National, Regional and Local News

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And the internet is still on this level...

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[dryrunguy]

My head hurts.

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Luigi Mangione has thoughts.

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Luigi Mangione’s Hawaiʻi Friends Shocked By Arrest In UnitedHealthcare CEO Shooting

Luigi Mangione lived at the Surfbreak co-living community near Ala Moana Park on Oʻahu. He was arrested Monday in Pennsylvania, five days after the shooting of an insurance executive.
By Stewart Yerton , Christina Jedra / About 1 hour ago

Hawaii friends of Luigi Mangione, arrested in the killing of UnitedHealthcare’s CEO, recall him as a natural leader who led a book club where members would share ideas while watching sunsets from a place called Magic Island.

“He was just such a thoughtful and deeply compassionate person at everything he did,” said Jackie Wexler, a food technologist in New York. She used to live with Mangione at Surfbreak, a co-living space near Honolulu’s Ala Moana Beach Park.

Mangione, 26, suffered chronic back pain from an apparent pinched nerve, said R.J. Martin, Surfbreak’s founder. His friends stopped hearing from him this summer.

He said he was stunned by Mangione’s arrest. “I loved this guy,” said Martin. “In some ways I feel like my members are my kids.”


Luigi Mangione, pictured second from the left, lived in Hawaii before becoming a suspect in the shooting death of a health insurance executive in New York City. (Courtesy Surfbreak Hawaii)

Wexler had attended the University of Pennsylvania with Mangione, she says, but didn’t become friends with him until they were both living on Oahu at Surfbreak. Originally envisioned as long-term housing for graduate students, Surfbreak morphed into a sort of adult dorm for, as its website, says,“adventurers, remote workers, and mindful travelers united by shared life in our co-living + coworking spaces.”

Mangione was arrested in a Pennsylvania McDonald’s restaurant on Monday and charged with five crimes, including carrying gun without a license, forgery, falsely identifying himself to the authorities and possessing “instruments of crime.” He is suspected of shooting UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson last week in New York City.

Surfbreak residents are expected to contribute to the community, and Mangione played a role by founding the book club with Wexler and Martin. They recall Mangione had recently read Yuval Noah Harari’s “Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind” and was enthusiastic about sharing ideas with friends.

The book club’s reading list included “What’s Our Problem,” by Tim Urban, the creator of the blog “Wait But Why,” and “The Ape that Understood the Universe: How the Mind and Culture Evolve,” by Steve Stewart Williams, Wexler and Martin said.

Wexler recalls Mangione as a thoughtful man who facilitated discussions by deeply listening. Martin, a former college professor who has a doctorate in history, said Mangione had a rare ability to articulate ideas in the books they read.

“I feel like he did a better job of parsing through the nuances of things,” Martin said.

Wexler and Martin said they had suggested the book club read the manifesto of Ted Kaczynski, known as the Unabomber, as “a joke.” Mangione reviewed it on a Goodreads account, which has been widely cited on social media on Monday.

The rambling screed proved “painful to read” and so hard to engage with that it led to the demise of the club, Martin said.

Mangione was committed to personal development through reading and working out. He got around Oahu by bicycle, and even after he moved out of Surfbreak he would walk with Wexler from Magic Island to Surfbreak, located in the penthouse of a building near the Hawaii Convention Center.


Luigi Mangione, suspected of shooting UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, led an active lifestyle in Hawaii that included rockclimbing, bicycling and surfing, despite chronic back pain, his friends recall. (Courtesy Surfbreak Hawaii)

But it wasn’t all idyllic. Mangione was often in pain from a back problem, Martin said, although the two would still rock climb together at HiClimb, a gym in Kakaʻako near Surfbreak.

Martin recalled the problem, which had lingered for years, was a misaligned vertebrae that would pinch Mangione’s spinal cord.

Martin did not recall the exact dates Mangione lived at Surfbreak but says they stayed in regular contact after Mangione left. Martin said Mangione later texted him pictures after getting back surgery.

“He went radio silent in June or July,” Martin said.

Mangione has no significant criminal record in Hawaii. He was criminally cited on Nov. 12 of last year for trespassing in a “closed area” of Nuuanu Pali Lookout, a popular scenic viewpoint frequented by tourists on Oahu. At the time, he told a state parks officer his address was in Towson, Maryland, according to the citation.

After pleading no contest to the petty misdemeanor offense, court records show he paid a court-ordered $100 fine. Honolulu police said he had no other run-ins on the island.

Mangione had a gun believed to be the one used in last week’s shooting and was taken into custody after police got a tip that he had been spotted at a McDonald’s in Altoona, Pennsylvania.

The news has been heartbreaking for his Hawaii friends.

“It just makes me sad to think how alone he must feel,” Wexler said.

The Associated Press contributed to this story,


https://www.civilbeat.org/2024/12/luigi ... -shooting/

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Luigi Mangione, Arrested in Connection With C.E.O. Killing, Attended Elite Institutions
He grew up in Maryland, graduated from a private high school in Baltimore and went on to the University of Pennsylvania.

By Corey Kilgannon
Dec. 9, 2024
Updated 5:12 p.m. ET
Leer en español
Luigi Mangione, 26, the man who was taken into custody Monday morning as a person of interest in connection with the killing of UnitedHealthcare chief executive Brian Thompson in Midtown Manhattan last Wednesday, appears to have been a well-educated and well-traveled enthusiast of computer programming and gaming.

Mr. Mangione grew up in Maryland, according to Joseph Kenny, chief of detectives with the New York City Police Department.

He attended high school at the Gilman School in Baltimore, where he was an athlete and the valedictorian of his graduating class in 2016. In a graduation speech, he described his class as “coming up with new ideas and challenging the world around it.”

He thanked parents in attendance for sending him and his classmates to the school, which he described as “far from a small financial investment.” Tuition at Gilman is currently $37,690 per year for high schoolers.

Mr. Mangione then attended the University of Pennsylvania, where he displayed a keen interest in developing computer games. He was a member of the Phi Kappa Psi fraternity and graduated with both a bachelor’s degree and a master’s degree in engineering.

Stanford University confirmed that a Luigi Mangione worked as a head counselor in its Pre-Collegiate Studies program in 2019.

Mr. Mangione’s family has prospered from its real estate holdings and a chain of senior rehabilitation centers.

Chief Kenny said Mr. Mangione had lived in San Francisco and Honolulu and had no known criminal record in New York City. In fact, the only criminal activity that seems linked to Mr. Mangione is a citation for trespassing in Hawaii.

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/09/nyre ... gione.html

I was going to say he went to the Ivy League University of Pennsylvania but they were fudging that detail. The Times names his college but not that it's an Ivy League institution.

The University of Pennsylvania is a private Ivy League research university in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. Wikipedia

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Meanwhile...

[ashkor87]

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/202 ... ve-reviews
The killer clearly has a lot of sympathy from the public!

[ponchi101]

Luigi Mangione has thoughts.

This sounds NOT like a looney.

[Owendonovan]

I don't think he is looney, just pissed off.

[dryrunguy]

He went completely silent about 6 months ago. He had lots of friends and a prolific social media presence that just... stopped in an instant.

There has been some speculation it might have been due to the onset of schizophrenia or some other mental illness.

But it would make more sense that his anger was more about the medical treatment, or lack thereof, for his back pain. But the fact he just stopped communicating entirely is really odd.

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MeidasTouch
‪@meidastouch.com‬
Unconfirmed but sounds like he says: “…clearly out of touch and an insult to the intelligence of the American people with lived experience”

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Different angle