Overview

The Luigi Mangione New York City Perp Walk, also known as Luigi Mangione Police Escort, refers to Luigi Mangione, the suspected killer of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, being escorted by FBI, New York City police officers and NYC Mayor Eric Adams after being extradited to Manhattan on December 19th, 2024. A series of photographs from Getty Images showed Mangione in the center, wearing an orange jumpsuit, surrounded on all sides by law enforcement. The images went viral on social media sites like Twitter / X where many called them the "hardest" images or Pics That Goes Hard. Many people believed that the photos made Mangione look cooler which seemed antithetical to how law enforcement wanted to portray him. Overall, the intensity of the law enforcement presence caused outrage as many believed that Mangione was being treated unfairly in comparison to other criminals who committed more heinous crimes.

Background

On December 19th, 2024, Luigi Mangione arrived in New York City for a federal court appearance.^[1] On the day, X^[2] user @Acyn, among others, tweeted CNN's broadcast of his arrival. Law enforcement conducted a "perp walk" for the press, including FBI, NYPD and NYC Mayor Eric Adams escorting Mangione from a helicopter to a car (shown below).

Luigi Mangione arrives in New York City pic.twitter.com/oZeQe1Vona

— Acyn (@Acyn) December 19, 2024

Multiple photographs of the perp walk went viral on social media, largely taken by Bloomberg and Getty Images photographers. One image showed Mangione in the center being escorted by law enforcement on all sides (shown below).^[3]

Online Reaction

On December 19th, 2024, X^[4] user @antipiker tweeted a cropped version of the abovementioned photo, captioning it, "This made me so emotional like free him :(" receiving over 108,000 likes in a day (shown below).

The cropped image was used en masse going forward, like later on December 19th, X^[5] user @LolOverruled tweeted it, captioned, "Late contender for hardest image of the year," amassing over 371,000 likes in a day (shown below).

Similarly, on December 19th, X^[6] user @skyler_higley tweeted the photo, comparing it to the photo of Donald Trump moments after the assassination attempt on his life showing his raised fist. @skyler_higley wrote, "When that Trump picture was supposedly the 'hardest image of the year' we couldn’t even conceive of this," gaining over 233,000 likes in a day (shown below).

Others discussed why law enforcement would conduct such a populated perp walk. For instance, on December 19th, 2024, X^[7] user @M1das_OW2 quote tweeted @antipiker's post, asking, "Why do they keep accidentally making him look like the coolest person alive, don’t they want us to hate him?" amassing over 47,000 likes in a day (shown below).

Others made passes at NYC Mayor Eric Adams' appearance in the photograph. For instance, on December 19th, X^[8] user @flowrmeadow tweeted, "Did Eric Adams really need to be there lmao." Later, X^[9] user @JeffSchuhrke quoted the post and named Eric Adams' Indictment as a reason why the perp walk was a failure, amassing over 148,000 likes in a day (shown below).

The photo of Luigi Mangione being escorted by police also went viral on Reddit when Redditor^[10] Fun_Income_4857 shared it to /r/pics on December 19th, 2024. The post received over 96,000 upvotes in a day.

The photographs also went viral on TIkTok, such as in a video shared by TikToker^[11] @luigispisserholder on December 19th, which received over 96,500 plays and 10,400 likes in a day (shown below).

Mangione's perp walk was compared to other perp walks during the same timeframe. For instance, on December 19th, 2024, X^[12] user @SleuthieGoosie compared the event to the perp walk of Bryan Kohberger, the convicted killer in the 2022 University of Idaho Murders. The tweet received over 6,000 likes in a day (shown below).

Various Reactions

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External References