Luigi Mangione Case: Pa. Police Officer 'Knew It was Him Immediately' before Arrest
What to know
• An Altoona police officer testified he immediately recognized Luigi Mangione as the suspect wanted in the Dec. 4, 2024, fatal shooting of healthcare executive Brian Thompson in New York City after responding to a tip at a McDonald’s.
• Defense attorneys are seeking to suppress Mangione’s statements, handgun and diary, arguing police unlawfully detained him and searched his backpack without a warrant.
• Body camera footage played in court showed officers approaching Mangione, who gave a false name and ID, appeared nervous and was frisked as additional officers arrived before his arrest and the recovery of cash and other items.
By Patricia Hurtado and David Voreacos
Source Bloomberg News
A Pennsylvania police officer testified that when he first saw the face of the nervous young man eating in a McDonald’s restaurant, he knew it was the suspect in the shooting death of a healthcare executive in New York five days earlier.
Patrolman Joseph Detwiler said he had seen a series of photographs released by the New York Police Department as they sought the public’s help in finding the man who gunned down Brian Thompson in midtown Manhattan on Dec. 4, 2024.
The testimony Tuesday came as lawyers for Luigi Mangione are urging a state court judge in New York to rule that statements he made at the time of his arrest are off limits as evidence, as well as the handgun recovered from his backpack and a diary that prosecutors say showed he planned to kill the health-care executive. Mangione is charged with murder in separate state and federal cases.
Detwiler was the first officer to respond to the McDonald’s in Altoona after police got a call that the suspect in the New York shooting was sitting in the back, wearing a brown knit cap and a blue medical mask. When he asked the man to pull down the mask, he said, he recognized him as the suspect whose photos he’d seen on television.
“I knew it was him immediately,” Detwiler testified.
Prosecutors played the dramatic footage, taken from body cameras worn by Altoona police, who approached Mangione at a corner table at the back of the McDonald’s. Mangione’s lawyers argue that officers illegally detained without advising him of his rights, and searched his backpack without a warrant.
The police footage, never previously shown in public, depicts Mangione typing on a laptop at a corner table when Detwiler and his partner approached him.
“Someone called and thought you were suspicious,” Detwiler said to Mangione. He asked Mangione to pull down his mask and tell him his name. Mangione gave the false name of Mark Rosario and produced a phony New Jersey driver’s license.
Detwiler asked Mangione if he’d recently been to New York but didn’t get a clear response. The officer then frisked Mangione as he wore a black puffy parka, while he waited for additional officers to arrive.
‘New York City shooter’
“I wanted to make sure the defendant didn’t have any weapons on him,” Detwiler said. “I thought he was the New York City shooter of the CEO.”
Prosecutor Joel Seidemann also asked Detwiler a series of questions designed to blunt arguments that police violated Mangione’s rights.
“Did you ask him continuous questions?,” asked Seidemann of the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office. The officer said no.
Seidemann also asked if he questioned Mangione about his reason for being in Altoona, told him he was under arrest, pulled out his revolver, or mentioned the shooting in New York. Detwiler said no to each question.
Detwiler said that Mangione was “real nervous” and his fingers were “shaking a little bit” as he handed him his ID. The officer left a voicemail for his supervisor, saying: “That’s him. Yes, he’s here. He’s really nervous. He didn’t talk too much.”
No masks
The officer said he was also suspicious of Mangione because he was wearing a blue mask.
“We don’t wear masks, we have antibodies” in Altoona, he said. “No one wears masks so I knew he was the person who executed Brian Thompson. I knew as soon as he pulled down the mask.”
Seidemann concluded his questioning by asking Detwiler if he and his fellow officers needed to get a search warrant under Pennsylvania law, as the defense argues.
“We search everyone being arrested,” Detwiler testified. “The person and their bags.”
But Mangione’s lawyer, Karen Friedman Agnifilo’s first question was to ask Detwiler if he heard a comment by a superior officer as Mangione was being handcuffed while two police officers searched his backpack.
“Did you hear” the officer “speak and say, ‘At this point we’ll probably need a search warrant for it?’” Friedman Agnifilo asked.
“Yes, but I wasn’t present for that,” Detwiler said.
The prosecutor played several versions of the same events from different body cameras worn by the officers inside the restaurant and at the Altoona police station.
Some of the cameras show an officer going through Mangione’s backpack before he was handcuffed and led to the station. Once there, one officer said: “He gave us the name. Luigi something.”
Mangione then said that officers had his passport. Police also recovered several thousand dollars in U.S. currency as well as foreign currency.
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