分类： society

A mass shooting in the early hours of Saturday left five people wounded outside a residential building on the campus of Virginia State University, with one victim in critical condition, university officials have confirmed. Multiple attackers are believed to be involved in the violent incident, which sent shockwaves through the academic community just days before the start of the fall semester.

Local law enforcement officers were first dispatched to the scene at approximately 1:28 a.m. local time, which corresponds to 5:28 a.m. GMT. Responding teams located all five victims with gunshot wounds, and quickly transported them to area medical facilities for urgent treatment. Four of the injured are suffering from non-life-threatening injuries, according to an update from the university, while one remains in critical care.

As of Saturday, no suspects have been publicly taken into custody, and the full circumstances surrounding the attack remain unclear. A spokesperson for the BBC confirmed that the outlet has reached out to local law enforcement to request additional details and comment on the ongoing probe. A temporary campus-wide lockdown implemented immediately after the shooting has now been lifted, but a heavy contingent of law enforcement personnel remains posted across the campus to secure the site as investigators work.

Chesterfield County Police are leading the joint investigation into the incident, with supporting assistance from both surrounding local law enforcement agencies and the Virginia State University campus police department.

Located roughly 20 miles south of Richmond, Virginia’s state capital, Virginia State University counts approximately 5,000 enrolled students. The institution is also one of the nation’s dozens of historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs), a category of post-secondary schools created during the era of segregation to provide access to higher education for Black Americans, who were barred from attending most majority-white institutions across the country at the time.

The shooting comes at a particularly sensitive time for the campus community. According to the university’s official academic calendar, on-campus housing opened for returning students just one day before the shooting, on Friday. The first day of classes for the new academic term was scheduled to begin on Monday, leaving university administrators to assess next steps in the wake of the violence. The incident is the latest in a long-running string of gun violence incidents on U.S. college campuses, a crisis that has fueled repeated national debates over gun control legislation in the United States.

For many who knew Luigi Mangione growing up, the 28-year-old’s trajectory seemed nothing short of promising. Born into one of Maryland’s most prominent and well-connected families, with business holdings spanning country clubs, nursing homes and local media, Mangione excelled academically from his earliest years. He graduated as valedictorian from Baltimore’s elite all-boys Gilman School before going on to earn both a bachelor’s and master’s degree in computer science from the Ivy League University of Pennsylvania, where he launched a student video game development club. After graduating, he built a career as a data engineer at automotive digital retail platform TrueCar, leaving the role in 2023. To friends and classmates, he was a sharp, unassuming person with no obvious enemies – a far cry from the man accused of one of the most high-profile corporate assassinations in recent U.S. history.

On December 4, 2024, Brian Thompson, the 50-something CEO of UnitedHealthcare and father of two, was shot and killed outside a midtown Manhattan hotel where he was attending an industry conference. Five days later, Mangione was arrested at a McDonald’s in Altoona, Pennsylvania, where law enforcement recovered a firearm, ammunition, multiple fake identification cards, a large sum of cash, and a handwritten note expressing hostility toward corporate elites that included the line “frankly, these parasites had it coming.” For nearly 20 months following his arrest, Mangione was held without bail at Brooklyn’s notorious Metropolitan Detention Center, the same facility currently housing music mogul Sean “Diddy” Combs.

Initially, Mangione pleaded not guilty to the murder, denying any involvement in Thompson’s killing. But on August 14, 2026, in a dramatic shift during his federal court proceeding, Mangione changed his plea to guilty, formally admitting to two counts of interstate stalking that resulted in Thompson’s death. “I shot Mr. Thompson in Manhattan and he died,” he told the court in a calm confession. He went on to explain his motive, tying the killing to years of debilitating chronic pain stemming from a broken back that he said left him disillusioned with the U.S. healthcare system. He told the court he had researched Thompson’s schedule and learned the executive would attend the New York conference before traveling to the city to carry out the attack.

The guilty plea has set off a new legal process, with Mangione’s federal sentencing scheduled for December 2026. He still faces a separate slate of state charges in New York, where a trial is set to begin this September. Those charges include second-degree murder, six counts of criminal weapon possession, and one count of possession of a forged driver’s license. Following his federal guilty plea, Mangione’s legal team has filed motions to dismiss the majority of the state charges, leaving only the forged identification count in play.

Details that have emerged in the lead-up to the plea paint a picture of a man increasingly undone by chronic unmanaged pain. Friends confirm Mangione underwent back surgery after injuring the area while surfing and hiking during a stint living in a Hawaii co-living surfing community, where he left early due to worsening symptoms. In November 2024, his mother filed a missing person report with San Francisco police, noting she had not heard from her son since July that year. That report was later flagged to New York investigators following the shooting. When contacted by police, Mangione’s mother did not confirm her son was the suspect but told authorities “it might be something that she could see him doing.”

Online records tied to Mangione further reveal his preoccupation with chronic back pain and anti-establishment ideology. An X profile believed to be his uses a spinal X-ray showing surgical hardware as its background image. A Reddit account linked to him detailed struggles with persistent pain and brain fog, and a Goodreads account under his name showed he read two books about back pain in 2022, including *Crooked: Outwitting the Back Pain Industry*, a critique of the commercial back pain treatment industry. He also left a four-star review for *Industrial Society and Its Future*, better known as the manifesto written by Ted Kaczynski, the domestic terrorist known as the Unabomber who killed three people in a decades-long bombing campaign. In the review, Mangione acknowledged Kaczynski was a violent man but referred to him as a political revolutionary.

The shocking killing has left Mangione’s family and community reeling. Shortly after his arrest, his cousin Nino Mangione, a Republican state legislator in Maryland, released a statement saying the entire family was “shocked and devastated,” adding “We offer our prayers to the family of Brian Thompson and we ask people to pray for all involved.” Local defense attorney Thomas Maronick, who knows the Mangione family, told the BBC the crime was completely out of step with what anyone knew of the family or Luigi. “You wouldn’t think someone of privilege or means from a family that’s known for doing so much for the community would do something like this,” he said. Even former roommate RJ Martin, who recalled Mangione never complained about his pain but acknowledged it often stopped him from doing everyday activities, said he never could have imagined his former roommate would harm another person. “There’s no making sense of it,” Martin added.

In a dramatic turn of proceedings in Manhattan federal court Friday, 28-year-old Luigi Mangione formally admitted to the assassination of UnitedHealthcare Chief Executive Officer Brian Thompson, entering guilty pleas to federal charges of interstate stalking that resulted in death. The public admission marked a stark reversal from Mangione’s earlier not guilty pleas in both the federal and state court cases stemming from the December 2024 killing that sent shockwaves through the U.S. healthcare and business communities.

Dressed in a standard beige prison uniform and appearing visibly somber throughout the 90-minute hearing, Mangione spoke clearly to the court as he read out a detailed account of his premeditated attack. He confirmed that he planned the killing months in advance, crossing state lines from his home state of Pennsylvania to New York with the explicit intent to end Thompson’s life. The weapon he used, he told the court, was a homemade firearm he produced on a 3D printer, which he modified with an unauthorized silencer and high-capacity magazine ahead of the attack.

Mangione told the court his motive stemmed from years of chronic severe pain he suffered following a broken back injury, claiming his frustrating and damaging experiences with the U.S. healthcare system pushed him to target Thompson. After learning UnitedHealthcare would host its annual investor conference at a midtown Manhattan hotel in early December 2024, Mangione said he posed as an investor in emails to company organizers to obtain details about the event and Thompson’s schedule. He then traveled to New York ahead of the conference to carry out his plan.

On the morning of December 4, 2024, as Thompson walked into the midtown Manhattan hotel for the conference, Mangione shot the 50-year-old executive from behind. Thompson, a father of two, died from his injuries shortly after the attack. “On the morning of 4 December 2024, I shot Mr Thompson in Manhattan and he died,” Mangione repeated in his statement to the court Friday, confirming the core fact of the killing.

Following the plea hearing, Thompson’s family released a statement calling the guilty plea “an important step toward justice for Brian and for our family.” The family noted they will continue pursuing justice in both New York state courts and in Pennsylvania, where Mangione was taken into custody shortly after the shooting. “While nothing will ease the pain of losing him, we are grateful that the federal justice system has held the person responsible for this heinous act accountable,” the statement read. “Now we look to the court to ensure that sentencing reflects the severity of this crime.”

Mangione now faces a maximum sentence of life in federal prison, with his federal sentencing hearing scheduled for December 18. But the guilty plea has immediately ignited a major legal battle over whether Mangione can also face prosecution on eight separate state charges, which include second-degree murder, possession of a forged fake driver’s license, and six counts of illegal criminal weapons possession. His legal team is pushing to have the entire state case dismissed ahead of its scheduled September trial start date.

Speaking to reporters outside the courthouse after Friday’s hearing, Mangione’s lead defense attorney Karen Friedman Agnifilo argued that pursuing state charges after Mangione’s federal guilty plea violates the U.S. Constitution’s double jeopardy protection, which prohibits prosecuting a person twice for the same criminal offense. “New York law does not permit a person to be prosecuted and punished twice for the exact same crime,” Friedman Agnifilo said, adding that Mangione has already taken “full responsibility” for Thompson’s death through his federal guilty plea.

But the Manhattan District Attorney’s office has rejected the defense’s argument and says it remains fully committed to moving forward with the state prosecution. In an official statement released after the hearing, the DA’s office said it welcomed the accountability Mangione’s guilty plea provided for Thompson’s family. “While federal sentencing is pending, we are prepared to litigate the defence motions. The Manhattan DA’s Office remains committed to seeking justice for Mr Thompson and his family,” the statement read. The legal fight over the double jeopardy motion is expected to play out in state courts in the coming weeks, ahead of the scheduled September trial.

In a closely watched court proceeding that drew sharp media attention, Luigi Mangione formally entered a guilty plea in the case centered on the shooting of Mr. Thompson. Nada Tawfik, the British Broadcasting Corporation’s senior North America correspondent, was present inside the courtroom to observe every moment of the high-stipes hearing. As the proceedings unfolded, Mangione directly addressed the court, making the explicit statement: “I shot Mr. Thompson.”

The guilty plea marks a major turning point in a case that has captured public attention across the United States, closing the chapter on pre-trial proceedings and clearing the path for sentencing in the coming weeks. Courtroom observers note that Mangione’s admission of responsibility came without any negotiated plea deal that would reduce potential charges, according to initial on-site reporting from the hearing. Tawfik’s presence inside the courtroom provided the public with a first-hand, on-the-ground account of the proceeding, one of the few independent reports from inside the court during the plea hearing.

Legal analysts point out that a guilty plea in a shooting case typically eliminates the need for a full jury trial, significantly speeding up the judicial process and bringing a measure of closure to the victim’s family, who have been waiting for progress in the case since the shooting incident occurred. While few additional details about the motive behind the shooting have been released publicly as of yet, the guilty plea confirms Mangione’s responsibility for the attack on Mr. Thompson. Court officials have not yet announced a firm date for the sentencing hearing, but legal sources close to the case indicate it will be scheduled within the next 60 to 90 days.

In a dramatic development in the high-profile killing of UnitedHealthcare chief executive Brian Thompson, 28-year-old Luigi Mangione has entered guilty pleas to two federal stalking charges that allege he tracked the executive across state lines before his 2024 death.

Mangione made his plea during a Friday hearing held in a Manhattan federal courtroom. Under the charges he admitted to Friday — stalking resulting in death — the defendant could be sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. This comes after prosecutors built a case that Mangione crossed state lines, conducted pre-attack surveillance of Thompson, and carried out the plan that ended in Thompson’s death.

Notably, Mangione did not reach any plea deal with federal prosecutors regarding his sentencing; he only agreed to admit guilt to the two counts. Prior to this hearing, he had entered not guilty pleas to all charges against him in both federal and state courts. The original federal indictment against Mangione included four total charges, but a federal judge dismissed two counts back in January. That ruling removed the only capital offense on the docket — a federal firearms charge that carried the possibility of the death penalty — eliminating any chance Mangione would face execution for the crime. Only the two interstate stalking charges remained after that January ruling.

While the federal case against Mangione is moving toward a final sentencing hearing scheduled for December, the defendant still faces a separate criminal prosecution in New York state court. He is scheduled to go on trial for eight state felony charges starting September 8, with charges including second-degree murder, possession of a forged instrument linked to an alleged fake driver’s license, and six counts of criminal weapon possession. Mangione has maintained not guilty pleas for all eight state charges, and three additional initial charges — including first-degree murder tied to terrorism — were previously thrown out by a state judge. A conviction on the state second-degree murder charge would carry a sentence ranging from 25 years in prison up to life imprisonment, and New York state has no death penalty, after its highest court ruled capital punishment unconstitutional in 2004.

Mangione’s legal team has long argued that dual prosecutions in both federal and state court for the same killing violate his constitutional rights, and Friday’s guilty plea has amplified that argument. Legal experts warn the plea could fundamentally disrupt the upcoming state trial, as defense attorneys are expected to push to dismiss the state charges under the double jeopardy principle. This constitutional protection bars individuals from being prosecuted twice for the same offense based on identical facts.

New York’s own state constitution includes an explicit prohibition on double jeopardy that could further bolster the defense’s motion. Mitchell Epner, a former federal prosecutor and current defense attorney, explained the core of this argument: once a federal prosecution has concluded on a set of facts, state authorities cannot bring a new prosecution based on those same facts. It remains unclear how the state judge will rule on the expected double jeopardy motion, leaving the future of the state trial uncertain as the September start date approaches.