US Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said the rhetoric on social media following the killing of healthcare CEO Brian Thompson in New York earlier this month was “deeply troubling.”
“It speaks to what's really going on here in this country, and unfortunately we're seeing that manifest in the violence, the domestic violent extremism that exists,” he told CBS' “Face the Nation” on Sunday.
Some on social media celebrated Luigi Mangione, the man accused of fatally shooting Thompson, and expressed their anger at America's private health insurance companies.
Mayorkas said he was “disturbed by the heroism attributed to the alleged killer of a father of two on the streets of New York.”
Thompson, the 50-year-old CEO of the largest US health insurer United Healthcare, was shot to death outside a Manhattan hotel early on December 4, sparking a massive manhunt for the killer.
Mangione, 26, was arrested days later in Pennsylvania and flown to New York, where he faces federal and state charges, including first-degree murder in furtherance of terrorism.
Investigators accuse him of carrying out a targeted killing, citing evidence indicating a long-standing hostility towards the US healthcare sector. On social media, Mangione's support was often accompanied by grievances and complaints with the health insurance industry.
“We have been concerned about rhetoric on social media for some time,” Mayorkas said Sunday. “We saw narratives of hate. We saw narratives of anti-government sentiment. We saw personal grievances in the language of violence.”
Mayorkas, whose Department of Homeland Security is partly responsible for protecting Americans from domestic terrorism, said his department sees a “broad range of narratives” that “drive some individuals to violence.”
“It is something we are very concerned about,” he added. “This is an increased threat environment.”
But the 65-year-old, whose term as head of the ministry will end next month, stressed that Thompson's killing was “individual actions (and) does not reflect American public opinion.”
Mr. Mangione will remain behind bars in New York, where his lawyers said last week that they would not apply for bail. He is being held in federal custody at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, the same facility where Sean “Diddy” Combs is being held.
Law enforcement sources told the BBC's US partner CBS that he would likely be assigned a roommate and receive daily visits from medical and psychological services.
Although New York does not have the death penalty, he faces four federal charges, including murder and stalking, which could make him eligible for the penalty. He also faces multiple government charges.
He is expected to be arraigned on those state charges in New York on Monday. Mangione faces 11 charges, including first-degree murder and murder as a terrorist offense.
