Lugi Mangione news with ABC News Law Enforcement Contributur Don Mihalek

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Don Mahalak is joining us now ABC News law enforcement
contributor and retired senior Secret Service agent, and Don, welcome
again to the Mark Blazer Show.

Speaker 2 (00:09):
How you been sir, Good Mark?

Speaker 3 (00:11):
And I love the Van Halen Bumper music.

Speaker 4 (00:13):
Ah.

Speaker 1 (00:13):
Yes, it's one of my top three favorite bands of
all time, maybe even my favorite. So yeah, I have
thank you for pointing that out. And yeah, that's a
that's a good one. Using a drill at the beginning
of that in Eddie van Halen's pickups so he can
get that sound. Yeah, I love it. It is really

(00:35):
really good stuff. So I like this when if you
see something, say, something pays off in this in this
situation and all kinds of different stuff is beginning to
kind of develop with this Luigi Mangioni and being now
I believe he's been charged with this or is it?

Speaker 4 (00:56):
What is?

Speaker 2 (00:57):
Do you know the very latest on that? By chance?

Speaker 3 (01:00):
Yeah, so you know, he was transitting on a bus
and they stopped in Altoona. He got off the bus,
he apparently walked into McDonald's to buy something to eat.
He had a mask on because post COVID, everybody's afraid
to challenge anybody wearing a mask, which is ironic because
before COVID, if you were a mask in public places,
it was actually considered a crime in many places. So

(01:22):
one of the alert employees in a McDonald's who's being
held as a hero right now, saw him recognize this
photo from the photos we've all seen across the news.
They called Altuna police. Altuona Police rolled up, grabbed him,
identified him as a potential suspect. He had a gun,
a silencer, some writings on him, the fake Jersey ID

(01:44):
he used in New York City to check into the hostel,
so they detained him. They contacted NYPD. NYPD sent some
detectives out there. But right now he's being held on
a Pennsylvania state charges of gun possession, an illegal ID
or fake ID, and being a part of having elements

(02:06):
of a crime in his possession. So he's being held
on a Pennsylvania state charge, but he's supposed to go
for an extradition hearing to New York because I'm sure
the New York d A's Office, if they haven't already,
is going to file charges against him in New York,
which I'm sure Pennsylvania then will not wave off. And
I'm sure, they'll extradite him to New York to face
the homicide charges in New York, but then Pennsylvania might

(02:29):
get a piece of him down a road too.

Speaker 1 (02:31):
Yeah, it's interesting to the angle of you know, you
doing this report with regard to the digital distribution got
Mangione's photo to the masses and quick identification as a result,
because you couldn't really look at anything social media, of course,
anything on TV as far as news goes and all

(02:53):
that without seeing at least a partial this guy's face. Partially,
we didn't really see any full There might have been
some of that out there, but you know, you saw
a part of that. But now he's gaining sympathizers as well.
And what are your thoughts on that.

Speaker 3 (03:10):
Well, I think it's pretty said that anybody would sympathize
with somebody that commits cold blood and murder. And this
is where the Internet can be both a plus and
a minus. So you have the fact that we were
able to socialize the individuals Farda across the Internet, across
news media streams. Almost everybody had some type of a
photo of this individuals that could help identify them, which

(03:32):
was critical in this case because they had the watforces,
and I had to piece video footage together and had
to do some video enhancements to get some clear resolution
phurows to pass out to the community. But separately, you know,
you've got the dark corners of the Internet or people
who are savistatic, because let's face is, there's a lot
of people have battles with their healthcare companies and a
lot of corners of the nation. Healthcare is a tough

(03:55):
thing for people to access, and there's some real negative
feelings against the health care industry. But irrespective of that,
you have an individual who was working hard, who was
minding his own business, who was cold blood and assassinated
on the streets of Manhattan in the middle of the day,
and that is unacceptable and wrong any which way you

(04:15):
slice it.

Speaker 1 (04:16):
Hey, so, based on your training and so on, when
you look at the video of the way that this
played out, people talk about his gun jammed, they're calling
it a ghost gun. At this point, do you have
thoughts on that stuff? Because is it really a ghost gun?
Because he put it together? I mean, we know, I
guess at this point they're saying there's no serial number

(04:39):
or something along those lines, that he built the gun
do you think that's the correct terminology, like calling it
a ghost gun? And I know we're kind of we
might be splitting hairs a little bit here, but what
was your assessment when you watched that video, given your
training and so on.

Speaker 3 (04:52):
Done So, one thing that was clear is he clearly
did some level of planning to commit this attack. I
mean his attack strategy, his mapping of the subjects movements,
his waiting, his escape plan. Clearly he did some extensive planning.
I think he laid some of that out in this
notebook or this manifesto that they found. He talks about

(05:13):
the planning he did or what things he did in
order to execute this crime. As far as the weapon itself,
it's considered a ghost gun from my understanding and from
some of the reporting, because there's no serial number on
the gun. So a weapon with no serial number is
generally considered a ghost gun by the ATF because of
the fact there's no way to track the firearm. From

(05:33):
what I've seen in the fardas this is purely just
my observations and I could be totally off base, it
looks like a glock type weapon with a silencer, and
he probably had some problems firing the weapon looking at
the video, just because maybe the silencer and the weapon
itself didn't match up right and caused some jamming. I'm
no expert and fire arms itself, but just from my

(05:55):
experience in training, that's what it looked like to me.
So it's going to be. So the gun is gonau
an ability to track it backwards right.

Speaker 1 (06:03):
Retired senior Secret Service agent and ABC News law enforcement
contributor Don Mahaalik and.

Speaker 2 (06:09):
Don will cut you loose.

Speaker 1 (06:10):
I know you got a bunch of these, a bunch
of different people to talk to you today, but we
appreciate you jumping on man.

Speaker 3 (06:15):
Thank you, thanks for having me Mark.

Speaker 2 (06:17):
You got it, Don, thank you.

Speaker 3 (06:19):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (06:19):
So there it is from a guy who uh has
had a lot of training and clearly was you know,
as far as that goes a senior Secret Service agent,
he's been around these kind of situations and people who
do this kind of stuff for It's interesting to hear
his kind of take on that.

Speaker 4 (06:37):
I didn't want to interrupt him because he's an ABC
News contributor, but from another recognized national news source, they're
referring to the gun as a three D printed gun.

Speaker 1 (06:45):
Now I heard that they're they're speculating or they have confirmed.

Speaker 4 (06:49):
That they are saying of a three D printed handgun
and silencer that Altuna officers found in his backpack. They're
not saying believe to be that you're saying it is okay,
so that you know, that would explain the whole ghost
gun reference. And apparently while he was in the courtroom
he did say he's challenging his extradition to New York.
Thirty days is what the Pennsylvania judge has given them

(07:11):
to get their extradition paperwork together. So we could be
looking at two months before this geek is back in
New York City facing I actually want Alvin Bragg to
get his hands on him. Let's let him be zealous
about somebody who needs to be zealous. But we could
be looking at a couple of months before he leaves
Pennsylvania and goes back to New York.

Speaker 1 (07:28):
Also, what I think is interesting about this story, We've
you know, heard Altuona a lot Altuna in Pennsylvania, the
McDonald's and Altuona, And as this whole thing kind of
went down, it was somebody who saw something and said
something at this McDonald's in Altuna, somebody that works there.
Will they get the reward money? Now, we talked to

(07:52):
just quickly about it yesterday ten thousand.

Speaker 2 (07:54):
I also saw there was another reward.

Speaker 1 (07:57):
I think of fifty thousand and so a couple of
different entities were offering that from what I read earlier today, And.

Speaker 4 (08:06):
It was a single employee at the McDonald's that made
this call. Yeah, so yeah, they should get whatever reward
was offered.

Speaker 1 (08:12):
Well, look, he gave them information that led to the
arrest of the guy. Yeah, boom, that checks all the boxes.
So he better be getting that money. It's gonna be
a merry Christmas for him. What kind of I bring
this up because now what happened was people jumped on
yelp and started trashing this McDonald's.

Speaker 4 (08:31):
Stop it and they did, and for turn.

Speaker 1 (08:34):
For turning him in. So what they've done is, according
to this article, the recurring theme for.

Speaker 2 (08:40):
The reviews is rats. That this McDonald's is infested with rats.

Speaker 1 (08:44):
Is in you know, rat bastards, people who rat people out,
if you will. And this guy called because he thought
he recognized this guy, and so people are It took
a while, but I believe yelp has since taken down?
What was put up about this particul killer McDonalds. Think
about this for a second. If you own a McDonald's
or a couple of those, typically people who own those

(09:06):
usually own several of those McDonald's, and you know those
reviews that is that could be the life's blood or
the downfall of your business. That stuff is for real.
And so people jumped on there and started doing that.
Full of rats, untrustworthy staff, nobody stays in their lane.

(09:27):
Somebody said mcdiarrhea of the mouth here. Somebody else wrote,
would not recommend unsafe foods served by unsafe people. Curious
what insurance plans employees get working there at McDonald's. I mean,
this McDonald's location is dealing with a serious rat problem.
They have rats working the register. This is all on yelps.

Speaker 4 (09:50):
People will post this kind of garbage out there on
social media with absolutely no fear of any repercussion at all.
And that's cool. No, it's not. It's not. Somebody did
the right thing. And you know we have GoFundMe started
for everything under the sun. Somebody had started gofund me
for that employee and get them a million dollars so
they can just move somewhere and live comfortably without having
to deal with that crap in ol tuna.

Speaker 2 (10:11):
That's a great idea.

Speaker 4 (10:12):
Yeah, just you know, they did the right thing and
they should never have to regret that.

Speaker 1 (10:16):
So this statement pops up when you go to that page.
The business recently received increased public attention often means people
come to this page to post their views on the news.
While we don't take a stand one way or another
when it comes to this incident, we've temporarily disabled the
posting of content to this page as we work to investigate.

Speaker 2 (10:34):
Blah blah blah blah blah.

Speaker 1 (10:36):
So it says, if you're here to leave a review
based on a first hand experience with the business, you
got to check back later now because they've ruined it
for anybody who has a legitimate review. At this point,
they call this review bombing. I didn't even know it
had a name, but that makes sense, right when it's
called review bombing. And this store led to Yelp showing
a one star rating for this location, and then poor

(10:58):
reviews continue to anywhere that somebody is able to leave
a review about this Altuna McDonald's. They are doing it
simply because this guy helped catch this guy who gunned
down this CEO on the streets in cold blood like
a dog shot him right on the street.

Speaker 2 (11:17):
Man guy's got a family and everything else.

Speaker 1 (11:19):
And I I if people we've talked about this, If
people feel that way, you're allowed to feel that way.
It's America, Jack, You can feel any way you want.
But you can't just be the judge, jury, and executioner.

Speaker 2 (11:32):
You just can't. And then don't go on there trash
and this McDonald's either it.

Speaker 4 (11:37):
Sucks and all those people you know, you want to
care about the people. The people are important. These big
corporations they stinking Okay, So how many people are in
there work in that McDonald's job, trying to feed their kids,
take care of their family, and pay their bills. Now
nobody wants to go there because they're intimidated scared of
the crap you posted on social media. What favor did

(11:57):
you do the people by doing something like that,