Summary
Luigi Mangione, charged with the December 2024 murder of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, released his first public statement through a new website launched by his defense team.
He expressed gratitude for widespread support and acknowledged the letters he has received. The website provides case updates and a fundraiser, which has raised over $400,000.
Mangione has gained a following among those frustrated with the U.S. healthcare system. A poll found 41% of voters under 30 viewed the assassination as acceptable.
His next court date is Feb. 21.
A poll found 41% of voters under 30 viewed the assassination as acceptable.
Crazy how we can see numbers like this and then see other articles saying only “dark corners of the internet” support Luigi.
Way lower than I thought tbh
That’s greater than the percentage of Americans who voted for Trump in the 2024 election.
Yes but a more direct comparison would be to voters under 30. Around 46% of 18-29 yr. olds supported Trump.
46% of those who voted.
Yes. And the original poll estimated that 41% of voters under 30 approved of Mangione’s actions. My point is statistics are more valuable and informative when you try your best to compare apples to apples.
“Voters” doesn’t mean “people who voted in the most recent election” but “people who are registered to vote” so the other commenter is correct.
Sorry but no? “Voters” means the same thing in both cases, that’s how statistics works. You take a small subset of people and try to control for as much as possible to make it an accurate representation of the greater population. Nobody actually knows what Voters in the abstract think if they don’t vote or answer polls
IDK if it’s the case here, but a poll that goes 40% yes 10% no 50% no answer usually gets reported as “40% yes” without context if they want to insinuate the no is in majority.
It’s the same as when Trump’s Greenland poll got reported as “80% no” without mentioning the 12% “no answer” and the 8% yes part.
Surprised it’s not higher actually.
People are saying that this is a low percentage, but I think it could be considered high. Murder (i.e. not necessarily killing a human in general) is classically and in general a really bad thing. Even if people don’t care for the parasitic company’s CEO and might be glad that he’s dead, I could imagine that their gut feeling would tell them to not consider an assassination acceptable.
Hmm, you say that but people cheer when villains are killed in movies. Brian Thompson killed tens of thousands of people and caused immense suffering to millions of people. In our darkest hour, when it looked like the oligarchs had won and were untouchable, Luigi took a stand against evil and gave us all hope. Luigi is a hero.
I mean, people from the dark corners of the internet are probably pretty good at finding polls about things they’re interested in, lol
to be clear, voters under 30 is what like 40% of all the voting public? So we’re talking like less than 10% of the voting populous, probably at most.
Did you just multiply 40% and 41% in your head and decide the answer was less than 10%?
Sorry, I know this is barely relevant, but the implied calculus there shook me a bit.
40℅ * 41% = 16.4%
You can do it quickly in your head by using 4*4=16 and then adding on the last .4%.
If you look carefully you may notice that 16.4 - 10 = 6.4 which is not zero, so our original poster was off by at least 64%.
Yay I can do math too!
That was my point. They were commending maths that was incorrect where an exact calculation is trivial, even for someone like me who is somewhat poor at mental arithmetic.
tbf, if im going through the trouble of using real stats math, i’m going to dig out some actually real statistics to base it off of, rather than some silly lemmy post, or comment claiming a specific thing, evidently, i didn’t do that.
Indeed
im lazy but statistics is weird like that, you would be taking 40% of 100, and then taking 40% (i think i just used the wrong number lmao) of that block, so like 8 ish was my quick estimate, i was off by about a factor of 2, but that’s still pretty good for schizo statistics that i have no idea the validity of.
My good ser, statistics are not weird like that you’re overcomplicating it in your head. It is .40 times .40, or in other words, 4*4 then move the decimel two spaces over.
yeah and i just didnt do that, idk what you want from me lmao
Lmao
deleted by creator
Still dont get it why he is still charged over somthg he obviously didnt do. Is justice sociale bad in the US, why people dont react. Like O.J. Simpson case but in reverse, everybody knows Luigi is not guilty…
These images could be false leads just as much as Luigi could be a false arrest. People assume these pictures are “the guy” just because they were presented first.
Do you realise that the assassination has been recorded? Guy on the left is the suspect.
We don’t have all the evidence.
If he checked into the hostel with the same ID that was used to get the bus out of the city and they weren’t his identity, then there is the manifesto that may or may not have been planted in the gun that may or may not have been planted. Then there’s the manifesto in substack from before the event, well before the event.
Together that’s probably enough for a trial.
I dont get why he made himself look like the suspect, but reality is that its not him. The record of the assassination clearly shows a smaller dude with differents eyebrows, eyelash and skin color. Just like OJ Simpson, there was no doubt it was him, yet he was found innocent over petty details…
He has not once said he didn’t do it has he? I think this whole conspiracy theory like most is silly.
Yeah he did it, that’s why he’s a hero.
Bruh you never considered he wanted to make himself look like the suspect, the pics of the suspect were all over the news before he got arrested. He had plenty of time to take similar (not exactly the same) outfits, a gun and write a manifesto…
We are talking about facts, what are his motivation is not important.
He is not a hero, he is either a deranged man wanting to get fame or a stupid chap that wanted to make fun of the police. And do you want to know how i know that? Cause there is a factual proof in the actual recording of the suspect comitting the crime… And its obviously not him… And btw he cant speak to the press, you dont know if he will plead guilty or not…
Can’t rationalize with a conspiracy theorist
Bruh, just look at the pics…
Grainy surveillance means jack shit, in any case I will it rationalize with a conspiracy theorist, that’s like debating religion with my bible thumping dad
Grainy ? WTF are you talking about? Its the proof you didnt look at them…
And do you want to know how i know that? Cause there is a factual proof in the actual recording of the suspect comitting the crime… And its obviously not him…
Look everyone! A random on the internet has totally solved the case!
Jokes aside- maybe you should step in and let Bragg know he has nothing and demand a dismissal with prejudice.
Lol ironically, people do are stupid enough not to see how obvious it is… Luigi was indeed wrong when he siad that was an insult to americans intelligence…
This:
Lol ironically, people do are stupid enough not to see how obvious it is… Luigi was indeed wrong when he siad that was an insult to americans intelligence…
… is an insult to American intelligence.
Facts are not insults, they are facts. I mean, they voted for Trump…
This is some flat-earther level shit right here.
Then prove your point, shoudnt be too difficult to explain how he grew a mono eyebrow and got taller overnight, if this is flat earther level…
Yeah - I don’t discuss things with conspiracy theorists. You can make up bullshit MUCH faster than I can even start to dig up actual evidence and support for my arguments. And after I’ve spent hours generating a fact-supported response you’ll just say “OH THE POLICE LIE SO I’M GOING TO IGNORE YOU” or something. I’ve been there, got the t-shirt, and will not return.
Bruh… The police didnt said anything… Thats the point of a trial, its not public. And tbh the suspect pics are true, they never lied. Its the prosecutor who is dumb as fuck for charging Luigi while not considering the main element : recordings of the crime.
Chill down buddy, of you dont want to discuss, dont comment…
I agree, he saw the picture, got the same clothes and the manifest, and jumped into his time machine to go back in time to get himself on security cams before the murder happened.
There are ni pics of Luigi like this before the murder. All the pics you can see if him are from the McDonald’s. The others are from the suspect and shows clearly someone else.
Being the devil’s advocate here, but he could have discarded the grey bag and grabbed a black bag with more normal stuff. This image doesn’t quite support the statement. There must be other, more powerful evidence of his innocence.
The burden of proof is on the prosecution in America.
incorrect it is on the defense
The burden of proof is on the prosecutor for criminal cases, and the defendant is presumed innocent. If the claimant fails to discharge the burden of proof to prove their case, the claim will be dismissed.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burden_of_proof_(law)
even wikipedia has it wrong
in the United States it is on the defense to pay for and to provide evidence because the prosecutor makes up anything they want along with whatever the jackboots in the case states happens with the judge going along with it in complicity and the defendant is presumed guilty throughout the entire process and even if the defendant proves their innocence the claim may not be dismissed
The claimant would be the prosecution.
They have made a claim that he killed someone.
Oh, it’s you, again. I didn’t look at the username when I saw this mindless post. As ever.
There must be other, more powerful evidence of his innocence.
That’s not how the justice system is supposed to work.
Bruh… Its not about the backpack, its not the same face, at all… Eyebrows and color skin are completly different. And on the full body pic of the suspect we Can see the suspect IS way smaller than Luigi…
Lighting changes skin tone a lot, and jackets cover up the build of the body. I’m not saying for sure it is him, but I also am not sure this disproves it being him.
So do image processors and different camera sensors.
WTF?!? Its like saying Jacky Chan looks like Bruce Lee… We may not see much, but the upper face is clearly different, except if you are blind, there should be any doubt. The suspect is clearly Irish like (North Europe) while Luigi is clearly italian like (South Europe)…
Ironically it does seems that american are dumb enough to believe this shit… US is fucked up…
removed by mod
Is there reasonable doubt it could be him?
Based on the evidence we’ve seen, yes, there is a reasonable doubt.
But we are the public, not the judge and jury. We are not being presented with the full testimony and evidence.
That depends on the whole body of evidence, which we haven’t seen yet
Look at the jackets. The suspect has a jacket that has a hood made of the same material and appears in this image to be a pullover. Luigi has a hood that is a different material than jacket and appears to be a zip up.
If he’s going to change his backpack, why not change his coat and scarf as well?
The coat is clearly a different color, has a different sewn pattern on the hood, and different pockets.
OK, to play devil’s advocate, if it wasn’t Luigi in the picture, who was it? For what purpose was Luigi in town? I understand that in the legal system, the defense doesn’t need to PROVE who else did it and that they just need to create reasonable doubt… but what’s your take?
if it wasn’t Luigi in the picture, who was it?
What are you looking for here? A name? How would we know?
Well, if it wasn’t Luigi, then who was it? Why would someone go through the trouble of finding someone that looks just like him? Who would that be… why was Luigi picked for a scapegoat? If the contention of OP is “Luigi isn’t the guy”… then who is? From my standpoint, Luigi had the means, the motive and the motivation due to his personal history and abilities.
I realize that in court his defense won’t have to say “we have proof it was this other guy” but I’m not in court right now. If OP doesn’t think Luigi did it, then who else would have?
Any of a million other people. For Luigi’s case, it doesn’t matter who did it. Luigi didn’t, end of discussion.
Wow, I hope you’re not his defense attorney.
He isn’t?
Any of the other millions upon millions of people and their families that UHC has intentionally harmed/killed?
Make up your own mind based on the facts and their justifications, but the reason the rules are like that in court is because punishing people for crimes they didn’t commit is injustice, even if you don’t ever find the actual culprit.
I think maybe they played too much Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney, wherein the defendant is guilty until proven innocent AND you identify the actually guilty party. Yes, really. You still lose in that game even in the event that you can definitively prove your client’s innocence if you don’t also turn in the actual culprit. That’s how this guy thinks the justice system should work.
The sad thing is that a victims family will grasp at anything to have who they think the killer is be put behind bars.
But it’s better to let an innocent person walk than get the wrong person, even if it leaves the family devastated.
it’s better to let an innocent person walk than get the wrong person
Hot take.
So he just happened to have a gun on him in Pennsylvania that coincidentally matched the ballistic evidence in Manhattan?
Let me see the footage of the arrest. Dept desperate to “get their perpetrator” often do desperate things, can’t be having the ruling class be murdered and nobody being punished for it now can we?
The Altoona PA police department made the arrest.
Are you insinuating that police forces don’t work together or share information? Show me the video I want before he arrived, body cams, all of it. Every house has a ring camera it should be pretty solid unless mysterious it didn’t work just like the night Epstein was murdered.
Any person arrested where the police conveniently leave their body cams off should automatically be found not guilty.
Why does it shut off at all?
So that the cops can beat black people and plant evidence, ovbiously.
Security camera footage that shows where the assassin dumped the gun and backpack, suppress the footage, have chatGPT whip up a manifesto, pin it on some guy with a similar nose.
Like, seriously, when’s the last time you saw a cop outside of a cop T.V. show? Are we still pretending they have the publics best interests at heart?
removed by mod
removed by mod
Just because that’s what the police said doesn’t make it true. Police are known liars and have been caught countless times arresting the wrong person, planting evidence, and/or lying to get an arrest and make themselves not look as inept as they are.
The police need to punish someone. If a crime has been committed, that’s a bonus. If they are punishing the preparator of the crime, that’s a double-bonus. If they can murder you, they get a paid vacation while the union takes care of the paperwork.
All I know is he was at my place that night, so couldn’t have been him.
This is a better take than conspiracy shit tbh. Personally, I was ice skating with the guy.
People can’t just go around killing loved ones…
Except CEOs
not killing loved ones
exception is CEOs
You are repeating yourself
To be fair, there is probably at least one unloved person who isn’t a CEO.
I wonder what the options were. I have really complicated feelings about this, ones I could not possibly boil down to simply acceptable or unacceptable. All I can say is that I do not feel bad about the CEO, and I think Mangione is overcharged because the powerful want to make an example of him, a warning to anyone else considering the same.
At the same time, there is a cost to murdering someone. And sometimes, you are okay paying it. Maybe you feel justified, maybe you do not. Maybe a lot of people think you are. But there is still a cost. The lesson to the powerful is simple: never make taking your life worth the price.
I agree somewhat, that ‘an eye for an eye’ is just awful. Violence begets violence. However, as the CEO was single-handedly responsible for the deaths of a whole bunch of people, the only way to stop him from doing more harm was to rid the world of him. There’s a line, and he crossed it. Society, and our justice system, would never have a trial for him, and would never sentence him for his crimes. Luigi was the one to force him to face judgement for his crimes against humanity, and as such I fully believe he should be set free as a result.
It’s kinda like Trump and Elon in my eyes. These two have done immeasurable harm and our justice system will never hold them accountable. To allow them to live is to allow them to continue perpetuating their crimes. Now, I’m not saying by any means that I would be the one to ‘do the deed’ as it were, but I sure as hell would look the other way if someone else did.
You make a thoughtful argument. If you haven’t already, I suggest reading up on jury nullification to add even more depth to the situation.
Murder is wrong, but it doesn’t have to be an endless cycle of violence if the jury agrees that the situation leading up to it was unjust to begin with.
And that is maybe an ideal outcome. Sometimes the right and necessary thing isn’t the legal thing. If you make that decision on your own, better hope to fuck most people agree. And, if they do, that’s the point of the fucking jury. You done good.
What about batman? If the joker didn’t kill his parents he wouldn’t have become the bat and how many murders and crimes has he prevented?
Yeah. I get it. I agree. My comment above is better than approve/disapprove but my feelings probably could extend to a manifesto level. Particularly given the low bar Mangione set for length. It’s certainly the case that the system is designed to make some people above the law. And when those people do bad things, your only recourse is to change the system (which could take decades and resources you simply don’t have) or go outside the system.
I guess I’m saying, I think Mangione has to pay a price for what he did—certainly not his life based on similar crimes, but I think it was a based decision.
My thoughts: Completely and utterly acceptable without hesitation and the only nuance here is that it’s a shame it didn’t become a trend. Not that I’d condone violence. I clearly don’t, I condemn the violence these rich fucks inflict upon society
If we had a justice system (one that actually uh, delivered justice), then letting the courts deal with the CEO(s) would be the correct thing to do. We absolutely don’t have such honorable courts and have little other recourse except this.
Luigi’s only crime was denying Brian Thompson due process. His crime was the same as that of a police officer that illegally searches someone’s car. Morally, that’s the level of offense of what Luigi did.
In a just world, Brian Thompson would have been charged, tried, convicted, and hanged for the thousands of people he killed. Make no mistake, he was a murderer. If there is a Hell below, he is burning there now. The number of people he killed make Osama Bin Ladin’s numbers look like amateur hour. Brian Thompson, in any justice system that endorses the death penalty, absolutely deserved to die. Luigi’s main crime was denying Thompson his day in court and the ability to face his accuser. But, then again, it’s not like we gave Osama his day in court either. We shot that like a dog and dumped his body in the ocean, and no one batted an eye. We all celebrated it, and no one wept for him being denied a fair trial. Osama never got his due process and day in court.
Osama … no one wept for him being denied a fair trial.
I did… Not so much for him personally, but for the number of high ranking CIA and other officials that might have been exposed along the way…
I understand it. You’re in good company. I just can’t be so cavalier about it. If everyone is running around playing Batman, it won’t only be criminals who suffer.
It’s only the extremely wealthy that can kill with impunity in our legal system. If someone shoots a relative of mine, I don’t need to go hunt them down and take care of them myself. For that type of crime, the justice system will try to hold them to account. It is only the crimes of the wealthy and powerful that are not punished by the law. Kill one person with a knife? Life in prison. Kill tens thousand with a pen? You’re a job creator.
I am not worried about a mass campaign of bloody violence unleashed upon the entire population. The kinds of grievances ordinary people have against one another can already be handled in the criminal and civil courts. It is only the crimes of murderers like Thompson that go unpunished. They are the only ones at risk in such a campaign.
To you, the evil is Thompson. To someone else, it’s Biden. Or Obama. Yeah we can just go full French Revolution and murder every single one of them, but that’s not a world I want to live in.
Sure, but conservatives are by n’ large, spineless cowards.
be the change, my friend
But there is still a cost.
Why though? By attaching an inherent moral cost to opposing the status quo you raise the bar necessary for resistance, which only benefits the powerful.
I didn’t read it as being necessarily a moral cost; rather, simply acknowledging that there is a cost of some kind, and that a particular person might find that cost worth paying.
I don’t think this raises the bar on resistance. It just clarifies where the bar actually is.
Exactly. If murdering someone costs my life, all the time I would otherwise have with my wife and kids, what history might think of me… that’s a big fucking cost. It shouldn’t be hard to make killing someone not worth that.
And yet…
removed by mod
My original comment did not advocate violence. You just want to censor how people really feel on the matter and you’re afraid of that. Simple as that.
Eh, to be fair, I get it after looking through the modlog. The implication that you wish far more people were okay with an assassination and that there is no other recourse is absolutely advocating violence. Now, whether or not it’s acceptable to think that way is a whole other topic, but I don’t think it’s fair to say you weren’t at least speaking out in support of violence.
Because that’s the truth - there is literally NO recourse or peaceful option left. More people, would rather continue banging their heads against the wall and say “please stop being corrupt” to the ones who’re actively upheaving everyone’s lives and damaging them beyond repair.
Again, how the fuck can anyone sit there and say “…uh this is okay! Luigi is bad for what he did, but I’m totally okay with getting fucked”.
Regardless of how justified you, I, or anybody else is in thinking that, my one and only point is that it is advocating violence.
Soooo… if so many people here seem to think Luigi didn’t do it, then why is everyone rushing to his defense? Why all the memes? Why the aggressive defense of an “innocent man?”
If he didn’t do it, then aren’t you all just hero-worshiping some random dude, while the “real” shooter is still at large?
Let’s assume Luigi is innocent as a result of “jUsT LoOk aT tEh viDeO!”, then that means the focus would shift on finding who the actual shooter is. And considering how everyone around here seems to be pro-murder depending on who the victim happens to be, that would mean your hero-at-large would be at risk of getting discovered and arrested.
If Luigi is innocent, and you all want the identity of the “real” shooter to remain safely unknown, as one would think you should… maybe you’d be best served by having Luigi taking one for the team?
Just a thought.
How weird. It’s almost like Lemmy isn’t a single individual who can’t get their story straight, but rather a collective of different people who have different opinions, some of which contradict each other.
Just a thought
You forgot to complete this
The point is less about whether Mangione himself killed the CEO than schadenfreude at a protected class who keep thinking they’re better than the rest of us. I realise all sorts of other speculative discussions are going on about whom to point the finger at, but it’s more interesting to consider the implications of taking back power from the greedy and priveleged by force (especially when we’re cowed into thinking we’re powerless).
Shit logic is shit.
If Luigi is innocent
Something to mention here. Even if he didn’t shoot the guy, it is EXTREMELY unlikely that he is innocent. At a minimum, he’d’ve been working with the actual shooter. Since he had the fake id, and etc. assuming they weren’t plants.
What’s his website?
