnation typically seen after a cold-blooded killing.
"Violence is a bright line you don't want to cross, but what's unusual about this case is the outpouring of support because he touched that grievance that's so strong. His grievance is against the insurance industry, and that grievance is shared by a lot of people," said Timothy Clancy, a researcher with START at the University of Maryland who focuses on terrorism and violent extremism.
Clancy has looked into numerous past cases, including the Columbine shooters and is concerned about people being inspired by Mangione.
"If Columbine had not been replicated 10 times in 15 years, we would not still be dealing with it," Clancy told WJZ.
Of the CEO's assassination, he said, "This is a high-risk one because it hits those buttons: Very high media attention, very clear template, ideology grievance against insurers. …People who want to be like him or seek the same fame he has—they want to get the attention they think he's gotten. They say, 'Well, you know, I'm upset too.' They begin following that same pathway and seek to replicate what he's done."
Clancy believes this case will be studied in the future. "I think it's going to be looked at a lot because assassinations are unusual in the U.S. and murders of CEOs are unusual in the U.S. This has touched again that raw nerve of insurance," he said. "…What's really unique about this case and has us concerned is that by targeting a high-profile, senior leader of a company like a CEO and doing it in a way that aligns with a very deep grievance held by a lot of people as obvious by what's going on in social media, he's generated the media attention you might traditionally see for a mass shooting that killed 10, 15, 20 people."
He said potential copycats may not act immediately.
"People who internalize this and go down that radicalization pathway—6 to 18 months from now you may see those attempts—and those are the ones where they put in the planning and have done the research where it becomes a real risk because they're thinking through how to do this," Clancy said. "And those are the ones that end up sustaining a contagion over the years and sometimes decades."
Mangione merchandise
Some are tapping into the attention by selling merchandise, from hats to T-shirts to candles.
Jimi Wild is offering items for sale on Etsy and his own store.
He said the reaction has been "positive so far, aside from Etsy taking [the T-shirt] down and saying it's promoting extreme acts of violence, which I don't agree with. I don't think there's anything on the shirt that says that, but aside from that, it's been incredibly positive. When Etsy did take it down off their site, I had people reach out to me all day the next day asking where they could buy it—how they could get their hands on it."
Wild is appealing Etsy's removal of the Mangione T-shirt from being sold on their platform.
While he does not advocate violence, Wild understands the torrent of anger directed toward the insurance industry.
"People tend to look at the whole story, not necessarily Luigi, as a kind of a Robin Hood tale, a modern day folk story," Wild told WJZ Investigator Mike Hellgren. " A story of corporations that are taking advantage of the regular working class people and somebody taking it into their own hands and trying to make a difference about it. We've all sort of dealt with that in some way another, and I know I have certainly seen family members—and someone close to me—struggle due to the lack of health care and being denied certain treatments. So, I could really see how that could push someone over the edge, especially when they're dealing with chronic constant pain."
For his T-shirt, Wild picked the image of Mangione from his angry outburst last week outside of a Pennsylvania courthouse.
He said he chose it because "there's a lot of emotion in it. You can tell. He's very passionate in the photo, and it just worked well for the shirt."
Signs of support
The day after Mangione's arrest, someone put a banner over the JFX with the words "deny, defend, depose"—the same words police said were written on the bullets used to kill Thompson—along with the phrase "health care 4 all." Many Americans expressed their support for Thompson, and frustration with the health insurance industry, online.
In New York City, someone placed wanted posters with the faces of other CEOs.
Thompson's was crossed out with a large, red "X."
"There's an attraction of violence as a potential simple narrative, but violence is never a simple narrative as it plays out. It opens up a can of worms and really negative unforeseen consequences, but it seems simple to a problem that we can't seem to solve," Clancy said. "People are reacting to the initial story and not getting the fullness of who this person is and what they're about, and they're reacting really to their own anger at the insurance system."
Governor Moore's frustration
Maryland Governor Wes Moore shared his personal frustration with the health care system last week. "Some of the early experience in my life was watching the healthcare system fail. I was three years old when my dad died in front of me," Governor Moore told reporters.
But the governor cautioned violence like what happened to Thompson must be condemned.
"We need to have justice for Brian Thompson. Because of the actions of this person, there are two teenagers in Minnesota who are growing up like I did: fatherless. And we can never forget that," Moore said.
UnitedHealth leader responds
The leader of UnitedHealth Group, the parent company of UnitedHealthcare, paid tribute to slain chief executive officer Brian Thompson and acknowledged that the health care system "does not work as well as it should" in an op-ed published in The New York Times on Friday.
There has been an "enormous outpouring of support" for Thompson and his loved ones after the UHC leader was shot and killed in New York City, Andrew Witty, the CEO of UnitedHealth Group, wrote, but he said company employees have also faced threats and vitriol online.
"No employees — be they the people who answer customer calls or nurses who visit patients in their homes — should have to fear for their and their loved ones' safety," Witty wrote.
Limiting public information about health care executives
In the wake of Thompson's murder, some health care companies have tightened security and tried to limit publicly available information about their executives.
"My phone has been ringing off hook, with calls in particular coming from health care leaders who are reevaluating their security," said Paul Sarnese, a safety and security consultant and former president of the International Association for Healthcare Security and Safety (IAHSS).
He said the deadly incident will likely prompt more executives to seek more robust protection. "This incident will definitely change those executives' minds that might have been reluctant to initiate security protocols. I think they'll be more receptive to executive protection."
