Shortly after Luigi Mangione was arrested Monday in connection with last week’s fatal shooting of the UnitedHealthcare CEO, many criticized the news media for highlighting a video of Mangione’s high school valedictorian speech, arguing that such coverage reflected a pattern of framing white murder suspects as ones deserving of sympathy.
Critics pointed to the stark contrast in how Black suspects are vilified in the media and often portrayed as public enemies, while white murder suspects are frequently coddled in the press, with images or stories showcasing their education and achievements, and white neighbors and relatives often claiming they would never hurt a fly.
And now again, the same disparities have emerged in Mangione’s case — reigniting the persistent debate surrounding systemic racism in policing and whitewashed media coverage.
“Don’t you love the way they portray white killers like this latest guy and Kyle Rittenhouse?” author and political commentator Sophia A. Nelson said on X, formerly Twitter, referring to Rittenhouse’s acquittal in the 2020 shooting deaths of two men and the wounding of a third during a tumultuous night of protests in Kenosha, Wisconsin.
Don’t you love the way they portray white killers like this latest guy and Kyle Rittenhouse? And the man on the train who killed the black man in New York. It’s just disturbing. Normalizing this all American boy. Wow! https://t.co/S6BllCkVzz
— Sophia A. Nelson (@IAmSophiaNelson) December 9, 2024
She then alluded to Daniel Penny, the white former Marine who was acquitted in Manhattan court Monday following last year’s chokehold death of 30-year-old Jordan Neely, a homeless Blackman with a history of mental illness.
“And the man on the train who killed the Black man in New York. It’s just disturbing. Normalizing this all American boy. Wow!” Nelson exclaimed, leading to a fiery debate in the comments section.
“Also talking about how he had such a promising future….like, WHAT???!!!” one person complained about the soft coverage on Mangione.
“See it’s not white working class anxiety. It’s white supremacy. The media drives it,” another person noted. “They would not even say it was a white male they used the term light skinned. They continue to literally whitewash angry white men. Why?”
In response, Nelson chimed in again, blaming billionaire monopolists who she claimed were running the country. “Because they own everything,” she wrote, adding, “See Trump, Musk. Miller, Bannon, Hegseth, Stone, etc.”
A comparison was also drawn to the September 4 mass shooting at Apalachee High School in Georgia, where early reports inaccurately identified the shooter as a Black student.
However, it was later revealed that the suspect was actually a 14-year-old white student with bleach blond hair, who allegedly opened fire, killing two classmates, one of them Black, and two teachers, while injuring several others.
“Yep. I think about the black child killed in school shooting here in Georgia and they called him the shooter when they first reported it. They think we’re inherently violent.”
Back in the Manhattan courtroom on Monday, as Daniel Penny’s not-guilty verdict was announced, the victim’s father, Andre Zachery, along with other family members erupted emotionally and had to be escorted out of the courtroom, where chants of “no justice, no peace,” echoed in the street.
“This is America. That is the sound of Black pain,” one person noted, according to NBC News.
Penny’s case also underscored the current state of racial divisions in America, with recurring patterns in which Black people are often demonized, while white people are depicted in a more favorable light.
Following the deadly encounter on a Manhattan subway train on May 1, 2023, most Black people viewed Neely as the victim of an unjust system, while describing Penny as callous and criminal for holding Neely in a headlock until he lost consciousness. Penny’s mostly white supporters, however, argue that he acted selflessly to protect other passengers when Neely began shouting and behaving erratically.
Meanwhile, New York prosecutors filed murder charges against Luigi Mangione hours after he was taken into custody Monday at a McDonald’s in Altoona, Pennsylvania, where an alert employee recognized him in the lobby and called police.
His arrest ended a nationwide manhunt for the killer five days after UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson was gunned down outside an investor conference in Midtown Manhattan on Dec. 3.
Investigators discovered the words “Deny,” “Defend,” and “Depose” etched on the shell casings, which pointed to a possible vendetta against the insurance industry.
For days, social media lit up with speculation about the killer’s identity, with many people praising the shooter’s actions as those of a political revolutionary striking back against a corrupt corporate system.
Within minutes of the arrest, the media already had Mangione pegged as a 26-year-old Ivy League graduate from Maryland.
Soon after this, reports highlighted Mangione’s background as a graduate of Gilman School, a prestigious all-boys institution in Baltimore, where he earned the title of valedictorian in his senior year. A 2016 video quickly surfaced, capturing the moment when Mangione stepped onto the stage at his high school graduation to deliver an 8-minute valedictory speech.
The chilling video offered a glimpse into the suspect’s past from eight years earlier, highlighting a sharp contrast to the serious murder charges he now faces.
However, news reports, critics argued, became fixated on Mangione’s positive traits, while touting his academic resume: a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania with a master’s and bachelor’s degree in computer science, along with a minor in mathematics.
The now-viral video of the auspicious graduation ceremony painted a very different picture of Mangione in the public eye despite the serious charges he faced, including two counts of second-degree criminal possession of a weapon, one count of second-degree possession of a forged document, and one count of third-degree criminal possession of a firearm, according to court papers.
Police identified the weapon found with Mangione as a “ghost gun,” an untraceable firearm capable of firing a 9 mm round. He was assigned a public defender at his first court appearance, according to CNN.
Mangione’s treatment in the media also recalled the case of Dylan Roof, whose arrest following the massacre of nine Black churchgoers at Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina, also sparked widespread controversy.
After Roof confessed, he told the arresting officers that he was hungry, and they reportedly took him to a Burger King and bought him a meal. This decision drew outrage, with many believing the same privilege would never have been extended to a Black suspect.
Some accused news reporters of going out of their way to find sources from Mangione’s past who would portray him in a positive light, aiming to cast another white man as a sympathetic figure.
A former classmate from the University of Pennsylvania, who said they studied alongside Mangione, described him as a “totally normal guy.”
Elsewhere, the head of the private school from which Mangione graduated sent an email to parents and members of the school community, describing the news as “deeply distressing.”
“This is deeply distressing news on top of an already awful situation. Our hearts go out to everyone affected,” Gilman School Headmaster Henry P.A. Smyth said in the email.
Police uncovered a darker side to the suspect through a Goodreads profile, where he revealed having read the 1995 anti-technology manifesto written by Ted Kaczynski, the infamous Unabomber. The mathematician-turned-domestic terrorist was known for sending deadly bombs through the mail between 1978 and 1995. In his profile, Mangione praised Kaczynski as a revolutionary figure, further raising concerns about his ideological motivations.
