UPDATE: Police said Luigi Mangione has been arrested in connection with the murder of UnitedHealthcare’s CEO.
NEW YORK According to a law enforcement official who spoke to The Associated Press, a guy carrying a revolver believed to be identical to the one used to murder UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson was arrested by police on Monday and will be questioned in Pennsylvania.
According to the official, the individual is being detained close to Altoona, Pennsylvania, which is roughly 233 miles west of New York City. The official, who spoke to the AP under condition of anonymity, was not permitted to discuss specifics of the current inquiry.
Detectives from the NYPD are traveling to Pennsylvania to question the arrested individual. At a news event that was originally planned for the afternoon in Manhattan, New York City Mayor Eric Adams is anticipated to discuss this development.
As he traveled alone to the Hilton from a nearby hotel where UnitedHealthcare’s parent firm, UnitedHealth Group, was conducting its annual investor conference, Thompson, 50, was killed last Wednesday in what authorities described as a blatant, deliberate attack.
According to NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch, the shooter appeared to be waiting for a few minutes before coming up behind the executive and starting to fire. According to the authorities, he used a 9 mm handgun that looked like the weapons farmers use to kill animals quietly.
In the days following the shooting, authorities released a number of images and videos, including footage of the attack and pictures of the suspect at a Starbucks before it happened, in an effort to rally the public.
According to authorities, the guy smiled after taking off his mask in pictures shot in the foyer of a hostel on Manhattan’s Upper West Side.
The phrases “delay, deny, and depose” were found in ammunition discovered close to Thompson’s body, echoing a slogan used by opponents of the insurance business.
As the dragnet for Thompson’s murders continued into a sixth day, dogs and divers returned to Central Park in New York on Monday.
Since the shooting on Wednesday, investigators have been scouring the park and, for the past three days, they have been checking at least one of its ponds for evidence that might have been dumped into it.
Police said the murderer escaped from the crime scene to an uptown bus station, where they think he boarded a bus to leave the city, and they found a backpack in the park on Friday.
In Central Park, close to where police discovered the shooter’s rucksack, K-9 teams smelled leaf-covered plants between walking paths on Monday. For the third day in a row, scuba divers prepared and began searching a pond farther along the route police believe he took through the park following the shooting.
Using security footage to trace the gunman’s movements, authorities said the shooter escaped into Central Park on a bicycle, came out of the park without his backpack, and then abandoned the bike.
After walking a few yards, he got into a taxi and arrived at the George Washington Bridge Bus Station, which is close to Manhattan’s northern edge and provides Greyhound travel to Philadelphia, Boston, and Washington in addition to commuter service to New Jersey, according to NYPD Chief of Detectives Joseph Kenny.
In addition to the NYPD’s reward of up to $10,000, the FBI announced late Friday that it was offering a $50,000 reward for information that results in an arrest and conviction. The culprit, according to the police, acted alone.
Two further images of the suspect, which seemed to be taken from a camera installed inside a taxi, were made public by police late Saturday. In the first, he is seen outside the car, and in the second, he is seen peering through the partition that separates the front of the cab from the back seat. In both, a blue mask covers part of his face.
There is an unusual contrast between joggers, tourists, and an active crime scene as a result of the NYPD’s efforts to minimize disturbance to park users throughout the search.
In order to provide divers with a place to change and enter the water, a small area of the park was marked off with blue and white police tape on Monday.
A group of roughly thirty French-speaking visitors once followed a guide down a route, but the police tape prevented them from continuing. Many of them pulled out their phones to take a picture of the divers before they turned around.
–The Associated Press/CEDAR ATTANASIO and MICHAEL R. SISAK
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