Prosecutors highlighted “about $10,000 — $8,000 in U.S. dollars and then $2,000 in foreign currency that was found on his person,” CNN correspondent Danny Freeman said following the court hearing.
“Also they said that he had a Faraday bag,” which blocks cell signals, a move that prosecutors alleged marked “an indication of criminal sophistication and reason they should hold him on bail,” Freeman continued.
After prosecutors made the claims, Mangione said he would like to “correct two things.”
“I don’t know where any of that money came from — I’m not sure if it was planted. And also, that bag was waterproof, so I don’t know about criminal sophistication,” the suspect said in a statement that suggested police framed him.
the way they portray him and the tone of the whole thing is just so fucking slimy
"Do you realize how much money the wealthy are losing right now?"
"OMG how could a person born into wealth that is clearly incredibly intelligent, ever think about doing something like this? There are better ways to slowly let millions of people die over denied coverage and ignore it. How could he."
They can't have us realize its that easy to take our country back from the corporations that own it or their entire power structure and caste society comes crashing down.
They'll find 12 of the whitest old women to ever exist and hammer this guy, I can just feel it. The justice system exists for the rich and whoever did this fucked with one of their own.
“Also they said that he had a Faraday bag,” which blocks cell signals, a move that prosecutors alleged marked “an indication of criminal sophistication and reason they should hold him on bail,” Freeman continued.
Prosecutors, man. Acting like he had a fucking radio jammer or something.
There have been plenty of articles in popular media recommending Faraday bags for electronic devices. I have them for credit cards and car keys. It's definitely not evidence of criminal intent.
There is so much theft of cars happening because car manufacturers did fucking nothing to improve security. Now a guy with a laptop, and antenna, and radio software can clone your car keys and all they have to do is hang around enough to capture a few of the rolling code changes. They can do it from outside your house and through some obstructions too.
So yeah a Faraday cage of some sort for your car keys is just a good idea now. Guess that makes us all criminals.
A LOT of yesterday's arrest is REALLY suspicious. Dude who could easily have fled the country (for a lot of reasons) and had done such a great job of covering his tracks is sitting in a mickey d's with his murder weapon and a manifesto.
But... a lot of his social media history (which is not impossible to fake but...) kind of suggests he was very mentally unwell. Which... uh doy? And he is mostly focused on the money (super easy to plant) and the "faraday bag".
As for the faraday bag? A LOT of dry bags (an internal bag you put electronics and valuables into if you are going to hike in the rain or go rafting/boating) have a metal mesh. Because they need to withstand abrasians either from being near other gear (you would be shocked how much jagged metal is in a backpack when you go on a proper alpine overnight) or just being able to survive falling overboard and bouncing on the end of a rope in rapids. And guess what a metal mesh does?
So he presumably got a dry bag of some form to stash his personal shit in while he stashed the second backpack. And I know plenty of hikers and climbers who learn the fun way that the phone they carried "in case someone needs to get a hold of me" had zero signal the entire time it was protected from the rain.
Why would someone this meticulous keep the gun that's could have been ditched? Write out a memefesto like two hours before being caught? Wear the same clothes that could've also been directed or burned? This feels like a patsy.
Because, as many of us pointed out, he was never some super meticulous hitman. He exhibited basic knowledge of firearms and got his stalker on like the ceo what got got was a pretty girl who asked to borrow a pencil that one time in biology class. The rest was taking a bus and wearing a face mask most of the time. It was inevitable that he would be caught unless he fled the country.
Mostly this just highlighted how incompetent cops are. And... might be used to further efforts to just use computer vision and rudimentary "AI" to process security camera footage in the future.
As for why he would keep his gun on him? The manifesto kind of says it all (and, to my knowledge, Luigi has not disputed THAT aspect of it). He wanted to get caught. Probably after making it clear he could have escaped if he wanted to (because getting on a flight out of the US would have been trivial).
To be clear. If he were to have disputed the gun and manifesto I would VERY rapidly be on the side of "cops are planting shit yet again'. But the fact that he hasn't (to my knowledge) while disputing other potentially planted or misinterpreted evidence puts the kibosh on that.
Fall guy, planted by the mob to give the NYPD credit that they aren't just a bunch of guys with big bellies keystone copping around, probably they have a deal with a mob boss to not bust their child exploitation ring if they have them some dude who can sit in prison
You know the funny thing about these "ghost guns" is they are untraceable so you don't know where they came from. The best way to pin them to someone is to "pin" them to that person. This can be through forensics or proximity. In this case the suspect just happens to have a gun whose origins are unknown. Very convenient.
But... a lot of his social media history (which is not impossible to fake but...) kind of suggests he was very mentally unwell.
What are you referring to here? I'm not scouring the internet for all the information I can find but everything I've seen so far paints the picture of a perfectly sane person who was fed up with a broken system. I see similar sentiments all over the internet literally every day.
Is there a decent thread on the facts somewhere? I am still trying to wrap my head around how they connected the subject of the shooting video to the subject of the crime stoppers picture. There are so many diffs it's like a Mad Magazine bit.
Although a host of eyewitness accounts and video camera footage recorded Mangione’s movements before and after Thompson was killed in New York City on Wednesday, police said they were unable to locate him until a McDonald’s employee identified the suspect at a Pennsylvania franchise nearly a week later.
They should have said "the suspect's movements" or "the shooter's movements". Not "Mangione's movements". They are already presuming guilt by saying it was Mangione who was recorded. Newspapers used to be careful about doing this. I think they can be sued for defamation for this, can't they?
It seems kinda grey because they're not saying he committed a crime they are saying that he was in certain camera frames and the police were looking for him. If the police announced a name then the news would be reporting fact. The camera bit could be debatable I think. If they were speaking more about the actions of the crime they'd have to alledge, which they did alledge about his "type" of bookbag.
I could be wrong I just found your comment interesting.
Yeah but by stating as a fact that it was Mangione who was witnessed and recorded they are stating as a fact that he is the killer, which we don't know yet. That is-- or used to be -- a big no no in reporting. But times have changed.
Here is a link I found explaining how they are probably opening themselves up to a libel charge with this kind of language.
All the accounts I've read say it was an employee of the McDonald's who called police. But who knows? Probably one source printed that and then all the others just copied it.
Looks like they are trying hard to rebrand the guy image by publishing pictures where he looks off. How i'm supposed to believe the government has no plan against the people when they pull stunt like this?
Fox news is saying people are supporting him because he's handsome and we're all a bunch of shallow morons.
Completely leaving out the fact that that CEO and others like him make decisions everyday to let people suffer and/or die for profit. To buy more yachts or whatever the fuck excessively affluent people do with money. Wipe their ass with it? Use the money from dead cancer patients who hit their lifetime maximum coverage to delicately pat their hemorrhoids clean maybe?
The media is trying so hard to spin this I hope they all get carpal tunnel from typing out all those half truths and outright lies. Then they have their claims for quality of life giving surgery denied. Then maybe they'll get it.
Fox news spent all of yesterday "just asking questions" about his connection to California to trigger more hate towards liberals where if you read the manifesto he is definitely a sovereign citizen type of person.
Mugshots rarely look good because they want a centered and level profile of your face with a neutral expression in order to capture as much detail as possible. It also might have been a minute since he's seen a shower or a razor. I wouldn't call that a conspiracy, there are much more important details at play here than his looks.
Mugshots are also designed to make people look bad because it used to be a way that criminals would use for self promotion. But if they look bad then it has the opposite effect making them seem more animalistic and thus more evil. Also often used in wanted posters if enough photos are available. This has been the case for long before photography was invented with drawings as well.
Otherwise, they'd look more like photo IDs, which have the same requirements and are bad compared to something framed specifically to flatter someone, but not as bad as mugshots. Doesn't help that most mugshots are taken after long, abusive "interrogation" sessions or other situations that exhaust them rather than immediately upon arrest, but that's on purpose.
But the tactic to use mugshots as self promotional got popular when photos first came around because if they could get in a good shot, it's not like the police could afford to take multiple. Film was expensive. And they were put in newspapers and such, so they spread around for free. Just look at the famous criminals of the Wild West era. So police doubled down on making sure the photos looked as bad as possible and it became a popular tactic to use against "famous" criminals. Now it's used against basically all criminals.
Trump's mugshot sure looked good with the practiced Hitler look that he gave. But of course he had help from the lighting guy who put on an uncommon (for mug shots) sideways light on him, thus giving an even more Hitler look to him.
One thing that lends credence to him being the culprit is that he's from a well-to-do family, with a Republican state congressman cousin, no less. I would think they would prefer a poor to be their patsy.
Luigi needs to shut the everloving fark up and let his lawyer do the talking for him. The cops are trolling him with fake evidence and he's falling for it.
"The gun WASN'T a 32 caliber, it was a 22 rimfire!" etc, etc.
This is the correct answer. If you are arrested by police for ANY REASON, the only word in your vocabulary is now "lawyer". Remember kids, anything you say or do will be used against you.
"I invoke my right to remain silent and have a lawyer."
It sucks, but sometimes you have to explicitly state you are exercising your rights. Just staying silent doesn't mean they won't stop pestering you with questions. Make it clear and concise that that you are demanding your lawyer be present and any further questioning done should be in violation of that right. But you have to make it clear you are invoking it.
They definitely put way more effort into this shooting than any of the others that happened on the same day. Obviously the police are looking for a scapegoat
He hasn’t said he didn’t do it, at least that we have heard. He’s just saying that a lot of the evidence is incorrect. The money is a flight risk, so they can argue to hold without bail. The manifesto, if it’s a plant, is to make him look “crazy,” so people distance (haha, backfire). And the faraday nonsense is to suggest that an ankle monitor would be of no use, so also no bail.
Not really related but I find it funny that you need money to get bail, but if you have money to pay bail, then you are flight risk and don't get the option.
The murderer was sloppy though. The best way to murder someone and get away with it is to get elected POTUS. or be the son of a POTUS. Don't go around committing crimes if you're a normal citizen, silly.
I mean. They probably really did plant the money to try and paint it like it was a hired hit or something like that.
He didn't say the gun and ID was planted, which were also found on him. I don't see why he'd be like "yupp that murder weapon and manifesto is mine but that money sure isnt" if it wasn't true. I mean, what does he have to lose (or gain) by lying about that?
Yeah, prosecutors are really trying to smear this guy to look dangerous. Try harder. An RF-blocking bag is just to prevent theft, hacking and protect privacy. I'm a bit confident he's the guy but I can't say beyond a reasonable doubt given the circumstances and how the police are incentivised to frame anyone.
Since news reports keep jumping around between a McDonald's customer and a McDonald's employee offering the tip, every inconsistency will only bolster this guy's case. I can make guesses that this guy wanted to get caught or was a little sloppy, but if he says otherwise then finding everything including the gun is a little suspicious. Get him the best lawyer in the biz, I'm sure crowdfunding will cover it many times over.
I'm sure crowdfunding will cover it many times over
I could be OOTL, but I'm a bit puzzled this isn't happening at a massive scale given the overwhelming support. Anybody got his official Crowd Funding page or whatever you kids use these days?
It makes perfect sense for this to be a frame up because one of the incriminating items was a "Recently Used Ghost Gun", a cheaply made 3D Printed gun that leaves no special marking on the bullet and can only really be used once. They are made to be used for crimes and discarded quickly, which is why some congressmen want to see restrictions on 3D Printers.
This raises an interesting question: How the fuck is he dumb enough not to dispose of the gun that was meant to be disposed?
And has two answers: He's just that fucking stupid or The evidence was planted
"Ghost gun" is just a pejorative term invented to make "homemade firearm" sound more spooky. You have taken propaganda hook, line, and sinker. The only difference between a "ghost gun" and a regular gun is whether it was serialized by a licensed manufacturer. While there are a few extremely niche homemade guns that could be categorized as "disposable," the vast majority are Glock- or AR-pattern firearms that use a full complement of factory parts.
It costs as much or more to finish your typical "ghost gun" than it does to build or buy a serialized firearm. They will also typically leave all the marks you'd usually expect on bullets and casings, because all the same parts touch the same way they do in a serialized firearm.
You don't seem very knowledgeable about the gun used in this situation.
All articles about what was found on him kept mentioning a metal slide and barrel along with a regular Glock mag, that heavily implies it was just a 3d printed Glock lower so basically just a regular Glock. The only way it would "leave no special markings on the bullet" would be if he used a gun with a plastic barrel, but I believe the FBI said shortly after the og liberator was released that it leaves enough plastic behind to be traceable.
In practice the gun is a regular Glock, that would be easily identified as not being legal in a few states. My guess would be that they weren't getting rid of it because it's still a perfectly serviceable firearm and he might have been planning on using it again or at least it probably seemed like a good thing to have when he was in fight or flight mode.
If you really want to get rid of evidence the metal barrel is going to be the most important thing to get rid of as far as being linked to a shooting. Ghost gun is just bad in general unless you are in one of the states that says it's fine
You could, if you were so inclined, make a rather nice 3D printed gun. Just saying.
that leaves no special marking on the bullet
No firearm on Earth actually does this, not even commercially made ones. The fantasy of "microstamping" has been just that, purest fantasy, ever since it was dreamed up by (I believe) some California legislators that were equally out of touch with reality. Forensic ballistic analysis does not work that way. In almost all cases, you cannot identify a gun by a recovered bullet or casing. You can, however, potentially match a casing or recovered bullet to a gun you already have in your possession.
and can only really be used once.
This is patently false, unless you suck at printing and assembling your gun.
They are made to be used for crimes and discarded quickly
Tons of people design and print their own guns purely as a hobby. Furthermore, before the advent of 3D printers plenty of people manufactured their own firearms without the aid of any such device -- again, largely as a hobby or to have complete control over the manufacturing tolerances of their gun. Making highly tuned 1911 "race guns" for competition shooting is and was very popular, for instance.
I'm also sceptical of the ghost gun thing. AFAIK the only real ghost gun is an FGC9 which is about the size of a submachine gun and is definitely not what is seen in the video.
What if you find shooter's backpack ditched in park with jacket, gun, silencer, and fake ID used at hostel, but say it only had a jacket and monopoly money. And say that the guy probably left the state on a bus. Now you can pretty much do anything you want with any plausible-looking guy in the country you want.
I'm just asking questions! Also, most of the bags and purses you see for sale these days have a "faraday" phone bag or pocket in them, no level of sophistication required.
Since this involves the murder of a high-ranking CEO, rather than an ordinary joe schone, the police might resort to unconventional or potentially illegal investigative methods to track down the suspect. They could then potentially plant evidence to secure a conviction, as they may be unwilling or unable to disclose the investigative techniques used.
This is my favorite conspiracy theory to ponder over while waiting for the facts. Unknown methods could be blood magic, time travel (or viewing), Sentient AI/Alien overlords, or some kind of dragon ball yearly wish the powerful hid a long time ago.
The guy likely did it. The guy's social media history puts him right in that "potential mass shooter" territory, but one more radicalized by pain rather than the right-wing shitholes of the internet.
But the part no one's talking about yet are the copycats to come. Because this guy got attention for it. Accolades even. That's part of what mass shooters want. Attention. Accolades are a wet dream for them.
At least this will be better than when they were murdering children for the shock value.
So yeah, I think "Rich asshole murdered" will become more common. If only the richest asshole in whatever Podunk little town the mass shooter was from.
And yet, I can't say that it will be a completely bad thing. If the mass shootings must happen, (and America apparently says they must) then I'd rather it be a rich asshole who bites it than a classroom full of grade schoolers.
Have you not listened to Canadian politicians, watched what they do? Literally everyone that is not one of them is a criminal, and they make sure of it. You can't go a day without breaking 7 or 10 laws, you just hope not to gather attention. They let firearms license renewals submitted in the proper timeframe take 8 months to renew (not issue) so for 6 months a man can sit with a house with several "illegal" firearms hoping the RCMP aren't bored enough to spin by. They came up with this crooked scam to "relieve" of us the GST for two months starting tomorrow, but because of the politicking and the canada post strike, no one knows what is and isn't now exempt, normally people with a GST number get a letter in the mail clearly describing the deal. No, you can't just go by the federal websites. They're all bullshit and lies, you need to go by CRA letters you have in your hand, and you need those for proof later. I'm in a good situation, as my business, i simply set my prices accounting for GST, and add up everything GST applies to that I sold the end of the month, do the math on that number, send the feds a check, so I don't have to fuck with any of my prices, just say that I've decided to increase my prices by 5 percent for the period, I can do that if I want. Nobody wants to see a bar suddenly make everything that was even numbers become 5.45 for a beer, 5.52 for a rye. This is probably criminal too, increasing my prices 5 percent to save an accounting headache. What sort of absolute fucking idiot does something like this on that short notice to buy goodwill? Everyone knows Trudeau is done no matter what, this narcissistic death spiral is pathetic. Just like everything the last 6 years, he does not care one bit what it does to anyone. I'm sorry, this ain't really a reply to you, more a frustration rant i feel people need to see.
But this could also be the perpetrator claiming he's a scapegoat, which is probably the best way to get a Jury to acquit, just plant doubts.
I'm gonna say that this is probably the actual perpetrator and I guess he was planning on more targets, but got caught before he could do more "deposing".
If this is actually the perpetrator, it's possible he intended to get caught so that they dont find a scapegoat to accuse, but he merely wanted to delay his arrest in order to see the social media reactions before potentially going to prison.
Yeah. If they were looking for someone to frame, NYPD could have just grabbed someone in NY. I don't see how it makes sense for them to coordinate with PA police to frame a random guy out of state, especially that quickly. I doubt they'd have been able to fabricate the evidence that quickly, too.
Likely wearing similar clothes to the widely circulated photographs. Otherwise how did anyone recognize him?
Still had his ghost gun and manifesto on him.
Cops asked him for an ID and he gave them the same fake New Jersey ID that had been widely reported as what he used to check into a hostel in NYC.
Where these just common mistakes? Made by the same person who succeeded at avoiding so many others? But if he was trying to turn himself in, getting arrested at McDonalds doesn't seem like the method I would have chosen. Was he trying for suicide by police?
I'm leaning on the side of a normal human 'on the run' and making normal mistakes. But there is enough to make me doubt that.
Also if they ever make a movie out of this, James Franco's brother Dave Franco has a passing resemblance.
Most people sent to US prisons commit victimless crimes. Very few of them used guns and the chances that he meets someone who used a ghost gun is near zero.
Most of the people he would meet in prison are black and brown people who were targeted for the color of their skin. The priosns are for-profit in the US, so keeping the beds full is important for the shareholders' dividends.
The exact same style of a shitty resolution camera catching the upper frame of a guy's face while their only suspect sits in jail with evidence constructed in parallel?
The only thing I can imagine is that they would call that killer a copycat and that they have the right one.
Age 20-30, has a good bag to carry thier tech around day to day, dislikes american health insurance, and may be mentally unwell without proper diagnosis;
Describes every college student I know.
If the more concrete evidence is you where within a few miles of the incident in NY,
as well know NY is not a dense urban city....
It's all hard to say, rampant distrust of the police means, knowing they are desperate to pin it on anyone, we can't trust what they say.
Seems like the typical American Scapegoat™. I wonder what "foreign currency" they're referring to... Feels like an urge from US authorities to use this case as "muh [placeholder for the name of some imaginary international bogeyman which US authorities believe it's under their beds right now]".
“Also they said that he had a Faraday bag,” which blocks cell signals, a move that prosecutors alleged marked “an indication of criminal sophistication
Something that's one of the most sold products from Amazon, Shopee, AliExpress, among other marketplaces. For example, it's sold even in some major grocery stores here in Brazil, so I imagine that a similar scenario happens in the US.
It's got protection especially for contactless cards (so these cards can't be used at a distance for paying things the cardholder isn't aware of), and it generally offers some water protection (it's not expected to be diving together at some beach with the cardholder, but it'd definitely offer some protection against spills and minimal soaked clothes due to rain, for example).
Sounds to me like they couldn't catch the real shooter but they snared a doplerganger and figured they could frame him up fast based on his social media. It doesn't make sense, his family are millionaires.....the boomers might buy this crap, but anyone gen x or younger isn't going to believe this for one minute.
Oh god it would be funny if the real shooter would make a video dropping some unrevealed provable facts and exposing the government if that would be true.
Sadly, the most probable outcome from this is gonna be more privileges to CEOs. After all, they are now exposed to be killed on the streets. Maybe their insurance, as well as their brute salary, will also be way better. And surely, countless jackos are aiming for the vacant position.
I bet the security detail wouldn't even get insurance coverage for being wounded in the line of duty as it's obviously negligent to put yourself in harms way like that
I don't believe this guy is guilty. He doesn't even look like the guy in the photo, whose jacket isn't even the same color as the shooter, not that it even means anything. That shit's mass produced just like almost everything else.
I'm disappointed that he looks nothing like the guy in the hotel and it seems to be only the right that is catching on, even though the left has every reason to. Look, we have images of him both before and after his arrest. In both cases he has massive eyebrows, a highly structured face, a broad nose, and a face with a 50:50 aspect ratio.
In the hotel, no bushy eyebrows, that's the most clear thing to spot. But everything else is wrong too. These two guys look nothing alike, at all. How are people not seeing this? Both could be described as "hot." People are making a point of mentioning that. To the internet do all hot guys look identical?
Look at the guy in the hotel. Tell me he doesn't have a narrow nose. Because he does.
I am not sure prosecution can prove beyond a reasonable doubt that he’s the guy. Some of this evidence seems flimsy or circumstantial, but I don’t know the whole picture.
As much as I want to believe all the conspiracies... the arrest happened in Pennsylvania... and since it was at a food place after a tip, there was no time to bring in pre-screened cops. And the odds that the local law enforcement would not leak that they planted evidence and such in this high profile case are about nil. Those local cops don't like the snutty feds anyway, so they have plenty of motivation to leak any shenanigans.
If it was a setup and they chose their guy in advance, then there was time to bring in pre-screened cops. In fact, there was time to interview a small time cop, brief him on the promise of a bright career ahead of him if he keeps this one little thing on the down low, and make sure he was the closet beat cop when their chosen mark went out.
I still don't understand how there can be any question, they caught him writing his memoir "How i totally killed that guy and why" by Luigi Mangione (an autographed copy). Open and shut case
There is a lot of coincidences here that don't really add up. It's an uncanny and extremely lucky break for the police to go almost three days without any clue to the whereabouts or true identity of the shooter, to catching him away from his home eating lunch and just happening to carry all the things that link him to the crime in a public place.
This young man had the foresight to use fake IDs, unregistered firearm, preplan and escape route and dump several items he'd no longer need after the crime, only to have at least 48 hours after the crime to dump these items anywhere between NYC and Altoona but he chose to keep all the items that he would know police could track or link to the crime?
The CCTV grade pictures and video can be handwaved for not being a good match of the shooter by their poor quality, maybe there is an argument he wore a prosthetic. But having all the rest of the stuff on his person like he's expecting to get caught is uncanny.
Maybe there is some argument that he was being sentimental or thinking he was far enough away no one would link him. Maybe this is some attempt at a 4D chess move to make it look like he's being framed. Or just maybe all the items claimed to have been found on his person at a McDonalds was really found several days ago in the backpack with monopoly money in Central Park and Law Enforcement rushed the items to the place of his arrest to plant such evidence. Or is there some fourth options where he is the shooter, but he knows the evidence was left in NYC and is calling out it as being planted to force the law enforcement agency to tip their hand and reveal some warrentless and illegal surveillance?
Honestly, I have no idea, but what has been put forth by Law Enforcement right now doesn't really pass smell the test. The urgency at which they pushed him in front of a judge certainly doesn't help that. Usually cases such as this, the prosecution at least takes a few days to go over all the evidence they have and research the suspect in custody to better decide what charges are appropriate and strategy to present the case.
Guilty until proven innocent, definitely heard that one before.
I don't believe for a second that an intelligent criminal would be carrying around all this evidence that links them to a crime days later. He would have dumped the ghost gun immediately. It's way too convenient that the guy has absolutely every bit of evidence on his person at the time of arrest and that it's so specific to the crime and nothing else.
I was a tradie and more than one of my rich customers was arrested and found guilty
The first one who pulled a massive scam spent months joking with people he was innocent and was adamant it was bs.. He started asking us all the best way to encrypt his communications too at one point (which was suss)
The silver bullet was when investigators found the computers at the school he was apparently operating weren't even plugged in. Yes, they were that stupid
Another one was my ex's bf who did lots of dodgy shit. Guy oozeed evidence
Yet another stole the security cameras outside a building. They took their hoodie off for a second and looked up at the camera, and then put it back on.
My point was, criminals will always tell you they're innocent. And yes, a lot of them do make mistakes. Police didn't plant a bunch of unplugged computer for my customer and it's entirely possible this guy called lots of cash
Trump is the perfect example. Just because they say they're innocent doesn't mean it's true. They possibly are. But them claiming they've been framed in my experience is meaningless.
There are lots of criminals I've personally come across who frankly are stupid enough to carry evidence. Yeah I'll get downvoted and I get nobody here gives a shit about honest discussions anymore, but in my experience, it's common.
A lot of people on all platforms trying to explain why he kept his gun, why he was caught so easily, and most coming up with easy explanations that fit their conspiracy theories.
The simple explanation is, he might be smarter than most, but maybe not enough to outsmart the whole NYPD police department. Maybe he kept his gun because he didn't want to leave a trace. Maybe he wanted to get caught peacefully in a McD rather than dying in a shooting.
Also, to those who still don't believe he's the killer: he is. Police don't go capture a random dude and then plant every evidence on him "because they need a scapegoat". There's a whole judicial process that goes on after the arrest, and if he's found not to be the killer, the police will have to go back to square one on a cold trail. They usually don't want that.
You have all too much faith in the US policing system and the sheer amount of money pressure bearing down on it at this very second to make an example out of this man.
Also, to those who still don't believe he's the killer: he is. Police don't go capture a random dude and then plant every evidence on him "because they need a scapegoat".
How long have you lived in America? Have you ever heard of the Innocence Project? I mean we literally just executed a black man in Sept that was very likely innocent of the crime he was convicted of. Even the prosecutor wanted to stop the execution.
I know they do, but they usually keep it somewhat subtle because the goal is to reinforce the bad guy image of someone they already know is guilty (but can't prove). Planting the main piece of evidence such as a gun is risky.
"When asked by a reporter if police had the suspect’s name, Adams said, “We don’t want to release that now. If you do, you’re basically giving a tip to the person we are fine with seeking, and we do not want to give him an upper hand at all. Let him continue to believe he can hide behind a mask.” "
Don't worry. Just like every other bootlicker on the Internet, the PTB have seen their loyalty, and shall lift them on high to live out their halcyon days in Valhalla.