Moments after Luigi Mangione was handcuffed at a Pennsylvania McDonald’s, a police officer searching his backpack found a loaded gun magazine wrapped in a pair of underwear.
The discovery, recounted in court Monday as Mangione fights to keep evidence out of his New York murder case, convinced police in Altoona, Pennsylvania, that he was the man wanted in the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson in Manhattan five days earlier.
Ridiculous. There’s like ten thousand people who can testify that he was with them at the time of the shooting.
Not only did they search the bag without a warrant…
Wasser resumed her search after an 11-minute drive to the police station and almost immediately found the gun and silencer — the latter discovery prompting her to laugh and exclaim “nice,” according to body-worn camera footage. Wasser said the gun was in a side pocket that she hadn’t searched at McDonald’s.
She had the bag in her car for over ten minutes, with not witnesses or video, and then after resuming the incomplete search almost immediately found the gun and silencer. My read is that there is every possibility that the gun and silencer could have been placed in the bag during that transport.
An officer concerned about a bomb accidentally being brought to the police station (again) would hardly forget to look in the bag’s side pockets. Nor is it reasonable to suggest that they could overlook a gun and silencer in the initial search of the bag.
I remember OJ Simpson getting off a double-murder because there was a remote possibility that someone (actually several hundred people) orchestrated a conspiracy to plant evidence.
He stabbed two people to death and there was DNA evidence tying him to the crime scene.
On body-worn camera video played in court, Wasser was heard saying she wanted to check the bag for bombs before removing it from the McDonald’s. Despite that concern, she acknowledged in her testimony Monday that police never cleared the restaurant of customers or employees.
Unless they had probable cause to believe there was a bomb, that’s absolutely no excuse for a search. Might as well just get rid of the fourth amendment altogether if police can just imagine the possibility of a dangerous object and excuse searching anything at any time.
If she really thought there was a bomb, she is recklessly handling this herself instead of calling in a properly trained and equipped bomb squad. But far worse, she claims she needed to check it so as not bring a bomb to the station, but apparently has no problem potentially handling a bomb around a bunch of innocent bystanders.
That she is lying in order to justify what she knew to be an illegal search is actually the least damning interpretation. Either way though, the evidence should be thrown out along with her career.
I replied at about the same time as you, with similar comment, but I wanted to add that she didn’t ‘find’ the gun and silencer until she took the bag on an 11 minute ride to the station in her car. How do you search a bag for a possible bomb and miss a handgun and silencer? That is an incompetent search or the gun wasn’t there during the initial search and was added later.
That’s the bullshit issue with probable cause. A “hunch” is proof enough and can range from good instincts to racism.
Not always. Well, maybe it depends on the jurisdiction. But, for example, stopping and searching cars has a lot more leeway than searching a house. Maybe searching people in public is the same? I remember New York has/had that stop and frisk law.
Of course I am not arguing against you, as I agree that it’s all bullshit and unconstitutional. This case especially. People have gotten off for much less technicalities, and yet Mangione is still on trial. He will never see a fair trial.
Different levels of search. A “weapons pat down” does not constitute a search requiring a warrant or probable cause. Even then a weapons pat down can only be initiated on a detained or arrested person. The former simply requires “reasonable and articulable suspicion” that crime is afoot. That’s a lower bar than probable cause but should be more than just a hunch.
“A loaded gun magazine” aka just a magazine, you don’t describe a magazine as loaded. They just wanted to use the word loaded to make it seem more dangerous so the jury sees him as violent
Magazines are actually empty by default
A box is empty by default. A magazine being filled with ammo is not any way a danger. If I put a filled magazine in the same room as my puppy, nothing is going to happen minus a potential choking hazard if they manage to remove a bullet.
A filled magazine is not a danger and should not be described as “loaded” the same way a “loaded” firearm is an actual present danger.
Mine are not.
Yours are plastic
Wouldn’t the bullets that killed the CEO be in the corpse and not Luigi’s bag? Sounds like exculpatory evidence to me…
The scalpel would be in the surgeon’s hand. This sounds like circumstantial evidence.
The circumcision would be in the Mohel’s tip box. This sounds like prima facie evidence.
Exactly what I had in mind.
Never eat gribbinis from a Mohel, it’s so chewy.
Wasn’t the official story such that a search at the scene of arrest found nothing, but suddenly the gun was found on search once the bag was in police custody in a second location? It’s hard to keep track of the truth in 2025.
After an 11-minute car ride with no video. Suddenly, there’s a gun in the side pocket, one that was conveniently overlooked before.
No way to know if those bullets and other objects on the bag were there or were planted by the cops.
This. They didn’t find the gun or the manifesto until after the bag was taken to the station. Haven’t seen the bodycam video, but cops carry 9mm pistols, so it would be incredibly easy for them to plant a mag during his being detained. A gun would be easy to plant once at the station, where they also just happened to ‘find’ his ‘manifesto’.
My hunch is that the shooter, whoever it was, dumped the gun, silencer, and manifesto somewhere and the cops found it. When they decided they had the shooter in custody, they ‘found’ the evidence in his possession.
Why go through the trouble of makkng a “ghost gun” if you’re going to keep stuff like this? It doesn’t really make sense.
Could this dude be any more photogenic? Goddamn
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Cursed
Wait, doesn’t everyone bring a loaded ghost gun to McDonald’s?
Bullets in a magazine is NOT a loaded gun. The magazine must be in the gun for it to be considered loaded.
Yup! Pretty much everywhere it’s common knowledge and many times a fact in court cases that if the loaded magazine is not in the firearm then the firearm is not loaded.
Just goes to show how many of these news outlets are bending the facts to make him look guilty. Something I’m sure his legal team will point out and already have a few times.
Damn, i have a loaded magazine in my backpack, i guess I should be a suspect.
Dude you don’t have to put your load IN the magazine, it gets smelly. You use a sock for that! Or that’s what I gather from American movies from the 90s anyway.
“No, I am Spartacus!”
That photo is epic
