Where Fugitives Dine

"Take it on the arches" has a whole new meaning. It sounds like dialog from a Humphrey Bogart movie written by Raymond Chandler or Dashiell Hammett, meaning to scram, flee, run away. And scram is what the suspect in the shooting of United Health Care's CEO Brian Thompson did, hiding behind his surgical mask until a customer in an Altoona McDonald's restaurant recognized his partially hidden face sitting in the back of the restaurant on Monday morning looking at his laptop at 9:44 A.M.

The customer, described as an "elderly fellow", had a McDonald's employee call 911. Altoona police soon descended on the man who got nervous when asked if he had recently been to New York City. And that is the point at which the fugitive from the shooting became embodied as a person of interest whose name was revealed to be Luigi Mangione, a 26-year-old University of Pennsylvania graduate with an MSE and a BSE in Computer Science.

It's been quite a Monday. The Daniel Penny/Jordan Neely subway choke-hold trial had just been concluded with the defendant Penny found not guilty of criminally negligent homicide. The trail is over and the jury went home. As did Mr. Penny.

Of course a new Manhattan jury will be needed probably in the latter part of 2025, or early 2026 when Mt. Mangione comes to trail on whatever charges the Manhattan DA presents. The wheels of justice just keep spinning.

McDonald's seems to be a place where fugitives are found. They don't hole up in a cabin in snowy Sierra Nevada, smoking, playing solitaire, drinking scotch and waiting for the heat to die down. They settle in with an Egg McMuffin with cars whizzing by.

In one of their many updates the NYT points out that the suspect Frank R. James, who threw smoke bombs into a subway car and shot and wounded 10 people was apprehended fairly quickly at a Manhattan McDonald's.

With Luigi Mangione brought into custody while sitting at a McDonald's in Altoona, Pennsylvania you might think McDonald's pr people might add something to their slogan: "Billions Served, Several Apprehended."

There was a $10,000 reward offered by NYC police, and $50,000 reward offered by the F.B.I. It is hoped that the man who made the identification and the worker who called it in will actually get the reward and not see it evaporate in some legally worded technicality.

Mr. Mangione's picture was everywhere. Well, only one grainy full facial picture of him checking into a hostel on Manhattan's Upper West side when he pulled his surgical mask down—but still had his hood up— when the cute female clerk asked to see his whole face as he was flirting with her a bit.

Like safe cracker Sam Jaffe's character Doc who gets captured in the 1950 movie 'Asphalt Jungle' because he lingers too long to stare at Marilyn Monroe's character, Mr. Mangione might have just been done in because of a pretty face.

The microscopic examination of Mr. Mangione's life is only just beginning. As Luigi sat there in McDonald's, what plans did he have for the rest of the day that went out the window as the police approached him? Was he thinking of buying Christmas gifts? Supposedly he had $10,000 in cash on him, as well as a manifesto that might explain his thinking.

The thinking of the Unabomber, Ted Kaczynski, is cited in things Mr. Mangione wrote. Ted Kaczynski evaded capture for 17 years as he mailed explosive letters and packages around the United States. Kaczynski lived like a hermit in an isolated Montana cabin. Using the mail to deliver his bombs made it possible to charge him with Federal crimes. Ted passed  away in Federal prison in 2023 at 81 years old after being captured in 1996. Will Mr. Mangione face Federal charges over the gun possession?

As odd and unkempt as Ted Kaczynski was, I always got a kick out of a waitress in the diner near the cabin who told authorities that yes, Ted did come in there, but that they got a lot of people who appeared odder than Ted in there.

In contrast, Mr. Mangione is clean cut, and until only recently, never out of touch with people and employers. He was social. He apparently suffered a fair amount of back pain and had spinal fusion surgery.

The weapon allegedly used was found in Mr. Mangione's possession. It was not a veterinarian handgun, but was a so-called 9 mm "ghost weapon" fashioned from a 3-D printer. A silencer was also found. No less deadly.

At the outset from the raw surveillance footage that showed the shooting outside the New York Hilton on December 4, a professional hit was theorized. All the trappings of a mob rubout were there.

But then shell casings were found to carry a message, "Deny", "Delay", "Defend" words from the title of a 2010 book on abuses of the health care industry. This was not a mob hit. It was something else. 

Mob hits don't produce the perpetrators. I can't remember ever reading about the apprehension of a  trigger man after a crime family head like Paul Castellano is left as a lump on Third Avenue while headed for a meal at Sparks Steak House on 46th Street. Or Joey Gallo is left not breathing after a late night meal on his birthday at Umberto's Little Italy Clam House.

What did Mr. Mangione accomplish other than creating a vacancy at the top of United Health Care? Premiums are not going down, and denials will lot likely abate. Sure, CEO photos are disappearing from websites, but that's cosmetic. Congress is said to want to look at the health insurance industry. Again.

My own life was basically spent working for a major health insurer, that at the time was not a for-profit entity. By financial measures I remember it was reported that around 92% of the premiums collected went back out in claim reimbursements. The percentage now is quite a bit lower, perhaps as low as 82%.

Mr. Mangione is in custody with no bail. And business is left as usual.

http://www.onofframp.blogspot.com