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.
After prosecutors and the defense spent the day analyzing Detwiler’s and his fellow officers’ bodycam video from the arrest, Acting Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Gregory Carro ultimately made the decision that will seal every exhibit, which is mostly video footage, until the trial starts to avoid predisposing potential jurors. At that point, media outlets could move to have it be unsealed, the judge said.
Mangione faces murder and illegal weapons charges for allegedly gunning down UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson on West 54th 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.
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.
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.
Under questioning from prosecutors and defense, Detwiler described his efforts to monitor Mangione, who he considered a “high level threat,” and keep him calm as he and his partner waited for backup. This entailed whistling along Christmas jingles playing in the restaurant and lying to Mangione that he and his partner were responding to a loitering complaint, not because customers had reported him to look like the CEO shooter.
As the bodycam footage continues, about 10 more officers descend on the McDonald’s and Detwiler announces that he is investigating Mangione for false identification.
Among the pieces of evidence under consideration during the suppression hearing this week before Carro is a notebook that police found in Mangione’s backpack that the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office has described as a “manifesto.”
When Detwiler’s supervisor decided to arrest Mangione for the forgery of his fake ID, the officers searched Mangione’s person and his backpack.
In Assistant District Attorney Joel Seidermann’s line of questioning, the prosecutor pushed Detwiler to explain why he believed there might be a firearm in Mangione’s bag, while Mangione defense counsel Karen Agnifilo repeatedly asked Detwiler about the level of control he seemed to exert over the scene.
“You wanted to make sure that you kept that place under control?” Agnifilo asked about Detwiler patting Mangione down for weapons and “tactically positioning his body” between the suspect and his backpack.
Mangione’s defense team asked Carro to seal the bodycam footage for the extent of the trial, only allowing it to be played for the media in a court setting.
Carro, in response, struck a middle ground “balancing the press as well as the public” by sealing them only until the trial begins.
