LOS ANGELES (OC).–Luigi Mangione, the cold blooded killer of United Healthcare CEO Brian Thomson Dec. 4, 2024, apparently was stunned by the large crowds outside the Altoon, Pa. courtroom where he was arraigned Dec. 9, 2024 after eluding police for five days. Altoona police offier Stephen Fox said Mangione was surprised by the number of people appearing at his arraignment. “All these people are hear for a mass murder, wild,” Mangione reportedly said when he was leaving the courthouse. Luigi’s lead defense attorney Karen Friedman Agnifilo wants all the evidence contained in Luigi’s backpack tossed out of eventual trial because the police did not inform Luigi of his Miranda rights or have a search warrant. Yet when Luigi was arrested by Altoona police Dec. 9, the police knew he was armed-and-dangerous, having shot Thomson in the back on Midtown Manhattan street Dec 4.
When 911took the call from the Altoona McDonalds’s manager, the police rushed in. After identifying himself to the 911 operator, he told the dispatcher, “And I have a customer her, that some other customers wer suspicious of, that he looks like the CEO shooter from New York. So when Altoona police arrived at the scene to arrest Luigi, they knew he was armed-and-dangerous, requiring a search for their own safety. Friedman- Agnifilo argued to the New York Supreme Court to have all the evidence found by Altoona police, including the murder weapon, loaded magazines, silencer and an diary containing a personal manifesto. Friedman Agnifilo argued to New York’s High Court to strike the evidence collected by Altoona police. Under the 14th Amendment, the police have a right to search-and-seizures when there’s probable cause, no warrant necessary.
Friedman-Agnifilo argued to the court that the police violated Mangione’s Fourth Amendment rights because they didn’t have a warrant to search his possession. But when police have probable cause when dealing with a murder suspect, they don’t need a bench warrant, they only need acceptable probable cause. Certainly Luigi committing cold blooded murder only days before, fleeing from justice armed-and-dangerous constitutes enough probable cause to warrant searching his possessions. New York’s Supreme Court will likely tell Friedman-Agnifilo , nice try but the police had plenty of probable cause to search Mangione. When it come ot Miranda rights, the police don’t have to silence suspects from talking about their crimes or what led up to them. If Luigi talked with police before he was read his Miranda rights, that was certainly his right.
No Supreme Court judge is going to be gaslighted by a clever defense attorney, taking Constitutional issues out-of-context. Can you imagine the Altoona police arresting Mangione without assureing that he wasn’t going to pull out a firearm an start shooting at the police? Any police arrest protocol involves neutralizing the scene from any ongoing dangers, especially whether or not the suspect was armed-and=dangerous. Luigi had plenty of time time in his New York jail cell to think about what he did Dec. 4, 2024, stalking, lying in wait and shooting Brian Thomson in the back. When Luigi hatched his plan to payback the health insurance industry, he concocted a paranoid internal logic that told him he was a good Samaritan for gunning down the industry’s leading health care CEO. Now his defense attorney tries to get all the incriminating evidence stricken from the record.
When Altoona police officer Christy Wasser testified she found two magazines of bulletse hidden inside Luigi’s wet underwear in his backpack, she wanted the judge to know that the suspect was armed-and-dangerous. When you consider the complexity of Luigi’s plan, he can’t be considered insane by conventional definitions for his crimes. There was simply too much planning involved for months to pull off such a horrific event. Then, once he executed his plan, Mangione eluded policy, plotting his strategy to escape the New York metro area by find the Greyhound Bus to make it out of Gotham. Eluding police detection was no easy feat in New York with the entire city wired with cameras. Mangione isn’t insane in any legal definition even though he suffers from paranoia. Hatching his diabolical plot to gun down Thomson took a long of planning and organization.
No New York Supreme Court judge is going to be duped by Luigi’s defense attorney into a bogus Fourth Amendment argument when it was clear he presented an urgent danger or probable cause to police to search his possessions. New York authorities are bending over backwards to give Luigi a fair trial. But at the end the day, the facts speak for themselves. No one can change the reality of what happened on Dec. 4, 2024, watching an assassin target an innocent victim in plain daylight. Whether Luigi got his Miranda rights read at the exact right time or whether his backpack search met all Fourth Amendment standards, the Altoona police did their job taking Luigi into custody without incident. Luigi was armed and dangerous and could have taken out more police if he chose to. Altoona police had plenty of probable cause to search Luigi’s backpack.
About the Author
John M. Curtis writes politically neutral commentary analyzing spin in national and global news. He’s editor OnlineColumnist.com author of Dodging The Bullet and Operation Charisma.
