Here’s What Altoona Police Told the NYPD Upon Luigi Mangione’s McDonald’s Capture

A supervisory officer from Altoona, Pa., tried, but initially failed, to reach the New York Police Department last December to report that his colleagues believed they were at a local McDonald’s with the most wanted person in America: the gunman who shot UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson.

“We might have the shooter,” Lt. William Hanelly could be heard telling a dispatcher on a recording played in State Supreme Court in Manhattan on Thursday, Dec. 11 — the sixth day of pre-trial evidence suppression hearings in Mangione’s state murder case.

“The shooter from the UHC thing,” he also said, using an abbreviation for UnitedHealthcare, after the dispatcher sought clarity about which shooting he was referring to.

Mangione has pleaded not guilty to state and federal murder charges accusing him of fatally shooting Thompson on the morning of Dec. 4, 2024, outside a hotel in Midtown Manhattan as the chief executive arrived for an investor gathering.

Hanelly testified Thursday that while he was driving to the McDonald’s — where some of his colleagues had responded to a call about a customer that resembled the suspect whose images had been widely circulated — he used his cellphone to try to get in direct contact with the NYPD.

He was initially unsuccessful in doing so, but he was able to connect with a dispatcher and inform them of his location, relaying that Altoona was about 5 hours from New York City.

Hanelly was the highest-ranking officer at the McDonald’s on Dec. 9, 2024, where Mangione was ultimately arrested on suspicion of forgery for having given a fake name and driver’s license to authorities that day, he testified. Hanelly is the eleventh witness prosecutors have called to testify.

Mangione’s attorneys are arguing that evidence recovered on the day of his arrest — including a magazine, a gun, a silencer and a notebook of Mangione’s writings — should not be admissible in his state trial. They said the evidence should be barred because police in Altoona did not have a warrant and lacked the grounds for a warrantless search. Hannelly addressed claims head on during his testimony.

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He said his colleague, patrolman Christy Wasser, “had every right” to search Mangione’s backpack, and did not need a warrant to do so based on Pennsylvania law.

Hanelly testified that he later received a call back from a detective in the NYPD’s Homicide Unit, who asked for the address of the Altoona Police Department headquarters where Mangione was taken after his arrest, because New York City officers were en route.