The media circus came to town last week when the news media and top New York City officials welcomed killer-idol Luigi Mangione to the Big Apple.
Mangione, the 26-year-old accused of gunning down UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson in the heart of Manhattan on December 4, arrived by helicopter at 1 p.m. New York time last Thursday, touching down at New York’s Downtown Manhattan Heliport on the edge of the Financial District.
Wearing a prisoner’s orange jumpsuit and handcuffs, he was escorted by a heavily armed phalanx of NYPD officers and plainclothes detectives from the helipad to a waiting black SUV.
The high-profile helicopter flight was the last leg of Mangione’s journey from Huntingdon, Pennsylvania to Manhattan.
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The attention paid to this newly minted celebrity murder suspect was breathtaking, including live coverage of his entire journey to Lower Manhattan, starting with his exit from a Pennsylvania jail to board a flight to Long Island MacArthur Airport in Ronkonkoma.
Once there, he transferred to a waiting helicopter to be whisked to Lower Manhattan. Wait, why couldn’t they have just taken a bus, like every other perp transferring from someplace else?
The answer is: This was a perp walk like few others. Most of them are for much lower-profile suspects in police custody, whose exits from precinct houses are documented by local newsies, who have been told in advance when to show up.
But Mangione is no lower-rung perp. Thus, his landing in Manhattan drew proportional attention.
Was he treated like a celebrity? Yes, at least in part. He was cuffed, of course, and the orange jumpsuit was not exactly red-carpet worthy.
I never heard anyone praise the jumpsuit and declare orange is the new black, but most reports made a point of noting that the suspect later changed out of the orange outfit into a sweater, khaki pants and loafers -- from perp to prep, one might say (although nobody said it, to my knowledge).
As I often say when the media pulls out all the stops to swarm a hot news story, one can hardly blame them. This is a hot story.
At the same time, one has to wonder if the story maintains its heat only because the media continues to fan the flames.
In this case, as in many others, the media seems to once again be aiding and abetting the elevation of this guy into something more than he is.
But what about the spectacle of New York Mayor Eric Adams and NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch being there for the perp’s arrival?
Certainly, they did not stride up to him with wide smiles on their faces to present the proverbial key to the city.
Their presence and their statements were meant to convey the commitment of the city’s law enforcement apparatus to maintaining law and order, even if detectives sometimes have to travel 280 miles to Altoona to do so.
But in so doing, they made a visual, made-for-TV statement that they likely had not intended. The message was: This suspect must be really important to draw the in-person attention of the mayor and police commissioner who, one might assume, had much better things to do.
After all, they did not assist the transport process in any way. All they did was take in the spectacle and then make some remarks to the media -- which was likely a big reason why they showed up in the first place.