20/20 - Manhunt: Luigi Mangione and the CEO Murder - A Special Edition of 20/20

Episode Date: December 20, 2024

Investigating the secret life of the young man prosecutors allege gunned down United Healthcare’s Brian Thompson.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

As a FIS member, you can look forward to free data, big savings on plans, and having your unused data roll over to the following month, every month. At FIS, you always get more for your money. Terms and conditions for our different programs and policies apply. Details at fis.ca. The class of 2016 is truly defined by its inventive, pioneering mentality that accompanies a strong commitment to Yelma tradition. Just like we've done these past few years, we'll be exploring the unknown, whether that be attending colleges across the country, traveling the world during gap years, or fulfilling military service in foreign countries.

As we embrace the new, however, we won't forget the old. Our friendships, values, and memories from Gilman will always stay with us. will always stay with us. Music Just six months before the shooting, Luigi Mangione was having the time of his life traveling through Asia and sharing his experiences by posting on social media.

There is a very real sense of traveling as an adventurer rather than as a tourist. So I'm here in the mountains in Nara, and it's f***ing beautiful man. I think I want to stay here for like a month and just meditate. And just hot spring and do some riding. I want some time to zen out. I want some time to zen out. The City of Manhattan The City of Manhattan

The City of Manhattan 38 with some sunshine now in the city, 38 with some sunshine now in the city, 38 with some sunshine now in the city, mostly cloudy today in Ohio 41. For the shooter, the morning starts at 5.30 in the morning When he leaves the hostel on the upper west side of Manhattan When he leaves the hostel on the upper west side of Manhattan

at 104th Street and Amsterdam Avenue. Mostly cloudy today in Ohio 41, you'll be gusty. Mostly, probably today in Ohio, 41 will be gusty. The city was about to come alive for the day. It was a routine Wednesday. It was a clear morning. It was cold out. And you see this shooter walking up 54th Street, wearing a hood that was up. He had a mask on in the vicinity of the Hilton on 54th Street wearing a hood that was up, he had a mask on, in the vicinity of the Hilton

on 54th Street. Sixth Avenue, this time of year. You probably don't have a more trafficked or highly populated part of Manhattan or New York except for Times Square. We're talking about a couple of blocks away from Rockefeller Center with the famous Christmas treat. Right near there, you have Radio City Music Hall, famous for its Christmas show. Hilton itself is a busy, busy place.

That morning, UnitedHealthcare was having an investor conference. So it's about an hour of the shooter making his way around this small slice of Midtown Manhattan. He goes to a Starbucks and gets a snack and a bottle of water. He walks west a block. He then walks east a block, he then walks east a block. He's clearly passing time as he waits for Brian Thompson to make his appearance. Brian Thompson, who's the chief executive of United Health Care,

crosses Sixth Avenue. He came to the Hilton Hotel where he was going to present, about an hour later, at an investor conference. And as soon as the suspect sees Thompson, that's when he begins to spring into action. At 6.44 in the morning, you see Mr. Thompson walking down the block from his hotel to the Hilton. He's dressed in a blue suit. He does not have any security detail with him.

He's all by himself. He does not seem to be aware that he's in terrible danger. There are cameras everywhere. There are people everywhere. Even at six, seven in the morning, there are people. After he gets the water bottle and the kind bar from the Starbucks, he takes position. And then, holds up in the pre-dawn dark, and he sees Brian Thompson. New York is a connected city. We know that there are cameras.

We know there are thousands, tens, maybe even hundreds of thousands of cameras all around New York City. In this case using cameras was going to be critical. It was going to be crucial to figuring out who the person is who committed this crime. The first video that we get, which is the most sensational of the videos, is of the actual shooting. sensational of the videos is of the actual shooting. You see Brian Thompson walking past the area where the shooter is located. The shooter comes up behind him. It appears that it may be 10 or 12 feet behind Brian Thompson. The shooter fires three times. It seems that the gun jams several times in between the shots and that's

going to be very very important down the road for police investigating the crime. You see a bystander run out of the frame in the other direction. Brian Thompson is on the floor. A horrifying and shocking act of violence. We know that a man was shot on the sidewalk here outside. We are learning that it happened at 640 this morning, a deadly shooting in midtown Manhattan. Police are searching for a suspect that fled the scene. The victim is the chief executive of United Healthcare. Shot and killed outside the Hilton on 6th Avenue in midtown.

People seemed to notice that it wasn't a typical assassin's gun. Police said they thought at first it may be a veterinarian's weapon. It appeared to have a silencer or a long barrel that would effectively act as a silencer. I think what was most jarring about the shooting was how calm the shooter seemed to be. He seemed to be methodical. The case almost instantly became one of public fascination. Who would do this? And why?

People started talking, was this a professional killer? Was this a hit job, a hired assassin? When detectives went back and started looking at these images frame by frame over and over again, they noticed a couple of things. First of all, they noticed how far away the shooter was from Brian Thompson. Detectives were saying to us that if this had been somebody who was really a trained assassin, he wouldn't have fired from 10 or 12 feet away.

He would have fired from 5 or 7 feet away. He took off before he made sure that his victim was dead, and trained assassins would not do that. Police didn't think this was a professional job, but they did acknowledge it seemed to be pretty well planned. The killer had to know where Brian Thompson was going to be, that he was going to this investor conference, knew where he was staying.

The police determined that the victim is the CEO of United Healthcare, Brian Thompson. He's a 50-year-old husband, father of two. United Healthcare is the biggest health insurance company in the United States. They cover 30 million Americans, and last year they made more than $200 billion. million Americans and last year they made more than 200 billion dollars. Police quickly get into Brian Thompson's hotel room, they get his phone, they're

trying to see is there somebody out there that might have a grudge or a vendetta against Thompson. Did he owe money to people? Was there some sort of a drug thing, an alcohol thing? All these things are quickly being cycled through and pretty fast the police determined there's none of them. Investigators were telling us that they believed, in theory, without having a ton of evidence yet, that this felt to them like this was a shooting motivated by Brian Thompson's work. One of the most important pieces of information that came out in the immediate aftermath of the shooting was the fact that...

The shell casings had messages on them, words that were written on each one. Delay, deny, depose. Handwritten with a permanent marker. And that has an eerie echo to a book critical of the insurance industry talking about the tactics that health insurance companies use to either refuse to pay claims, to slow paying for claims. Writing the words in the bullets told us so many things.

It gave us the specific cause to what he was speaking to. This wasn't just a random person. This is a political act against a corporation. Almost as soon as it's confirmed that Brian Thompson is dead, social media explodes, and in a really unanticipated, unpredicted kind of way. The CEO for UnitedHealthcare filed his last claim today because a gunman decided not to extend coverage on his life.

All while the search for their killer is being met with comments like, sorry, out of network. People were cheering the demise of this person they'd never met who was a father of two and a husband and had a life and was just doing a job no matter how distasteful that job might be to a certain segment of the population. Some people are missing the point that, yes, this is class warfare, but it's not rich versus poor.

It's the people against the corporations that are making our lives worse. This case was the source of unbelievable public fascination. It had all of the ingredients. First of all, it's a midtown Manhattan murder. Then you have a manhunt. And it just builds and builds and builds. And the police are starting to put out images and asking for the public's help. This is Breaking News from Channel 7 Eyewitness News. 723 on this Wednesday, December 4th.

I'm Mike Marza and we want to get right to that breaking news unfolding in Midtown. That's where cops are now searching for a mask at Gunman. It's very unusual for someone to be shot in that neighborhood at any time of day. This is West 50, 4th Street between 6th and 7th Avenues in Midtown Manhattan. When Brian Thompson was murdered, his wife told the media that he had received threats, general threats against him. And that's not always unusual when you're the CEO of a big company. So that's why everyone thought that whoever killed Brian Thompson had a grudge against him personally.

My name is Brad Garrett. I'm a retired FBI agent. I've investigated single homicides, serial homicides, and mass casualty homicides in the United States and in various parts of the world for a better part of 20 years. So the key is, as much information as you can gather about the victim may lead you toward a potential suspect. Who is this guy? Where was he going? Why was he shot in that location?

That time of the day, et cetera. The layer beyond that is who had issues with Mr. Thompson. The shooter appears to be a light-skinned male. He's wearing a light brown or cream-colored jacket, a black face mask, black and white sneakers, and a very distinctive gray backpack. So the suspect shoots Brian Thompson and then takes off. After the shooting, we know that the shooter

runs across 54th Street. We know he goes up this alleyway called the Ziegfeld Alley, right by the Ziegfeld Theater, which is a real landmark in Midtown Manhattan. And then he gets on a bike at this point, and he rides up 6th Avenue up to Central Park. An e-bike was the perfect getaway vehicle. It can zip in and out of traffic,

and you can go pretty fast on an e-bike, so you're a lot harder to catch. Traffic is terrible in the morning rush hour in Midtown. So if the killer wanted to escape by car, he would have gotten nowhere. He gets to Central Park and rides an e-bike through the park. He comes in and he basically works his way through the park. The cameras lose sight of him because he goes into the park. And one big blind spot in the city, you talk about cameras everywhere,

there really aren't cameras in Central Park. There are trees, there are heavily wooded areas. So the shooter is able to basically evade surveillance for a period of time. He's gone. So this video obtained by ABC News is of a suspect on, presumably it looks like his e-bike, riding away from Central Park. This is important because you always want to know direction of flight because it'll give you leads since you don't know who he is. It'll give you directions about where

he possibly is going. He comes out of Central Park at 77th on the bike. We then see him on 86th. No bike, no backpack. He gets into attacks. There's this amazing shot. He peers through the partition that separates the driver from the passenger. We could still clearly see his distinctive eyes and his distinctive eyebrows. He didn't do anything to truly camouflage his appearance.

The first images have his face, but not a full face. And that adds to additional fascination. And all of a sudden it's like the masked gunman. So pretty quickly the question is, are they going to find him today? What's interesting about this case is we went on for multiple days of a lot of pictures of this suspect in various locations, and nobody came forward to ID him. We know that he takes the cab up to a bus station,

which is on the New York City side of the George Washington Bridge. We're talking about a bus station that's right up next to the busiest bridge in the country. And at first, police believe he hopped a bus and headed out of town. They don't see him getting on a bus. They don't see him at all, and the trail kind of goes cold. At the same time, in Midtown, the investigation and the response to this crime is picking up. The shooter left behind a lot of physical evidence for police to go through as they zero in on a possible motive. This killer made a lot of mistakes. Going into the Starbucks and making a purchase and then discarding the water bottle and the wrapper

in a trash can where police could see it through surveillance cameras. So that was a huge mistake. The most important thing investigators wanted to recover was the gun, the murder weapon. Also, the shooter wasn't wearing gloves when he fired that weapon. Big mistake. The full investigative efforts of the New York City Police Department are well underway, and we will not rest until we identify and apprehend the shooter in this case. So immediately police announce a reward of $10,000 for anyone who would provide information

that could lead to his arrest and conviction. And you know, the Crimestoppers line in New York did start to get a lot of calls. But the real question is, where did he go? So you had trains going to Washington, D.C., Boston, Philadelphia. I think we all learned that it's a lot easier to disappear in New York than we thought. In those first few minutes, all the police really have to go on

is that a crime was committed. And then little by little, more information is added to that. But all that while, the shooter is getting farther and farther away in the scene of the crime. With Uber Reserve, good things come to those who plan ahead. Family vacay? Reserve your ride as soon as you book your flights. To all the planners, now you can reserve your Uber ride up to 90 days in advance.

See Uber app for details. Get groceries delivered across the GTA from real Canadian Superstore with PC Express. Shop online for super prices and super savings. Try it today and get up to $75 in PC Optimum Points. Visit superstore.ca to get started. The manhunt in New York City at this hour for the man who murdered a CEO right in front of a hotel. at this hour for the man who murdered a CEO right in front of a hotel. In the days after the shooting, the NYPD deploys an army to Manhattan, including drones, police, scuba divers, trying to find everything they possibly can.

Right at dusk on Friday, police in Central Park find what they believe is the shooter's backpack. There's a jacket and there's Monopoly money. He stuffed a backpack full of Monopoly money and left it for the NYPD to find. I mean, this is a person who, like many young people, is accustomed to producing their own narrative as the sort of main character of a show. This is out of a Batman movie.

This is something the Joker would do. You got detectives at the scene. They're immediately trying to figure out what happened. At the same time, you got somebody pulling cameras. Leapfrogging over one camera over another over another. They were able to track this guy to this youth hostel on 103rd and Amsterdam. So at the youth hostel, they find this amazing piece of video. As he's checking into the youth hostel,

the lady behind the counter asks him to drop his mask, to see his face, to see his smile, and he obliges. And that was the picture that went viral. Oh my god. That man's like gorgeous. Like he's got a good ass smile. Smash. Just look at the fascination that the public has had with other notorious killers

like Ted Bundy the serial killer, Charles Manson the mass murderer. But this case is different because of social media. Within seconds, people were making comparisons. Oh, he looks like Jake Gyllenhaal. Oh, he looks like Zayn Malik. Ooh, he's so handsome. People online are falling in love with this suspect, and some of them are even making TikToks

using the Britney Spears song, Criminal. But mama, I'm in love with the criminal. Without even knowing who the shooter is or the motivation, they've already captured the idea that this is some sort of hero. Oh my God, did you see? He just walks up and blasted him point blank. I know, I know, it's awesome. Oh, no, I ain't seen nothing. I ain't seen nothing. Matter of fact, I'm blind in my left eye.

No one would turn on Robin Hood, and nobody's gonna turn on the adjuster. This is about a lot of people are extraordinarily angry about the way the healthcare industry is allowed to treat us. And one person went off the deep end and did something about it. But a lot of other people feel a similar rage because we are being screwed by the healthcare industry.

On social media, there was this eruption of cheer about it because people are so angry at the healthcare industry. All of the things that she had been prescribed were no longer going to be covered. They would not cover her insulin pen that she needs. My one-year-old baby had a giant brain tumor. She sat in the hospital for three days. The unprecedented explosion really showed the level of true public antipathy toward

not just corporate America, but the health insurance industry. They had no problem profiting $23 billion last year off the backs of American people. The entire business model of private health insurance companies is to prey on the most vulnerable people in society. UnitedHealthcare says that they approve and pay 90% of claims upon submission, but critics say they have one of the highest denial rates in the country. For so many Americans who feel that their own lives have been devalued by our system and in particular by our health care system, it felt like a release to them.

They have not covered life-saving measures to keep people alive. If they can't save your life, then they shouldn't get to keep your money. In the past year, people have been so frustrated with United Healthcare that they've taken to the streets to protest. One of the things they've been complaining about is that Brian Thompson's salary was reportedly $10 million. Americans struggle to pay their medical bills, and then you have this guy making $10 million a year.

Hundreds of tips are pouring in and thousands of police officers are cycling through a manhunt that is now nationwide. The manhunt went on for six days without any success. So pretty quickly a reality is creeping in that this shooter could be anywhere. The manhunt came to an end in a McDonald's in Altoona, Pennsylvania. It is a busy breakfast rush, and sitting there eating hash browns is the suspect that all of America has been looking for. You have one customer saying to the other, hey, doesn't that guy look like the wanted killer that everybody is searching for? And then the employee at McDonald's overhears that conversation

and calls 911. This police officer shows up. He said, have you been to New York recently? And police say he started to shake. He started to get visibly nervous. And that's when the police took him into custody. My thought was, why would he go into a McDonald's? Like, he's eluded everyone for so long for a hash brown? When police identify him, they say he's Luigi Mangione, 26 years old, from Maryland. Start with breaking news today on ABC News Live,

the arrest of a person of interest in Pennsylvania. Police in Altoona, Pennsylvania are questioning 26-year-old Luigi Mangione. America loves a vigilante. America loves a populist hero. He's young. He's white. He's quite good-looking, this sort of murderous heart

throb slash folk hero. I think one of the biggest surprises, it turns out, he's this extremely privileged young man from a very well-known family in Baltimore. Get ready for Las Vegas-style action at Bet MGM, the king of online casinos. Enjoy casino games at your fingertips with the same Vegas strip excitement MGM is famous for when you play classics like MGM Grand Millions or popular games like Blackjack, Baccarat, and Roulette. With our ever-growing library of digital slot games, a large selection of online table games, and signature BetMGM service.

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or someone close to you, please contact CONNECTS ONTARIO at 1-866-531-2600 to speak to an advisor free of charge. Bet MGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with iGaming Ontario. So when he was arrested, authorities say they found him with a backpack that had all sorts of damning evidence in it, including multiple IDs. They find the computer, they find the passport. They find a 3D printed silencer and a 3D printed gun. So this was what the police refer to as a ghost gun, which means basically it has no serial number. They also found a spiral-bound notebook that Mr. Mangione allegedly wrote

talking about computer-aided design, or CAD. He has a bachelor's and a master's in engineering from the University of Pennsylvania, and the implication is that he designed, printed, put this gun together, and then used it to commit the crime. This was fairly trivial. Some elementary social engineering, basic CAD, a lot of patients.

This is a replica of the firearm that was used in the killing in New York. Printed on a printer that I have here, and this was done in about seven hours of printing. The basic file that this is built around it is the most common handgun to be 3D printed. They seized 26,000 ghost guns at crime scenes last year and the number keeps growing and growing and growing because if you are a felon or somebody that is not allowed to buy firearms where are you gonna go?

We have it made. This shooter knew that if he used a 3D printer gun they wouldn't be able to trace it. Luigi did not have a criminal record. He certainly had the funds and resources to buy the gun. So the reasons that he chose a 3D printed gun probably have more to do with wanting to be involved in the tech, wanting this to be a statement. The best guess I have is that he really wanted to be a do-it-yourselfer. And I think that that's much more likely

to have influenced his choice to do a 3D printed gun than any of the normal narratives. So as soon as Mangione was identified, it sort of shifted the conversation. He wasn't what you might expect of an on-the-street assassin, right? He's not a professional hitman. In fact, he came from an extremely privileged background. Mangione's family is really well-respected, very successful.

They've been in real estate. They own a couple of country clubs. Luigi's cousin is a state delegate, so they're very, very well connected. I suppose you could say in some ways the Mangione family was the American dream. Luigi Mangione's grandfather Nicholas really is an American rags to riches story. He fought against anti-Italian discrimination in Baltimore and built a really successful portfolio of businesses that has made his family prominent and wealthy. They own Turf Valley, which is a great golf course, Hayfields, which is a great golf course, and other real estate.

They're considered a pillar of the community. Luigi went to the Gilman High School, which is one of the elite high schools in Baltimore City. I think the high school tuition is close to $40,000 a year now. It's a prestigious, wealthy school with a lot of well-connected people. So this is a picture of Luigi and I, you know,

at the competition. We're troubleshooting the robot. I think the most shocking to hear that it could have been Luigi because from what I knew of him in high school, right, he was a caring guy, pretty goofy, carefree, right? Very, very hard to associate that with violence. And I just didn't think he had a violent bone in his body. He was in the robotics club, he was very advanced in the STEM fields, of course he

went to school for computer science. He was the most nice, unassuming kid you've ever met. A lot of really good friends, really athletic, two sport varsity athletes, and of course he was a valedictorian. It's been an incredible journey, and I simply can't imagine the last few years with any other group of guys. Thank you. Thank you. Great job. He went to the University of Pennsylvania, the engineering school where he majored in computer science. After graduation, Luigi Mangione appears to have gone

to California, who's working in tech. He worked as a data engineer. Luigi Mangione left quite a trail for the public and investigators to follow. There's a trip to Japan, there's a time living in Hawaii. He was living in Honolulu in a collective co-sharing space. He was telling me about what he's searching for in Hawaii, just to relax and enjoy his life. And I thought to myself, he's going to have a really good life.

At that point, he's into experiencing nature, healthy living. Of course, he's showing off his body on social media. We were at the book club and he was the only one who really read the entire book. I was shocked. Everyone was there for wine and food and he was the only one that was there for the book. On Instagram, he just seemed like a happy kid

who was enjoying his life. Pictures of him on vacation places, at friends' parties. On X, you saw a different side of him, deeply thinking, concerned about the world. He commented on the Unabomber Manifesto, and at a certain point, he refers to him in a way that people have taken as almost sympathetic.

It's simply impossible to ignore how prescient many of his predictions about modern society turned out. He was a violent individual, rightfully imprisoned, who maimed innocent people. While these actions tend to be characterized as those of a crazy Luddite, however, they are more accurately seen as those of an extreme political revolutionary. Frankly, I don't think that his thinking necessarily had to go through some wild radicalization. I don't think that the average 26-year-old, the average Ivy League graduate, are too far away from an understanding that many political systems in America, and specifically the private health care system, is unbelievably broken, and that traditional methods of addressing this, such as voting, aren't working. We don't know how he went from thinking

that the world was broken to taking the action he allegedly took. We've talked to friends who've said that he complained about enduring a back injury that was often quite painful. One of his friends said that his back problems made it really difficult for him to have romantic relationships. He posted online an image that is believed to be an x-ray of his own spine with four surgical screws in his spine that it was a fusion surgery,

which is often done on people who suffer extreme back pain. But United Healthcare says that he was never a customer of their insurance company. It was completely devastating as a young athletic person. Seemingly all I could read on the internet was that I was destined to chronic pain and a desk job for the rest of my life. That representation was terrifying.

In the six months before the shooting, importantly, it seems that Luigi kind of went dark. He didn't really post online for that period of time. A withdrawal from the total technological availability that people his age are raised in and, you know, usually never let go for more than 24 hours. It's possibly the sign of something happening. He really just stopped communicating with people. And then two weeks before the shooting, his own mother filed a missing persons report referring to him in San Francisco.

His family was very worried about him because he wasn't responding to their phone calls or text messages. Even his voicemail was full. The main tragedy here is the death of Brian Thompson, the loss that his family has endured. But there's also a tragedy here about Luigi Mangione, who had such a brilliant life ahead of him,

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One, two, three. And he's completely out of touch. And it's an insult to the intelligence of the American people. It's a horrific experience. Those who condemned the shooting saw a rageful man. Those who praised it saw an outlaw who was standing up to the system.

So everyone is wondering, did something happen to this young man? You just don't go and assassinate someone on the streets of New York. The NYPD Intelligence Bureau put together a confidential assessment that ABC News has obtained. They believe that in his mind, this was quote unquote a symbolic takedown of the healthcare insurance industry. Police say they found handwritten notes in Mangione's backpack. And police say that he kind of ruminated on ways in which to carry out this attack

on the healthcare industry, considered a bomb, but then decided that he didn't want to kill innocents. And so he wanted instead to target an individual. Frankly, these parasites simply had it coming. A reminder, the U.S. has the number one most expensive healthcare system in the world, yet we rank roughly number 42 in life expectancy. Think of the word parasite. That's very dehumanizing to start with, because to kill other human beings,

you have to dehumanize them before you kill them. What do you do? You whack the CEO at the annual parasitic bean counter convention. Allegedly. It shows that the killing of Ryan Thompson was premeditated, it was planned, it was strategic. So just a very brief update on the investigation. First, we got the gun in question back from Pennsylvania.

We were able to match that gun to the three shell casings that we found in midtown at the scene of the homicide. A New York grand jury has just indicted him on murder in the first degree in furtherance of terrorism. The terrorism charge basically is saying he targeted this CEO for a social purpose and reason. That is a form of terrorism. In the nearly two weeks since Mr. Thompson's killing, we have seen a shocking and appalling celebration of cold-blooded murder.

It was a cold and calculated crime. Mangione has been extradited to New York. I can't think of another criminal defendant in recent memory that received a personal welcome from the mayor of the city of New York. In addition, he's now facing federal criminal charges. And they carry with them the possibility of death penalty. The trial, as far as the court of public opinion is already happening, the authorities, the prosecutors,

are definitely concerned that there's a lot of sympathy for him, and all you need is one person on the jury to say, I refuse to say guilty, and then you have a big problem. Immediately, people online are trying to get money to Luigi Mangione, fund his legal defense. I think that this man's status as a complicated folk hero, I presume it is extending to within the prison walls.

Luigi's condition sucks! And there is a clip where, you know, you can hear his inmates screaming things like, Free Luigi. Free Luigi! You can have News Nation doing an indirect interview with inmates in the same jail as Luigi Maggioni. I have never seen a case like this.

It has a life and an energy of its own on social media. Police a man, he come and take Luigi far away. And the outpouring was instant and intense. It's too much. And then all the merchandise that people are trying to sell. This one DJ recently put up Luigi Mangione's photos. The crowd went wild and started screaming and applauding. And it speaks to the degree to which folks are identifying

with outlaws. They feel that their government isn't responsive to them, that corporations don't care about their lives. That's what folks are identifying with right now because they don't know how else to get relief from their problems. There's clearly anger, and people have seemingly suggested killing other CEOs

in the wake of Brian Thompson's killing. There's so much rage and frustration. There's so much uncertainty right now. People are messaging me saying, what's going to happen next? I think we tend to have a trust of people who we perceive as good-looking. We see studies that show people who are good-looking tend to get lesser sentences in general, and he's definitely extremely physically striking. You can see it in his posts all over social media.

But I want to note the attraction to him that we're seeing from the masses is partly about the looks, but also about the action. Thoughts and prayers for Luigi. You know, it was definitely not him. They have the wrong guy. And yeah, we're doing everything we can to get him out of this. I think about the irony. Brian Thompson is the CEO of UnitedHealthcare. He gets killed in cold blood in Manhattan. And in the immediate aftermath, as they're planning funeral and succession and business issues, they have to worry about putting fencing up

around their headquarters because of the threats. I think it's full that one individual, Brian Thompson, is being held responsible for the ills of an entire industry. But there are also a lot of posts online from people that are deeply sympathetic to Brian Thompson. People saying that he should be remembered as a father of two.

They see Brian Thompson not only as the literal victim, but a victim of a mob mentality in our culture. And it scares them. I still feel like these companies and the CEOs are going to try to protect themselves more rather than get to the root. Hopefully this case does not signal that America is headed down a path where grievances are solved at the barrel of a gun. Going to protests, pressing your members of Congress to push for reform of the system.

There's so many means of expression in our culture that don't include resorting to violence. This struck a chord with Americans because every American has a story to tell about the health insurance industry. I was previously insured, but my premiums had gone up so much that I just couldn't afford them anymore. I think it was cathartic for a lot of people. They weren't justifying the killing of Brian Thompson, certainly not, but they were describing in great detail why somebody would be angry enough to do something like that.

The insurance company, I'm really confused because I'm not sure... Have we lost our minds? be angry enough to do something like that. to see their favorite artists live. Choose from thousands of concerts and comedy shows, including Mariah Carey, Mary J. Blige, Matt Matthews, Metallica, Thomas Rhett, Trans-Siberian Orchestra, Sarah Silverman, and so many more. Share a memory together or give a gift they'll never forget. Find the most exciting gift for every fan at LiveNation.com slash gifts. That's LiveNation.com slash gifts.