“Katie” arrived at the Luigi Mangione protest in downtown Manhattan on Friday wearing a black shirt with a large photo of the 26-year-old suspected shooter. “But Daddy I Love Him,” the shirt read in pink, the title of a recent Taylor Swift song.
“I just thought it was fun and cute and something to show his face and show support,” she said.
Did she actually, as the shirt said, love Mangione?
“I don’t know if you can love someone you’ve never met,” she responded. “I love whoever made that action to stand for health care … They really took a stand. I’m actually surprised something like this hasn’t happened before.”
“Whoever did commit that act, I really do see him as a hero and a martyr.”
Katie – who declined to provide her last name – was one of a few dozen people who came to a protest outside federal court in New York City to express support for Mangione, the UPenn graduate accused of fatally shooting UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson on a city sidewalk in December.
Mangione faces serious charges in two states and in federal court, where he could face the death penalty, and he has pleaded not guilty. Officials have roundly condemned the killing as a “frightening, well-planned, targeted” and “cold-blooded” murder.
Yet unlike most murder cases, others have expressed sympathy and even support for Mangione. Supporters at the protest Friday and a similar protest in February carried “Free Luigi” signs or wore green in a reference to Nintendo’s “Luigi” character. In his time behind bars, Mangione has received hundreds of letters from across the US as well as from Brazil, Japan and Australia. Two heart-shaped notes were even smuggled into a pair of his argyle socks prior to a recent court hearing.
is legal defense fund has raised over $950,000 from about 27,000 people as of April 25. A website set up by his legal defense lists 13 “Frequently Asked Questions,” and 10 of them relate to sending him letters or contributing to his fund.
Mangione himself has taken notice.
“I am overwhelmed by – and grateful for – everyone who has written me to share their stories and express their support,” Mangione said in a note to supporters posted on the defense website. “Powerfully, this support has transcended political, racial, and even class divisions, as mail has flooded MDC from across the country, and around the globe.”
CNN spoke with a number of Mangione’s supporters to better understand their position on the man and on America’s health care system at large.
The crux of their support is based on a deep resentment and anger at the American health care system and insurance companies, but it goes well beyond that frustration. Others offered support in a show of opposition to the government’s aggressive charging decisions and the potential death penalty. Looming over it all is a belief that The Elites are cracking down on The People to uphold The System.
“They’re putting all of this effort and the death penalty behind one person who allegedly killed one CEO who is responsible and profiting off of the death of thousands upon thousands of sick people and bringing people into financial ruin as well as death,” said Tilly, a Mangione supporter wearing a lime green jacket and light green sunglasses. “They do not put this same effort behind, say, school shooters or people who shoot up concerts.”
“It shows that the state has more care for the uber-wealthy and the CEOs that are profiting off of people’s death and pain than they do for the people.”
Frustration with health care
The core reason for Mangione’s support is a deep dislike of American health care insurance companies, and this has curdled into disdain and resentment for the executives in charge.
“Sometimes, drug dealers get shot,” comedian Chris Rock succinctly put it when discussing the incident in his “Saturday Night Live” monologue last December.
Ico Ahyicodae, the project coordinator with the group People Over Profit NYC, attended Friday’s protest and said the shooting brought mass attention to the problems with the health care system.
“This is less about Luigi than it is about Brian Thompson,” Ahyicodae said. “Before Luigi was even a person of interest in the case, people exploded with health care stories.”
Thompson, a 50-year-old husband and father of two, was appointed CEO of UnitedHealthcare in 2021 and had worked at the company since 2004. UnitedHealthcare, part of UnitedHealth Group, is the largest health care organization in the US and was holding an investors’ conference in New York around the time he was killed.
Mangione was not insured by UnitedHealthcare, but he allegedly had a notebook that expressed “hostility toward the health insurance industry and wealthy executives in particular,” according to a federal complaint.
Notably, three 9 mm shell casings from the crime scene had the words “delay,” “deny” and “depose” written on them, the NYPD has said, an apparent reference to a 2010 book critiquing insurance industry tactics to avoid paying for care.
UnitedHealthcare has defended the company and Thompson. In a December statement, UnitedHealthcare said “highly inaccurate and grossly misleading information has been circulated about our company’s treatment of insurance claims” and that it “approves and pays about 90% of medical claims upon submission.”
Still, even UnitedHealth Group CEO Andrew Witty acknowledged the health care system’s flaws.
“We know the health system does not work as well as it should, and we understand people’s frustrations with it,” Witty wrote in a guest essay in the New York Times. “No one would design a system like the one we have. And no one did. It’s a patchwork built over decades.”
At the protest Friday, Elena held a sign saying, “No more death by deductible$” and criticized the health care system’s “complete and utter failings.”
“I’m pointing to the high deductibles that everyday Americans have to face in order to get basic health care. Just going to the doctor for really simple procedures can end up being thousands of dollars’ worth of bills. None of it is very predictable, the system is obscured, and it’s intentional,” she said.
She said she goes “back and forth” on whether Mangione should really be set free.
“There’s a lot of sympathy for Luigi,” she said, noting his online posts about a back injury and surgery. “Seems to be like he was mad at the health care system, like we all are. I obviously don’t think anyone should be murdered, and I don’t think that’s a way to solve the problem, but I sympathize with the idea that we can actually make that happen and just to use this moment to make that happen.”
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