After the UnitedHealthcare chief
executive “was gunned down by a masked man outside a Manhattan hotel” in New
York City, “a days-long manhunt” occurred that “spanned several states.”[1]
The fact that only a few days were needed to find the suspect, Luigi Mangione,
indicates just how massive and public the manhunt was. For it was not just any
murder, as if the murder of a person who is the chief executive of a large
corporation were worth so much more than that of the rest of us. I suspect that
the influence of the company, and, moreover, corporate America, on local police
in any U.S. member state is more than reaches the headlines. The case at hand
my even suggest that that influence includes even tacit instructions to treat anti-corporate
suspects of murder violently both in retaliation and as a visible reminder to
other potential killers that CEOs are off-limits.
As Pennsylvania sheriff employees took Mangione from a vehicle to the back door of a courthouse, at least two of the employees shoved the suspect—and, remember, in the U.S. a suspect is presumed innocent unless or until proven guilty in a court of law—into a wall even though the wall was not on the way from the vehicle to the back door. In other words, the unnecessary violence was not on the way to the back door, and nor was the suspect resisting going into the courthouse. I contend that the unnecessary violence was at the behest of the corporation whose CEO the suspect allegedly shot. At that time, the evidence that would be found had not yet been found, as per the defense attorney’s statement in the courthouse. Whether the violence being maliciously applied by sheriff employees was merely to show the world how a suspect accused of killing a CEO gets treated by law enforcement, or to stop the suspect from speaking to the media present on his way to the backdoor is not clear. It seems to be possible, at the very least, that corporate instructions given to the police in Pennsylvania included: Don’t let the guy get his anti-corporate message out. This would be ironic, given that corporations had at the time the right of free speech, even through spending as if money constitutes speech.
That Mangione was not resisting
going into the courthouse and yet was manhandled rougher than suspects were
typically treated at the time may give Americans, as well as the world, a
glimpse into the power that large concentrations of private wealth (which is
what a corporation is) even as translated into raw violence. The use of
police by companies in twentieth-century America to beat workers on
strike is well documented. What I am suggesting is that local police were still
susceptible to wealthy private interests such as corporations into the next
century, at least as of the 2020s. I contend that any contact between
police departments and the healthcare insurance company would properly have
been limited to the police gaining information in the search for the killer.
Another indication of an over-reaction by local police occurred days after Mangione had been arrested, when Briana Boston was charged with a felony “with one count of making threats to conduct a mass shooting” during a phone call with Blue Cross Blue Shield, her health-insurance company, which was denying a claim that she had submitted. Obviously angry, she said, “Delay, deny, depose. You people are next.”[2] The phrase, “delay, deny, depose,” had been written on bullets by Mangione in reference to tactics that insurers use to avoid paying out claims and had become popular online. Because of the popularity, it could not be assumed that the woman was planning on writing the three words on bullets; the phrase had entered the lexicon. In fact, “(a)ccording to a consumer survey by KFF, more than half of insured [American] adults [had] experienced problems with their insurance provider, and some [of those adults] reported serious consequences.”[3] Strangely, the local police in Lakeland, Florida, said that her statement could be taken as probable cause of “making a threat to conduct a mass shooting . . ., according to the affidavit.”[4] A reasonable interpretation of, “you guys are next,” is that if Blue Cross continues to screw policy holders who do their part in paying premiums, someone may eventually go too far in retaliation. She did not say that she was going to take any violent action, or what that action might be. Given that she was momentarily angry, and perhaps justifiably so, the police employee who leapt to the conclusion that the woman was saying she would conduct a mass killing is ludicrous, and yet the police had the discretion (and thus power) to make an example of the woman by charging her with a crime carrying a fourteen-year sentence, without her having done anything. Had being angry at customer-service employees become a crime? Or, had free-speech that is objectionable to big business become a crime? If so, could corporations next go after certain thoughts, using employees of local police departments who dismiss protecting the public as dutiful sycophants?
We can turn the Lakeland police investigation
on its head by investigating that department. It is significant that “Lakeland,
Florida police said they were contact by the FBI . . . in response to the
alleged threat.”[5]
That the police did not waste any time and did not seem to second-guess the FBI
may suggest that the FBI had been determined to snuff out the “potential” copy-cat.
To be sure, the FBI may simply have been over-cautious, but even that could
have been due to pressure from Blue Cross or elected officials who have
received campaign contributions from the giant company. That both the FBI
and the local police department in Florida would knowingly seek to charge an
angry policy holder of a crime that carries a sentence of 14 years in prison
indicates a grossly disproportionate reaction, which itself could point
back to the deference that the FBI (and local police) give to business in doing
its bidding, even to scare the public.
As an anecdote, once when leaving
a restaurant after barely eating a very badly cooked meal, I was speaking to
people in the shopping center’s parking lot about the food. The manager
of the restaurant got wind of this and approached me even though I was no
longer on her establishment’s property. “The police here are my friends!” she
warned me. “Keep talking about my restaurant and I will get them to make you
leave.” The manager’s sheer presumptuousness was laughable, so I kept talking
as was my right. She did call her friends, who told me I had to leave the
parking lot even though that lot was not owned by the restaurant. That the
police dismissed my legitimate objection told me enough; I moved to another
suburb of Phoenix only months later; Mormon-run Mesa was simply too corrupt
(and drug-ridden).
If my small window into the deference
that local police pay to small business in falsely enforcing law that is not
really law is correct, it is not difficult to conjecture that the FBI as well
as local police may be unduly biased towards, perhaps even de facto working
for, large corporations. The sort of unaccountability in accusing a distraught
policy-holder of mass murder (even without noticing that she had no record of
violence and not even a gun!) and being willing to put her in prison for fourteen
years, likely to send the public a message from the large corporations, is
consistent with the lack of accountability generally on market participants that
are so large and wealthy that even competition is stifled that so enrages
consumers and thus prompts anti-corporate politics. The connection can be found
in Adam Smith’s claim that one of the main rationales for government is to
protect the wealthy from the poor, who would otherwise steal the wealth. Does
this hold of the governments in the U.S., or is the public to be served? The
official answer may differ from the real answer.
That the governments in the U.S.
have allowed companies to become so large as to choke competition without
anti-trust law being enforced—something that Adam Smith would not like—is yet
another indication of the “under the table” power of large corporations in the
United States, thanks in part to unlimited political campaign contributions
being legal. Perhaps elected officials were the people delivering the
instructions from the health insurance company to the Pennsylvania sheriff in
Altoona: Be rough with the guy and don’t let him speak to the media. Push him
up against a wall if you want. Grab him by the neck. Show the world what
happens if someone goes up against corporate America. Hence the anti-corporate political movement
in a democracy that is premised on accountability rather than plutocracy
with impunity.
My main point is that institutionally, or structurally, very large and wealthy private companies, whether corporations or privately held, are incompatible with not only market competition, which ensures fair prices (even at grocery stores after a pandemic), but also political democracy, wherein one person has one vote and thus is just as important as the next. Whether a man on the street or a corporate CEO is murdered, the police-response should be the same in terms of the cost and effort in the manhunt and how the suspects are treated. Innocent until proven guilty means that police violence against a suspect who is not being violent or resistant is itself a crime regardless of how rich the victim’s family or company happens to be.
2. Pocharapon Neammanee, “Woman Arrested After Saying ‘Delay, Deny, Depose’ On Call With Insurance Company,” The Huffington Post, December 12, 2024.
3. Ibid.
4. Ibid.
5.Ibid.
