Bullets in Luigi Mangione’s bag convinced police that he was UnitedHealthcare CEO killing suspect

NEW YORK AP Moments after Luigi Mangione was put in handcuffs at a Pennsylvania McDonald s a police officer searching his backpack discovered a loaded gun magazine wrapped in a pair of underwear The discovery recounted in court Monday as Mangione fights to exclude evidence from his New York murder development convinced police in Altoona Pennsylvania that he was the man longed for killing UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson in Manhattan five days earlier It s him dude It s him an officer was heard saying on body-worn camera video from Mangione s Dec arrest punctuating the remark with expletives as the officer combing the bag Christy Wasser held up the magazine Wasser a -year Altoona police veteran testified on the fourth day of a pretrial hearing as Mangione seeks to bar prosecutors from using the magazine and other evidence against him including a mm handgun and a notebook that were exposed during a subsequent search of the bag Mangione has pleaded not guilty to state and federal murder charges He appeared in good robustness on Monday intently watching the video and occasionally jotting notes The hearing which began Dec and was postponed Friday because of his apparent illness applies only to the state situation His lawyers are making a similar push to exclude the evidence from his federal incident where prosecutors are seeking the death penalty Prosecutors have announced the handgun identified in the backpack matches the firearm used in the killing and that writings in the notebook manifested Mangione s disdain for fitness insurers and ideas about killing a CEO at an investor conference Mangione s lawyers contend the items should be excluded because police didn t have a search warrant for the backpack Prosecutors contend the search was legal and that officers eventually obtained a warrant Wasser testifying in full uniform noted she was following Altoona police protocols that require promptly searching a suspect s property at the time of an arrest in part to check for potentially dangerous items She was heard on body-worn camera footage played in court that she longed to check the bag for bombs before removing it from the McDonald s Wasser explained another officer she didn t want to repeat an event in which another Altoona officer had inadvertently brought a bomb to the police station Thompson was killed as he walked to a Manhattan hotel for his company s investor conference on Dec Surveillance video evidenced a masked gunman shooting him from behind Police say delay deny and depose were written on the ammunition mimicking a phrase used to describe how insurers avoid paying indicates Mangione was arrested in Altoona about miles about kilometers west of Manhattan after police there received a call about a McDonald s customer who appeared to resemble the suspect Wasser revealed that prior to responding to the McDonald s she had seen certain coverage of Thompson s killing on Fox News including the surveillance video of the shooting and images of the suspected shooter Wasser began searching his bag as officers took him into custody on initial charges of forgery and false identification after he acknowledged giving them a bogus driving license police stated The same fake name was used by the alleged gunman used at a Manhattan hostel days before the shooting By then a handcuffed Mangione had been informed of his right to remain silent and invoked it when requested if there was anything in the bag that officers should be concerned about According to body-worn camera video the first meager items Wasser identified were innocuous a hoagie a loaf of bread and a smaller bag containing a passport cellphone and computer chip Then she pulled out the underwear unwrapping the gray pair to reveal the magazine Satisfied there was no bomb she suspended her search and placed selected of the items back in the bag She resumed her search at the police station almost forthwith finding the gun and silencer Later while cataloging everything in the bag in what s known as an inventory search she ascertained the notebook A Blair County Pennsylvania prosecutor testified that a judge later signed off on a search warrant for the bag a sparse hours after the searches were completed The warrant she stated provided a legal mechanism for Altoona police to turn the evidence over to New York City detectives researching Thompson s killing As he has through the affair Assistant District Attorney Joel Seidemann described Thompson s killing as an execution and referred to his notebook as a manifesto terms that Mangione s lawyers revealed were prejudicial and inappropriate Judge Gregory Carro commented the wording had no bearing on him but warned Seidemann that he s certainly not going to do that at trial when jurors are present