A police officer who last year took Luigi Mangione into custody in Pennsylvania was on the stand in Manhattan on Tuesday to recount the collaring of an at-large suspect in the brazen killing of a health insurance executive and explain bodycam footage recorded during the arrest.
Altoona, Pennsylvania police officer Joseph Detwiler was on the stand in Manhattan Supreme Court during the second day in a marathon hearing for Mangione to review key pieces of evidence that may be used against him at trial.
Mangione faces murder and illegal weapons charges for allegedly gunning down UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson on West 52nd Street in Midtown Manhattan on Dec. 4, 2024.
Five days after the shooting, Detwiler got a radio call from local 911 dispatch that patrons at the McDonald’s in Altoona think that the suspect in Thompson’s killing is there having breakfast. At the time, he was skeptical that he would encounter the suspect in a case that was grabbing national headlines — so much so that he did not activate the lights on his patrol car when he approached the McDonalds.
“I did not think that it was going to be the person that they said it was,” Detwiler recalled.
Fellow police officer joked about free “hoagie”
Detwiler said that around that time, a fellow officer texted him: “‘If you get the NYC shooter, I will buy you a hoagie from a local restaurant,’” which drew laughs from the courtroom gallery.
Nonetheless, Detwiler said that he had seen the video of Thompson’s assassination “many, many times” in the news and that he was “disturbed” by what he saw.
“It appeared that he was lying in wait,” Detwiler said of the video of the shooting, which occurred outside the New York Midtown Hilton.
Detwiler and fellow Altoona officer Tyler Frye responded to the 911 call and approached Mangione, who was sitting in the McDonald’s dining room with a laptop, Detwiler recalled. Mangione introduced himself as “Marc” and produced a fake ID for Marc Rosario of New Jersey.
“I knew it was him immediately. I stayed calm. And then I asked him if he had been to New York recently,” Detwiler said.
Objection from Luigi Mangione defense attorney
Over the objection of Karen Agnifilio of Agnifilo Intrater, a member of Mangione’s defense team, prosecutors submitted the officers’ bodycam footage from the arrest into evidence and played it in the courtroom. Mangione, wearing a black suit with a checkered shirt and seated at the defense table, appeared to watch the footage intently, with a hand on his chin.
Among the pieces of evidence under consideration during the suppression hearing this week before Acting Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Gregory Carro is a notebook that police found in Mangione’s backpack that the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office has described as a “manifesto.”
