Mangione: Cold-Blooded Killer Becomes New York’s Robin Hood?
- Christian Liao
- 4 days ago
- 2 min read
“Super normal” and an all round “smart person” (BBC), the Ivy League graduate borne out of a privileged family in Maryland was hardly the primary suspect of a Unabomber-esque killing in the dead of a New York night. And yet that is precisely what transpired as a 50-year-old Brian Thompson left the comfort of the New York Hilton Midtown Hotel only to meet a grisly end at the hands of 26-year-old Luigi Mangione. Yet inconceivable, Mangione’s actions, justified by the very bullet casings that spelt “Deny, Defend Depose” don’t constitute the most remarkable facet to this case.
That honour instead goes to the internet's raucous applause, celebration and in some disturbing cases, defence of his actions against the United Healthcare CEO.
Abruptly torn from a retreat at the Surfbreak community by a debilitating injury to his spinal column (spondylolisthesis), Mangione’s tragedy ultimately “changed everything” (Surfer). Whilst his surgery in 2023 did prove to be successful, his case was ultimately denied by his insurance companies, resulting in him bearing the full brunt of the cost (which can amount to over $100,000 per estimates from ScienceDirect).
It was these motivations that earned him global support, as he became a social martyr, a vigilante against ‘corporate America’. Gaining over 1000 followers a minute on Twitter, the American public’s disillusionment in the wake of a newfound “class consciousness” was manifested in comments such as:
He’s “too hot to convict” (Twitter)
“The healthcare CEO assassin is Luigi Mangione is soooo HOT” (Twitter)
“Not him. He was with me the whole time. I’ll swear to it,”.
An unsettlingly common phenomenon, the public’s infatuation with criminals has even reached the depths inhabited by Ted Bundy and Jeremy Meeks. With over 14 million Americans so deep in medical debt that they have had to cut back on spending for food (KFF), this, at times even hybristophilia in the perception of Mangione, while morally misplaced, isn’t inconceivable.
Astonishingly, I find myself compelled to reiterate that the actions of Mangione, a disciple of Kaczynski and loosely inspired by Heemeyer, are not based in morality, nor justice. The killing of Brian Thompson, irrespective of his actions or those of the company he represents, was legally unfounded, failing to rectify the irrefutable corporate greed that commodifies human life in order to pad a bottom line.
Spurred by financial cost and an ill-founded sense of moral justice, can Mangione’s murder truly be heralded as the material liberation of human life, or rather another iteration the very cycle he sought to destroy?
Thank you for your consideration,
Christian
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