They knew this was the guy the manager had called about, Detwiler testified.
the video showed Detwiler asking, while Mangione watched from the defense table, dressed in a dark suit and open-necked off-white dress shirt.
“I knew it was him immediately,” Detwiler testified.
“I’m 100 percent sure that it’s him,” Detwiler testified he told the arriving lieutenant.
“He was surprised,” Detwiler testified of his boss.
While being frisked in a corner of a McDonald’s in Altoona, Pennsylvania, the suspect is anxious. His hands shake.
Both parties are lying: The suspect claims to be a “homeless” man named “Mark.”. ” The cops say it’s just an ID check.
Surrealistically, Christmas carols are playing on the restaurant’s sound system throughout, and one police officer is whistling along to keep everyone calm while they attempt to identify him.
Related video.
A Blackstone executive and a NYPD officer are among the four people killed in the Park Avenue shooting.
Dramatic police bodycam video of Luigi Mangione, screened for the first time Tuesday in a New York City courtroom, shows the 28-year-old’s December arrest as it has never been seen before.
He was soon turned over to New York authorities as a suspect in the murder of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson after being arrested on Pennsylvania weapons and identity-forgery charges.
“Stand up for us — put your hands on top of your head,” Altoona Police Officer Joseph Detwiler can be heard telling Mangione twice in the video, which is not being released to the public and could only be seen in court.
“You seem nervous right now,” the officer says next, as Mangione stands up and is patted down at 9:50 on a Monday morning — five days after Thompson’s murder on a midtown Manhattan sidewalk.
When the officer asks, “Why are you nervous?” Mangione, his hands atop his head, gives no answer.
“Take a seat. Sit down,” the officer tells him.
On the second day of an evidence-suppression hearing in a Manhattan state court, the video was shown for the majority of Tuesday morning and well into the afternoon. Detwiler, who was the first officer on the scene with his partner, told the story from the witness stand.
As they rolled up to the McDonald’s in their patrol car, Detwiler was thinking the job would be a waste of time, he testified.
During questioning by Assistant District Attorney Joel Seidemann, the lead state prosecutor, Detwiler stated on Tuesday, “I did not believe it was going to be the person that they said it was.”.
A very doubtful restaurant manager had called 911. According to Monday’s testimony, she had reluctantly called the police after patrons insisted that the man sitting in the back by the men’s room—whose face was hidden by a hat and medical mask—looked like “the CEO shooter” from the news.
The dispatcher was skeptical too, listing the call as “Priority: Low. “.
And on the way to the McDonald’s, Detwiler saw a text from his supervisor, Lt. Tom Hanley: “If you get the New York City shooter, I’ll buy you a hoagie. “.
Detwiler kept the patrol car’s sirens silent as he and his partner, Patrolman Tyler Frye, rolled into the parking lot.
Once inside, the two approached Mangione’s table, interrupting a meal of a breakfast sandwich and a hash brown.
They knew this was the guy the manager had called about, Detwiler testified. There was only one person in the restaurant wearing a mask.
“Yeah, we don’t wear masks,” in Altoona, Detwiler explained in his testimony. “We have antibodies. “.
“Can you pull your mask down?” the video showed Detwiler asking, while Mangione watched from the defense table, dressed in a dark suit and open-necked off-white dress shirt.
The video that was shown in court then captured Mangione’s full face as he complied, and that’s when everything changed.
As “Jingle Bell Rock” played on the McDonald’s speakers, the five-day manhunt that had captivated the country — involving hundreds of law enforcement personnel in New York City and beyond — had ended.
“I knew it was him immediately,” Detwiler testified.
It didn’t help that Mangione looked “nervous,” according to the officer on the stand, as soon as he inquired, “Were you up in New York recently?”. “I saw his fingers shaking a little bit,” he testified.
The evidence and statements that police obtained from Mangione during the thirty minutes that he was questioned and taken into custody in that McDonald’s are being contested by defense attorneys.
By the time Mangione was cuffed and led outside — with “Holly Jolly Christmas” playing on the restaurant sound system — a dozen cops had gathered in the restaurant.
The lieutenant who had promised Detwiler a hoagie was among them.
“I’m 100 percent sure that it’s him,” Detwiler testified he told the arriving lieutenant. Detwiler stated in his testimony that his boss was taken aback.
Prosecutors are trying to show that stopping, questioning, and searching Mangione and his belongings was proper, given the officers’ knowledge from the news media of the Thompson shooting suspect’s appearance and dangerousness.
Prosecutors say the backpack held incriminating writings and the murder weapon they hope to use against him at trial.
Defense lawyers, led by Karen Friedman Agnifilo, say police had no right to look inside Mangione’s backpack minutes before leaving the restaurant and hours before getting a search warrant.
During her cross-examination, Friedman Agnifilo repeatedly pointed Dewitler to portions of his bodycam video showing that police allowed customers to walk past them to use the men’s and women’s restrooms, apparently unconcerned about any danger from the bag.
Defense lawyers are also arguing that Mangione was improperly questioned before he was read his Miranda rights. They want the judge to decide that nothing in the backpack and any remarks he made will be used against him in court.
On Tuesday, Detwiler described asking limited questions focused on Mangione’s identification and potential imminent dangerousness, not the facts of the case itself.
“Mark,” Mangione told police at first, when asked his name, according to the video. He responded, “Homeless,” when asked for his address.
“Did you ever mention the shooting in New York City?” Seidemann asked. “No,” Detwiler answered.
Mangione’s hearing has already featured testimony by five law enforcement and civilian witnesses involved in the manhunt and the Pennsylvania arrest. It is scheduled to continue Thursday and Friday — and possibly into next week.
New York Supreme Court Justice Gregory Carro has not said when he will decide if any evidence must be barred from an eventual trial. Judges have yet to set trial dates for Mangione’s federal and state murder trials.
This story has been updated to include details from the afternoon testimony.
