Thompson, Brian (1974-2024)

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    Meet Rep. Greg Casar, the Texas Millennial Trying to Rebrand the Democrats

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    “We can’t bring a policy book to a gunfight,” said Representative Greg Casar of Texas, the incoming chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus.Ever since they lost big in November, Democrats have talked about how much their party needs to change.Representative Greg Casar is living it.Last week, Casar, a 35-year-old Democrat from Austin, Texas, was elected as the chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, becoming the youngest person ever tapped to lead the group of liberals at a moment when his party is struggling with younger voters. He’s also the first leader from Texas, a state Democrats find perennially vexing.Casar, a former union organizer, will be tasked with leading progressives through a challenging period, one that has some Democrats blaming them for tugging the party too far to the left. He believes it was centrists like Joe Manchin, the former Democrat and departing senator from West Virginia, who caused the party to water down policies that could have galvanized working-class voters. But he says progressives need to shift their message, too.I spoke by phone with Casar this week, for the second in my series of interviews with Democrats grappling with how to move the party forward. Our conversation was edited for length and clarity.JB: Why should somebody from a red state lead progressive Democrats?GC: Right now, the Democratic Party is doing really important soul-searching. As we work to regain working-class voters’ trust, as we work to bring Democrats back into the fold that decided to vote for Trump this time, I think it’s really important that progressives build a big tent.It is important for the Democratic Party leadership to be as diverse as the voters that we’re trying to bring in. We need older leadership. We need younger leadership, leadership from the South. We need leadership from the coast, but we can’t have it all from the coast.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Police Have Luigi Mangione’s Notebook Describing Rationale for UHC CEO Killing

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      “It’s targeted, precise, and doesn’t risk innocents,” said a sentence in a spiral notebook belonging to the man charged with murdering Brian Thompson.Luigi Mangione, who has been charged with killing Brian Thompson, the chief executive of UnitedHealthCare at a company investors’ day, was found with a notebook that detailed plans for the shooting, according to two law enforcement officials.The notebook described going to a conference and killing an executive, the officials said.“What do you do? You wack the CEO at the annual parasitic bean-counter convention. It’s targeted, precise, and doesn’t risk innocents,” was one passage written in the notebook, the officials said.The shooting occurred early Dec. 4 as Mr. Thompson arrived early at a Hilton hotel on West 54th Street to prepare for the UnitedHealthcare investors’ meeting.Mr. Mangione, 26, was captured Monday after a tip from an employee at a McDonald’s in Altoona, Pa., who was alerted by a customer who recognized him. Mr. Mangione, who faces a murder charge and has been denied bail, is fighting extradition to New York, which starts a process that could take weeks. “He is contesting it,” his lawyer, Thomas Dickey, said on Tuesday.The suspect was found with a ghost gun, a suppressor and false identification cards similar to those believed to have been used by the killer, officials said. In addition to the false identification cards, he was carrying identification with his real name.The authorities also found a 262-word handwritten note with him, which begins by appearing to take responsibility for the murder. The note, which officials described as a manifesto, also mentioned the existence of a notebook.The suspect saw the killing as a “symbolic takedown,” according to a New York Police Department internal report that detailed parts of a three-page manifesto found with him at the time of his arrest. The report added that the suspect “likely views himself as a hero of sorts who has finally decided to act upon such injustices” and expressed concern that others might see him as a “martyr and an example to follow.”The recovery of the notebook was first reported by CNN.This is a developing story and will be updated. More

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      UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson’s Funeral Held Privately in Minnesota 

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      Brian Thompson, the chief executive of UnitedHealthcare who was gunned down in a brazen killing in New York, was laid to rest this week at a private funeral service in his Minnesota hometown.On Monday, while the nation was transfixed by the arrest of a 26-year-old man from Maryland who was charged with the murder, family and friends of the slain executive gathered at a Lutheran church in Maple Grove, Minn., to mourn the loss of a husband and father who ascended from modest roots in Iowa to one of the most powerful roles in the health care industry.In the days since Mr. Thompson’s death, there has been an outpouring of anger at the insurance industry for denying medical claims, with some people even seeming to cheer his killing online. The vitriol has stunned those who were closest to Mr. Thompson, leaving many of them to grieve his death in private ways.“Brian was an incredibly loving husband, son, brother and friend,” Mr. Thompson’s family said in a statement. “Most importantly, Brian was a devoted father to our two sons, and we will miss him for the rest of our lives. We appreciate the overwhelming outpouring of kind words and support we have received.”Mr. Thompson, 50, grew up in a working-class family in Jewell, Iowa. His mother was a beautician, according to family friends, and his father worked at a facility to store grain, according to an obituary of his father.He spent his childhood summers “walking beans” on farms, going row by row through the fields to kill weeds with a knife, or working manual labor at turkey and hog farms, according to two friends.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Reaction to C.E.O. Killing Exposes Frustrations With Health System

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      The killing of the UnitedHealthcare chief executive Brian Thompson has mesmerized a deeply polarized nation that shares a collective frustration over dealings with health insurance companies.On social media, some people have cheered for the gunman and expressed little remorse over the death of Mr. Thompson, 50, a father of two boys from Maple Grove, Minn., with some painting him as the villain in a national health care crisis.And now that the identity of the suspect, Luigi Mangione, 26, has been revealed and more photos of him have emerged, he is being defended or even applauded in some circles. That adulation reflects public anger over health care, said Nsikan Akpan, managing editor for Think Global Health, a publication that explores health issues at the Council on Foreign Relations. “The UHC killing and the social media response stem from people feeling helpless over health coverage and income inequality,” he said. The topic is so often ignored by American public officials, he said, that voters have stopped listing it as a top priority.“A targeted killing won’t solve those problems, and neither will condoning it,” he added.Experts who reviewed the flood of social media posts expressing support for Mr. Mangione said that while it can be difficult to assess the provenance of posts, none have the telltale signs of an “influence campaign” by a foreign entity.“People are legitimately actually pissed off at the health care industry, and there is some kind of support for vigilante justice,” said Tim Weninger, a computer science professor at Notre Dame and expert in social media and artificial intelligence. “It’s organic.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Ghost Gun Taken From Luigi Mangione Was Fully Homemade, Officials Say

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      The ghost gun that the authorities believe was used to kill UnitedHealthcare chief executive Brian Thompson last week in Manhattan was an exceedingly rare variety.The police officers in Pennsylvania who on Monday arrested the man who has now been charged in the killing, Luigi Mangione, 26, said that he was found with a black pistol and a suppressor, often called a silencer. Both, the authorities said, had been fabricated with a 3-D printer, a device that sculpts a physical object from a digital model.Each year, authorities in the U.S. seize thousands of ghost guns, almost all of them originating from inexpensive kits bought online that can be assembled into a working weapon in as little as half an hour. But it is rare to recover a 3-D printed gun used in a crime, according to Tom Chittum, a former associate deputy director of the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms & Explosives.“If the gun used in the New York assassination really was 3-D printed, it would certainly be the highest-profile crime ever committed with one, and it would be one of a small number overall,” said Mr. Chittum, who now works for a public safety technology company.A 3-D printer can be used to create a gun frame, which is the only individual part of a firearm that federal law regulates, and then assemble a working firearm by equipping it with commercially made aftermarket components that are not regulated, including the slide, barrel, and trigger mechanism, Mr. Chittum said.The Pennsylvania authorities said Mr. Mangione’s pistol had a plastic handle, a metal slide and a threaded metal barrel.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Luigi Mangione, Suspect in CEO Killing, Withdrew From a Life of Privilege and Promise

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      The suspect, Luigi Mangione, was an Ivy League tech graduate from a prominent Maryland family who in recent months had suffered physical and psychic pain.Luigi Mangione, the online version of him, was an Ivy League tech enthusiast who flaunted his tanned, chiseled looks in beach photos and party pictures with blue-blazered frat buddies.He was the valedictorian of a prestigious Baltimore prep school who earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees at the University of Pennsylvania and served as a head counselor at a pre-college program at Stanford University.With his credentials and connections, he could have ended up one day as an entrepreneur or the chief executive of one of his family’s thriving businesses. Instead, investigators suspect, he took a different path.The police now believe that Mr. Mangione, 26, is the masked gunman who calmly took out a pistol equipped with a silencer on a Midtown Manhattan street last week and assassinated Brian Thompson, the chief executive of UnitedHealthcare. He was arrested in Altoona, Pa., on Monday after an employee at a McDonald’s recognized him and called the police. Officers said they found him with fake identification, a weapon similar to the one seen in video of the killing, and a manifesto decrying the health care industry.Mr. Mangione, who faces a variety of charges related to the gun and fake ID, has not been charged in connection with the killing. But the authorities have said that he is a “person of interest” in the killing, and in the hours since his apprehension his baffling journey from star student to murder suspect has begun to come into focus.Mr. Mangione was in regular contact with friends and family until about six months ago when he suddenly and inexplicably stopped communicating with them. He had been suffering the effects of a painful back injury, friends said, but then went dark, prompting anxious inquiries from relatives to his friends: Had anyone heard from him?We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      How Photographs Led Police to Person of Interest in UnitedHealthcare CEO Killing

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      In the end, it was the simple act of distributing photos — not sophisticated facial recognition technology — that led the police to a man they are calling a “person of interest” in the fatal shooting of a health care executive in Midtown Manhattan last week.After the shooting of Brian Thompson, the chief executive of UnitedHealthcare, last Wednesday, the New York Police Department began releasing a steady drip of images. The photos, taken together, appeared to show a young man with light skin and dark features. One photo — crucially — showed his entire face.Even as the police recovered what they called an “enormous amount” of forensic evidence and video, it was that specific photo that led to the arrest of a man on Monday morning about 300 miles from New York City, according to Joseph Kenny, the Police Department’s chief of detectives.Just after 9 a.m. on Monday, in a McDonald’s in Altoona, Pa., an employee spotted a man who looked like the person in the photos, and then called the police, who detained the man for questioning.The man, whom the police identified as Luigi Mangione, 26, of Maryland, was carrying a gun, a silencer and some kind of manifesto, the police said.Chief Kenny said that it was hard to credit the break in the case to any one moment or piece of evidence, but that if he had to, “it would be the release of that photograph to the media.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      An N.Y.P.D. Manhunt Caught a Subway Shooter. This Time, It’s Different.

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      Capturing a suspect who slips away from a crime scene requires solid police work, help from the public and a little luck, experts say. So far, it’s not working.A shocking early morning act of violence, a frantic New York Police Department search for a suspect and a gunman seemingly in the wind: The year was 2022, and the man the police had fanned out to find was Frank R. James, who had set off smoke grenades inside a crowded subway car in Brooklyn and opened fire.Now, more than two years later, another manhunt has gripped the city. But unlike Mr. James, who was apprehended the day after his rampage, the man who assassinated the chief executive of a health insurance company just before dawn on Wednesday in Midtown Manhattan has not been caught or even identified after more than four days.The two most recent fugitive searches in New York City have involved gunmen who made seemingly improbable escapes in a city teeming with surveillance cameras and people. But despite some similarities between the cases and the investigative tactics being used to try to solve them, the search for the man who killed Brian Thompson, the chief executive of UnitedHealthcare, has proved far more challenging.The suspect’s ability to evade capture appears to be tied to his methodical planning, including wearing a mask and a hood during nearly all of his time in New York City and paying with cash everywhere, along with using a fake driver’s license.And unlike Mr. James, who did essentially nothing to conceal himself after slipping away amid the chaotic aftermath of the shooting that wounded 10 people, the suspect in Mr. Thompson’s killing fled quickly into Central Park, away from the surveillance cameras that blanket much of Manhattan. He also appears to have left the state long before the police could possibly have begun to track his movements.“I don’t think I’ve seen this level of operational preplanning in any crime, never mind in a murder,” said Kenneth E. Corey, a former chief of department in the New York Police Department.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      The Police Offer a Detailed Timeline of the Gunman’s Movements

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      The police on Friday offered a nearly minute-by-minute timeline of a gunman’s movements before and after he fatally shot Brian Thompson, the chief executive of UnitedHealthcare, in Midtown Manhattan two days earlier.The police have made no arrests in the shooting, and do not have a name for a suspect, but investigators have begun to piece together the movements of a man they believe killed Mr. Thompson on a city sidewalk early Wednesday morning. Joseph Kenny, the Police Department’s chief of detectives, said at a news briefing on Friday that the suspect arrived in the city at 10:11 p.m. on Nov. 24 on a bus that originated out of Atlanta. Detectives have looked at the route the bus took and plan to reach out to the police department of each of the six or seven towns the bus stopped in, he said. Upon arrival in New York, the man took a cab to the New York Hilton Midtown — where he would later fatally shoot Mr. Thompson — and spent about half an hour walking in the area of the hotel before checking in to a hostel on the Upper West Side, the chief said.At the hostel, he stayed under fake identification, always using cash, avoiding conversation and hiding his face with his mask even during meals, the chief said. He never spoke with anyone and lowered his mask once to speak, smiling, to the hostel clerk when he first checked in, the chief said.On Wednesday, the day of the shooting, the gunman left the hostel at 5:30 a.m. and likely rode a bicycle toward Midtown, Chief Kenny said. Though investigators do not have video of him taking the bike to the scene of the shooting, they are speculating that he did because it took him only 10 minutes to get from the hostel on 103rd Street to West 54th Street. The police are “still looking into” the possibility that he could have stolen the bike, he said. We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More