'Stay vigilant': Ex-FBI profiler warns to expect CEO shooting copycats

A former FBI profiler warned that copycat killers may be motivated to act after the reaction to the assassination of a health care executive.

United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson was gunned down last week in Midtown Manhattan, and many social media users justified — or even lauded — the killing. Suspect Luigi Mangione has been celebrated as something like a folk hero, and a pair of experts appeared on CNN to analyze the public reaction.

"These health insurance companies, the medical systems have broken down in many ways," said clinical psychologist Jeff Gardere. "We feel disaffected, confused, angry, and those are very appropriate emotions to have because this is a real issue.

"But it's something else to then say whomever this killer is, we are going to support that killer, we're going to be his fans, and that really does show the state of where we are as a society, that we have all these grievances and anger, and we project those on to other people, and that's not healthy for us."

"We need to have this empathy for people who have been killed, such as Brian Thompson," Gardere added, "and at the same time can look for legislation to make things better for us dealing with these health insurance companies."

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The public reaction could have even darker implications, according to retired FBI agent Gregg McGary.

"The issue of the contagion factor, the copycat thing, the thing we can be most the most important thing now is to be vigilant and for everybody to be alert," McGary said.

"Anybody around you who seems to be embracing this ideology and thinking that violence is good and so forth, because we know that in the wake of these nationally publicized events like this, the next week or two, there's a higher probability that somebody else is going to act out. So let's work to prevent this from happening again, just stay vigilant."

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