Police arrested a 26-year-old man on firearms charges Monday and publicly identified him as a person involved in the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, who was shot to death on a busy sidewalk in midtown Manhattan last week.

New York police said the man was being held near Altoona, Pennsylvania, after an employee at a local McDonald’s thought he was suspicious and called police.

“He is currently believed to be representing our interest in the brazen, targeted assassination of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson last Wednesday in midtown Manhattan,” NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch said at a news conference alongside Mayor Eric Adams.

Tisch identified the person of interest as Luigi Mangione. The commissioner said he was carrying a three-page manifesto outlining his possible alleged “motivation and mindset” in the killing.

He has not yet been charged in Thompson’s death.

“We do not believe there are specific threats to any other individuals mentioned in this document, but it appears that he has some antipathy toward the American economy,” said Detective Chief Joe Kenny.

At the police station, officers discovered the man was carrying a weapon similar to the one used in Thompson’s killing, as well as a silencer and a fake New Jersey ID, police said. According to sources, the suspected shooter allegedly used a fake New Jersey ID when checking into a Manhattan hostel last month.

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Mangione had a ghost gun, a type of weapon that can be assembled at home from parts without a serial number, making it difficult to track down, investigators said.

Two senior law enforcement officials said the Altoona man being questioned had the name “Mark Rosario” on his fake NJ ID card. Three sources familiar with the matter said the suspected shooter checked into the hostel using a fake NJ ID card with the name “Mark Rosario.”

Mangione graduated at the top of his class in 2016 from Gilman School, an all-boys high school in Baltimore, Maryland. A spokesperson for the University of Pennsylvania confirmed that Mangione earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in computer science in 2020.

Police said the 26-year-old was born and raised in Maryland, has ties to San Francisco and a last known address in Honolulu, Hawaii.

Kenny said police did not know his name before Monday and that Mangione had no known prior arrests in the country.

Mangione was held in Pennsylvania on weapons charges and will eventually be extradited to New York to face charges in connection with Thompson’s death.

Looking for a murderer

Using surveillance cameras on almost every building and block, police were able to track the shooter’s movements.

They know that he ambushed Thompson at 6:44 a.m. as the manager arrived at the Hilton for his company’s annual investor conference, using a 9mm pistol similar to the weapons farmers use to kill animals, without a loud noise to cause. They know that ammunition found near Thompson’s body bore the words “delay,” “denial” and “dumping,” mimicking a phrase used by critics of the insurance industry.

Kenny said the fact that the shooter knew that UnitedHealthcare Group was holding a conference at the hotel and which route Thompson might take to get there suggested he may have been a disgruntled employee or customer.

Investigators know from surveillance video that the shooter fled into Central Park on a bicycle and parked it near 85th Street around 7 a.m.

He then walked a few blocks, got into a taxi and arrived at 7:30 a.m. at the George Washington Bridge bus station, which is near the northern tip of Manhattan and provides commuter service to New Jersey and Greyhound routes to Philadelphia, Boston and Washington.

Investigators don’t know what happened next. They are searching more surveillance videos, but have not yet found any video showing the shooter boarding a bus or leaving the train station.

Police used a video to determine that the shooter had been in the city for 10 days before the shooting. He arrived at Manhattan’s main bus station on a Greyhound bus from Atlanta. However, it is not clear whether he boarded there or at one of about half a dozen stops along the route.

Immediately afterward, he took a taxi near the Hilton and stayed there for about half an hour, Kenny said.

On the evening of his arrival, he took a taxi to the HI New York City Hostel around 11 p.m. There, while talking to a clerk in the lobby, he briefly pulled down his mask and smiled, giving investigators the glimpse they now rely on to identify and catch a killer.

NYPD investigators traveled to Atlanta to coordinate efforts there.