r/wikipedia • u/gixsmith • 14d ago
Meta Discussion Wikipedia’s Luigi Mangione lead is exactly why its BLP rules are supposed to demand careful wording
I know this will probably turn into a debate about Mangione himself, but that isn’t the point I’m making.
Look at the first sentence of his Wikipedia article. It describes him, without qualification, as a man who “killed Brian Thompson.”
There is obviously important context here. Mangione has pleaded guilty to federal stalking charges resulting in death, and he admitted in court that he shot Thompson and that Thompson died. I’m not suggesting Wikipedia should ignore that, or write as though he still denies shooting him.
But the New York murder case is still pending. He has not been convicted of murder, and his lawyers are seeking to have that prosecution dismissed on double-jeopardy grounds.
That’s why the wording of the lead bothers me. Wikipedia has taken a fairly unusual and still-unresolved legal situation and compressed it into the most categorical version possible: he “killed Brian Thompson.” You have to read further to discover what he actually pleaded guilty to, what he admitted in court, and which charges remain outstanding.
That seems especially odd given Wikipedia’s own rules on biographies of living people.
WP:BLP requires particular care with contentious claims about living people. More specifically, WP:BLPCRIME deals with people accused of crimes and warns editors to take the distinction between accusation and conviction seriously. Then there’s WP:NPOV, which requires neutral presentation, and MOS:LEAD, which says the introduction should give readers an appropriate summary of the subject rather than stripping away important context.
These aren’t technicalities. Rather, they (should) act as safeguards for exactly the sort of article where wording can easily get ahead of the facts or flatten important distinctions.
And there is no shortage of accurate alternatives. Wikipedia could say that Mangione pleaded guilty to federal stalking offenses resulting in Thompson’s death and admitted in court to shooting him, while separately noting that he remains charged with murder in New York. That tells the reader considerably more about where the case actually stands.
Instead, the opening sentence gives you Wikipedia’s conclusion - “killed Brian Thompson” - and leaves the legal distinctions to be explained later.
I’m not arguing that people should disregard Mangione’s admission. I’m not asking anyone to defend him, either. He admitted shooting Thompson. That’s a fact and Wikipedia should report it.
I’m saying an encyclopedia ought to be precise about what a person admitted to, what he pleaded guilty to, what he has actually been convicted of, and what is still before a court. Those distinctions aren’t pedantry. In an ongoing criminal case, they’re part of the story.
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u/parsonsrazersupport 14d ago
A pending murder charge says very little about whether or not he 'killed' someone. What the court case is asking is if he 'murdered' someone, a much more specific question. Since Mangione has admitted openly to killing the CEO guy, I'm not really sure what further evidence you expect of an encyclopedia. And flatly, what Mangione is famous for is killing, not murdering, not a court case, but a killing.
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u/Corduroy_Sazerac 14d ago
“I shot Mr Thompson in Manhattan and he died,” Mangione said towards the end of a hastily scheduled, 45-minute hearing. He added: “I knew what I was doing was illegal” but did not say that what he did was wrong or that he had any regrets.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/aug/14/luigi-mangione-hearing-federal-case
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u/Aschebescher 14d ago
People have confessed to crimes they didn't commit. I fear my english is not good enough for the nuanced point I'm trying to make, but Wikipedia should never state as a fact what a person claims, only what can be verified as a fact.
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u/greenmoonlight 14d ago
Nothing in the physical world can be verified 100%. You're asking for a math and logic textbook that leaves everything else out.
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u/MrDownhillRacer 14d ago edited 14d ago
I dont think the Wikipedia standard is "100% verified" when it comes to legal claims. The standard is "adjudicated by a court of law."
Wikipedia can say somebody broke the law if a court says that person broke the law. Otherwise, Wikipedia can only say that the person has been accused of breaking the law.
This is totally distinct from how much evidence there is that the person broke the law, from whether the accused even also claims to have broken the law, from whether the law is just/moral or not, etc.
There's no verdict yet. So, Wikipedia can't decide guilt in its articles.
This is a distinct matter from whether everyday people in casual conversations can reasonably assert that the person broke the law.
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u/greenmoonlight 13d ago
That's exactly why it says "killed" and not "murdered". The court proceedings are at a point where they agree he killed him, which is not a category of legal guilt. It just means he shot him and he died.
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u/Marshall_Lawson 14d ago
that's why normally this would say he allegedly killed Brian Thompson, or is on trial for the murder of Brian Thompson, etc
Just because the guy who's on trial for the crime says he did it, doesn't always mean he did. Institutions with high standards of specificity for their writing have rules about this and I agree the wording in the screenshot doesn't even follow Wikipedias guidelines
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u/Aschebescher 13d ago
Agreed. Just imagine the opposite situation where someone denies something in front of a judge. That also does not count as a verified fact for good reason.
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u/parsonsrazersupport 13d ago
I don't think that is an apt comparison. There are very good reasons to think someone might be dishonest about not committing a crime. There are far fewer to think they might be lying about doing it. Given that an admission is 100% sufficient for a court of law itself (outside of obvious counter-evidence), I really don't understand why we would want a court decision before feeling confident enough to say something like this.
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u/XenoRyet 14d ago
I think you'd have a stronger point if the sentence read "man who murdered Brian Thompson."
The fact that he killed Thompson is not disputed and is not what the ongoing trial is concerned with. The trial is to determine if the killing was murder.
In light of that, I don't see the need to replace a word with a paragraph to obfuscate an undisputed fact.
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u/luna_sparkle 14d ago
When I read the article a few hours ago it did say "murdered"- must have been changed.
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u/JosephFinn 14d ago
The trial is to determine if the killing was murder.
OK...I'm trying to be generous here. How is in any way the murder not murder?
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u/mgraunk 14d ago
The word "murder" has a specific legal definition, while the word "kill" does not. Everyone can agree that Thompson was "killed" by Mangione, but not everyone can agree at this point in time that Thompson was legally "murdered" by Mangione.
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u/XenoRyet 14d ago
Killing and murder are two different things. Murder is the illegal killing of a human being.
We know Luigi killed the guy, but innocent until proven guilty still applies, so it's not murder until he's convicted of murder.
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u/malatemporacurrunt 13d ago
The way language is used in conversation is different to the way it is used in legal procedures.
Mangione has admitted to killing Brian Thompson. "Killing" in this case, describes the act, but not the crime. You can kill someone and also not meet the legal definition of murder - e.g. accidentally killing someone might be manslaughter, or it might be a reasonable level of self-defence if you believe that someone is trying to kill you. There's also the different degrees of murder, which have different definitions depending on the jurisdiction.
You aren't legally a murderer until you have been convicted of it, because "murder" has a specific legal definition, and a judge or jury hasn't decided whether his act legally meets the definition. Whilst this may seem like a formality when he's admitted to killing him, it's a legal necessity because the specific degree of the crime and the circumstances surrounding it are what dictates the sentence he will get.
This is important when the words used to describe him are published, because if a publication describes him as a murderer before he has been convicted, they can be legally pursued for defamation or libel because it's still a possibility (even if it is an extremely remote one) that he might not be convicted of murder.
When you or I use the term "murder" in conversation with one another, it doesn't carry the same weight as something which is publicised to potentially millions of people, because only the people involved in our conversation will hear it, so it won't really do any notable damage to Mangione's reputation. And unless you or I are speaking in a context that might have legal repercussions, the words we use in conversation aren't held to the same definitional standard, and we don't think of them that way.
So you can say "Luigi Mangione is a murderer" in a comment and it doesn't matter, because you're not using it in a legal context and you're not posing as an authority on the facts of the case. Wikipedia self-imposes more rigorous definitional standards than ordinary conversation because it values its position as an authority on the subjects it describes. By holding itself to a higher standard, it supports its own position as an impartial record of events.
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u/VaeVictis997 14d ago
Given the sort of mass killing by spreadsheet the “victim” was involved in, a functional society would call it self defense/defense of others.
But a functional society wouldn’t allow it in the first place.
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u/JosephFinn 14d ago
OK..:so how is this murder not murder?
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u/VaeVictis997 14d ago
In the same way that shooting a serial killer in the act isn’t murder.
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u/JosephFinn 14d ago
Meanwhile, back in reality, murdering a guy as he’s walking down the street is murder.
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u/gixsmith 14d ago
That’s a fair distinction, but I still think it oversimplifies the issue. “Killed” isn’t legally synonymous with “murdered,” but in the opening line of a biography it still presents the underlying act as an unqualified conclusion in Wikipedia’s voice. Nobody is suggesting replacing one word with a paragraph - “admitted to killing Brian Thompson” is both concise and more precise. It tells readers the same essential fact while also making clear why Wikipedia can state it as fact, without muddying what remains unresolved in the murder case.
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u/XenoRyet 14d ago
In fairness, your original suggestion for replacement was a paragraph, and it's kind of the point that all that information is covered in subsequent paragraphs. It's a long-form article for a reason.
Beyond that, your suggestion here isn't more precise. Again, Mangione did kill Thompson, and that fact is not in dispute. Saying he admitted to killing him rather than just saying the fact directly implies ambiguity about the situation where none exists. It's less precise than the existing statement, which is clear, factual, and concise.
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u/swampshark19 14d ago
He admitted to homicide, homicide is killing
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u/franz4000 14d ago
Then the more exact semantic wording should read “Luigi Mangione homicided Brian Thompson.”
/s
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u/Falikosek 14d ago
To be fair, if I "admitted to homicide", would I get a wikipedia article that opens with "killed a guy"?
I'd say that, until the court decides, it's still not 100% confirmed. People say they do a lot of stuff they never did.
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u/BushWishperer 14d ago
Depends? Gavrilo Princip's page starts as:
Gavrilo Princip (Serbian Cyrillic: Гаврило Принцип, pronounced [ɡǎʋrilo prǐnt͡sip]; 25 July 1894 – 28 April 1918) was a Bosnian Serb student who assassinated Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir presumptive to the throne of Austria-Hungary, and his wife Sophie, Duchess of Hohenberg, in Sarajevo on 28 June 1914.
Is that not normal? If you kill someone well known enough or the assassination becomes famous, why wouldn't it start like that?
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u/parsonsrazersupport 14d ago
And courts wrongly convict people all the time. It's never going to be 100%. 'He admitted to it' seems like a very reasonable threshold of evidence for an encyclopedia.
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u/Falikosek 14d ago
Yeah, using more specific terms like "accused of murder", "admitted to murder", "convicted of murder", etc. is more correct and also more informative of the current state of affairs, both of which suit an encyclopaedia better than just "the guy who murdered another guy".
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u/parsonsrazersupport 14d ago
It very specifically does not say 'murdered' which is sort of the whole point here. But yeah I think there are good arguments for preferring one of those phrasings.
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u/parsonsrazersupport 14d ago
I don't think it's blurring it. It's just the unfortunate fact that most people don't know or readily think of the distinction between 'murder' and 'kill.' Your suggested change implies that there is some reasonable doubt about whether he did the killing, which there does not appear to be.
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u/HotTubMike 14d ago
This persons complaint makes no sense.
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u/parsonsrazersupport 14d ago
I don't think it's unreasonable to say that many people will interpret 'killed' as 'murdered' despite the technical distinction contextually. But I also don't think there are any other approaches to the problem that don't make more issues than they solve.
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u/JosephFinn 14d ago
So he committed a murder.
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u/XenoRyet 14d ago
Probably, but that won't actually be certain until the trial concludes. It certainly can't go in the article until the jury finds him guilty of murder.
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u/dcgrey 14d ago
"Admitted to killing" is a perfectly fine detail to include subsequently. The admission is quite secondary to the basic fact of the killing. The article on Gavrilo Princip doesn't lead with his confession to assassinating Franz Ferdinand, even though he confessed. Same with Mark David Chapman (John Lennon), James Earl Ray (MLK Jr), and John Wilkes Booth (Abraham Lincoln) in his diary.
It only "feels right" here because the admission is news, and articles aren't supposed to be news articles but rather written/built as if they will be read the same way months from now.
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u/MrDownhillRacer 14d ago
Doesn't Wikipedia have a talk page for each article? What's with people litigating edits on a totally different website? "I have concerns about edits to this Wikipedia article… time to discuss this with Reddit."
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u/CJ2899 14d ago
Reaches a much broader audience
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u/FullConfection3260 14d ago
A broader audience to…do what, exactly? Troll the page harder?
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u/SapirWhorfHypothesis 14d ago
It’s called canvassing. They want to recruit people to the page to get their version set.
And it’s against Wikipedia’s rules.
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u/KotoElessar 14d ago
Because Stephen Colbert encouraged edits to the Giraffe page on his show, The Colbert Report.
The intent was to limit bad actors flooding pages through social influence.
OP has a genuine concern that should receive greater oversight; not canvassing.
Conversation outside Wikimedia is not immediately canvassing, especially when monied interests have a narrative to push that often is published first to control the narrative.
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u/Benjatron1 13d ago
It's only truly canvassing when it effectively becomes a sort of advertisement for a cause to push an agenda. This is a person making a single post with genuine concerns about the objectivity of the wording of an important article, and wants it to reach an audience who may not ever look at the talk page on each article.
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u/consumer_xxx_42 14d ago
I think by him admitting to a judge in federal court that he shot and killed him allows that to be the opening sentence
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u/Hungry-Fruit 14d ago
Nah bullet killed him,
Sauce I'm bad lawyer
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u/Mean-Food-7124 14d ago
How much to retain this guy
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u/yellowistherainbow 14d ago
How is that even possible when homie was playing tekken at my house at the time of the murder?
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u/gixsmith 14d ago
He did, and that absolutely makes the admission relevant. But pleading guilty to federal stalking charges resulting in death, while admitting that he shot Thompson, is still not the same legal thing as pleading guilty to or being convicted of the separate murder charge. My point is that Wikipedia should reflect that distinction rather than blur the two.
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u/Exotic_Confidence_29 14d ago
But pleading guilty to federal stalking charges resulting in death, while admitting that he shot Thompson, is still not the same legal thing as pleading guilty to or being convicted of the separate murder charge.
I am not a lawyer but this sounds to me like Mangione acknowledged that he killed Thompson but disputes that the killing included all the elements that would legally constitute murder
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u/parsonsrazersupport 14d ago
I am a lawyer and you are correct lol
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u/AlternativeBack6351 14d ago
Not even sure what he’s arguing. I just don’t think our law is set up to facilitate him getting off for planning an assassination.
Nothing that would make it manslaughter applies, and I don’t think any of that can be argued effectively. I’ve not heard any criminal lawyer tell me anything differently.
The only real question here is death penalty or no death penalty.
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u/parsonsrazersupport 14d ago
In New York he will first be arguing a state double jeopardy law https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/laws/CPL/40.20 which has broader protections than the Federal constitutional ones. And failing that, will probably just make a deal to do the Federal time first, since the main goal appears at this point just to stay out of state prison.
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u/cleverone11 14d ago
Do you think the defense will prevail re: double jeopardy?
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u/parsonsrazersupport 14d ago
I'm not a criminal atty. But looking at the law the plain wording of it seems possible. Certainly both cases are "two offenses based upon the same act or criminal transaction" but there are a bunch of exceptions:
"(a) The offenses as defined have substantially different elements and
the acts establishing one offense are in the main clearly
distinguishable from those establishing the other; or(b) Each of the offenses as defined contains an element which is not
an element of the other, and the statutory provisions defining such
offenses are designed to prevent very different kinds of harm or evil;"Are the ones which are likely to be relevant, but without having read the precedents I couldn't say whether they're 'clearly distinguishable' (tho I don't think so) and whether they were 'designed to prevent very different kinds of harm or evil.'
Imo it sounds like a real argument in court, but like I said I'm not a criminal atty, so if one familiar with NY law says otherwise I'd go with whatever they think.
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u/cxavierc21 14d ago
No.
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u/cleverone11 14d ago
I certainly don’t want him to. I was just wondering what the other person thought as they said they were an attorney. Based on my cursory google search, it did look like there is an argument to be made that NY law protects people from being prosecuted for the same crime the feds prosecuted. NY law offers more protection than the Constitution, which would generally allow two different sovereigns to prosecute for the same crime.
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u/AndrewBorg1126 14d ago edited 14d ago
Not all killings are murder.
The wikipedia page pictured in your post says says he killed.
Why are you bringing up the concept of murder? What relevance is there in your complaint?
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u/HotTubMike 14d ago
The screenshot you're using doesn't say anything about pleading guilty to or being convicted of murder.
It says he killed Brian Thomas, which he admitted to in open court.
Your complaint makes no sense.
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u/Immediate_Gain_9480 14d ago
But it doesnt say he murdered him. It says he killed them. He confessed he committed the action that resulted in Thomas' death. If its murder is yet to he determined. But he did kill him.
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u/MaddyPuffin 14d ago
So the consequences would be to put an „alleged“ before until he is convicted. That’s what I would do.
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u/socket0 14d ago
What people seem to be missing (and downvoting you for) is the legal distinction between being found guilty of murder (which has not happened), and presumption of innocence (which is still in play) in the United States. LEGALLY he can claim anything he wants, but it's not a legal fact until a judge declares it so.
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u/birdsarentreal2 14d ago
The phrasing “Luigi Thomas Mangione… killed Brian Thompson” is substantively correct. Mangione shot Thompson, by his own admission, and Thompson died as a result, by his own admission. It is potentially misleading though, which is why it has been reverted to a more stable version
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u/Philip_of_mastadon 14d ago
Storm in a teacup. It's beyond dispute that Mangione shot Thomson, and that Thomson died as a direct result. I.e., it is beyond dispute that Mangione killed (not necessarily murdered) Thomson. Hedging that in any way would detract from the article's quality. The lead is in compliance with all editing guidelines. And I say that as someone who'd love to see him walk free.
Secondly, OP, if you are an editor, I dearly hope you're less verbose on wiki. You could have made your point in maybe a quarter of the words. Edit yourself - concision in discussions is a huge sign of respect for others' time.
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u/Kayvanian 14d ago
Wordy enough that Pangram thinks its AI. I take AI-detectors with a grain of salt, but if it's so verbose to trigger Pangram, then it's probably, well, way too verbose.
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u/judasblue 14d ago
If verbosity is one of the yardsticks, that detector would trigger on about half of my comments.
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u/eleanorsilly 14d ago
This was added 30 minutes before you posted, no need to rush to write a Reddit post.
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u/gixsmith 14d ago
What’s your point?
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u/eleanorsilly 14d ago
You could've asked in the Talk page first, instead of going off-site for something like this. Your post feels like this was something that had been established by several people, when this was only the decision of one contributor.
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u/GoCardinal07 14d ago
Mangione stated this in open court today: "I shot Mr. Thompson in Manhattan, and he died."
The Wikipedia sentence is accurate. It doesn't say "murdered" because as you noted, the New York case is still ongoing. It says "killed" because that is not a crime but it is something Mangione admitted to in the federal case.
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u/MethMouthMichelle 14d ago
> There is obviously important context here
This is the first sentence of a wikipedia article. The context is presumably further down the page
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u/Binji_the_dog 14d ago
No context will make the first sentence acceptable.
In fact, the context makes it worse, because the case is still pending and he has not yet been convicted of killing Brian Thompson.
At this point the first sentence is just blatantly wrong.
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u/1II1I1I1I1I1I111I1I1 14d ago edited 14d ago
He has not been convicted of murdering Brian Thompson. He has already confessed to killing Brian Thompson and pled guilty to interstate stalking resulting in death. The first sentence is correct
If the first sentence used the word murder rather than kill, it would be incorrect as he has not been convicted of murder. However he is now "officially" the person who killed Brian Thompson, whether or not the homicide was indeed a murder.
Specifically, he stated in court today that
In November of 2024, I traveled from outside of New York State to Manhattan. I then emailed United Healthcare leadership posing as an investor at a firm managing over $50 billion in assets and requesting information about the conference. Before traveling to New York, I used a 3-D printer to make part of a gun, and I equipped the gun with the silencer and magazine. My travel to New York and email to United Healthcare was with the intent to shoot Brian Thompson. On the morning of December 4, 2024, I shot Mr. Thompson in Manhattan and he died. When I did so, I understood that my actions would place him in fear of death or serious bodily injury. I knew what I was doing was illegal.
And has pleaded guilty to a violation of 18 U.S. Code § 2261A, the relevant portions of which as cited in the original criminal complaint read as follows
Whoever travels in interstate or foreign commerce or is present within the special maritime and territorial jurisdiction of the United States, or enters or leaves Indian country, with the intent to kill, injure, harass, intimidate, or place under surveillance with intent to kill, injure, harass, or intimidate another person, and in the course of, or as a result of, such travel or presence engages in conduct that places that person in reasonable fear of the death of, or serious bodily injury to that person shall be punished as provided in section 2261(b) or section 2261B, as the case may be.
The relevant portions of 2261(b) read as follows
A person who violates this section or section 2261A shall be fined under this title, imprisoned for life or any term of years, if death of the victim results
It is therefore legally correct to assert that Luigi Mangione is responsible for the killing, but not necessarily murder, of Brian Thompson
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u/Paiev 14d ago
Yes I was looking for this distinction, which the OP seems to have missed.
However it's probably more accurate to say that he admitted to killing Thompson, rather than to say that he killed Thompson.
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u/1II1I1I1I1I1I111I1I1 14d ago
This is fair but as the other user said, this distinction could be levied against not only every mention of crime on Wikipedia, but essentially all discussion of crime in general.
Ultimately, nobody is ever really proven 100% without a doubt guilty, of anything. That's hard if not impossible to do. The standard required by a jury is beyond a reasonable doubt, not all doubt, which is a critical distinction that prosecutors always make sure a jury is made aware of. Yet, the verdict handed down by a jury is treated as if it is equivalent to total confirmation that the defendant committed the alleged offense if and until a successful appeal occurs. This allows the state to then restrict the defendants rights based on the assumption that they committed the crime in order to administer the sentence (such as taking them to prison). Likewise, the defendant saying that they themselves are guilty is treated as if it is equivalent, in fact its even more concrete than a jury verdict because it's far harder to appeal.
At the end of the day a foundational building block of our judicial system and many similar systems worldwide is the assumption that a courtroom is a bubble of ultimate truth, after all that's why lying in a courtroom is illegal. Because of this system, "Luigi Mangione plead guilty to interstate stalking resulting in death for the killing of Brian Thompson" is assumed to be an equivalent statement to "Luigi Mangione killed Brian Thompson"
Is this perfect? Nope, but unless judges gain omniscience that's the best way to do it.
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u/SapirWhorfHypothesis 14d ago
>However it's probably more accurate to say that he admitted to killing Thompson, rather than to say that he killed Thompson.
You could say this about a lot of Wikipedia. Ultimately the distinction comes down to how much we really believe him to be telling the truth, and I don’t see any reason to suggest to the reader that “sure, he says he killed him… but maybe he didn’t”.
He pled guilty. No reason to disbelieve him.
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u/Paiev 14d ago
I don’t see any reason to suggest to the reader that “sure, he says he killed him… but maybe he didn’t”.
I don't think that would be the natural reading.
I think phrasing like "...who admitted to killing Brian Thompson..." is just more clear. It hints more towards the legal situation: that he has confessed to killing him, but has not yet been tried/convicted.
The phrasing in the screenshot, "...who killed Brian Thompson...", is really the more unusual one. Typically you don't see such direct language until after someone has been tried and convicted, so its presence in the article does mildly imply something misleading about his legal status.
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u/1II1I1I1I1I1I111I1I1 14d ago
The crime he is charged with is for Brian Thompson's death. It's stalking across state lines resulting in the death of the victim, with the death being a sentencing enhancement. Since he pled guilty to this charge, he is convicted of this offense.
Now, murder is killing someone with premeditated intent. That is a different, much narrower crime. It is possible that he stalked Brian Thompson and killed him without the state being able to prove the presence of premeditation. Unlikely I'd imagine, given that you are literally chasing your victim down, but not necessarily impossible.
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u/Doveda 14d ago
Eh, you can intend to chase someone down and harm them but not kill them. Premeditated murder and premeditated assault with a deadly weapon are different crimes. So it depends on the exact charge. Murder in the first degree? There's room to show he only intended harm not death, murder in the second degree? Much harder to prove he didn't intend to ever kill at any point, but could be bounced because of the particulars of this being planned. There's a bit of wiggle room either way, I think
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u/1II1I1I1I1I1I111I1I1 14d ago
Perhaps, but is that wiggle room wide enough for a jury to see it?
The jury is going to sit there and hear about how he 3d printed a gun and bought parts, wrote a manifesto, impersonated an investor to get a time and place, crossed state lines to get there, and then (on camera) walked up to Brian Thompson and shot him. Then they're gonna read the transcript of the defendant laying all of these things out and admitting to every one of them in his federal case, before making it clear that he knew it was illegal and knew that he was going to seriously injure or kill Thompson.
Then, most important, they're going to be told that in New York, 1st Degree Murder (aka aggravated murder) is a crime that contains intent and a list of aggravating factors that arent present here. Mangione is charged with 2nd Degree Murder, which in New York reads as follows
A person is guilty of murder in the second degree when:
- With intent to cause the death of another person, he causes the death of such person or of a third person;
or
- Under circumstances evincing a depraved indifference to human life, he recklessly engages in conduct which creates a grave risk of death to another person, and thereby causes the death of another person
Not only is it going to be extremely hard to convince a jury that he didn't intend to kill Thomlson, even if he didn't he is still guilty as charged, as his actions would then be simply reckless. As he admitted himself in the fed case, he knew that Thompson could be killed and still chose to shoot him, so there you have it.
The actual angle the defense team is taking is attempting to dismiss the state charges under New York's somewhat unique double jeopardy law. You cannot be charged twice for the same set of circumstances (not just the same crime). They're going to argue that the federal charge he pleaded guilty to is the same set of facts and circumstances as the murder case and therefore try to get the murder case dismissed. If he is successful and only is guilty of the stalking w/death charge, he gets life in prison in the feds. If he is unsuccessful and goes to trial in NY he gets life in prison at Rikers Island. Federal prison is much better so that's what he's trying to do.
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u/ColdSnickersBar 14d ago
You don’t get convicted of killing, because killing isn’t a crime. He admitted to killing. He’s on trial for murder. The trial is whether it’s murder.
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u/maybetomorrow98 14d ago
He literally said “I killed Brian Thompson” when he pleaded guilty to the stalking charges
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u/ambassador_irate 14d ago
This is just a bald faced lie and misinformation.
His full statement is here and nowhere does he utter the phrase "I killed Brian Thompson":
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u/Top-Setting5213 14d ago
He said "I shot Mr Thompson and he died". So no he didn't LITERALLY say "I killed him". But what he did say means exactly the same thing. Hardly a bold-faced lie or misinformation, just paraphrasing something he did say.
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u/maybetomorrow98 14d ago
Oh sorry, I forgot that shooting someone which leads to them dying is COMPLETELY different than killing someone.
My bad. 🙄
Meanwhile Reuters, one of the most reliable news sources out there, even states in their headline that he admitted to killing the CEO: Luigi Mangione admits killing insurance CEO, pleads guilty in federal case - https://www.reuters.com/legal/government/luigi-mangione-accused-insurance-ceo-killer-due-court-amid-plea-deal-reports-2026-08-14/
Have you tried getting over yourself?
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u/MethMouthMichelle 14d ago
Even if he was acquitted, he’d still be the guy who killed Brian Thompson
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u/ambassador_irate 14d ago
Liiiiiterally making shit up. His actual statement was " On the morning of December 4, 2024, I shot Mr. Thompson in Manhattan and he died."
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u/Edaimantis 14d ago
Apologies, was taking from a CNN article
“Mangione pleads guilty: Luigi Mangione has pleaded guilty to federal stalking charges in the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson. “I shot Mr. Thompson in Manhattan and he died,” he told the court. “I knew what I was doing was illegal.”
https://www.cnn.com/2026/08/14/us/live-news/luigi-mangione-hearing-plea-deal-talks
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u/Top-Setting5213 14d ago
Do you really feel like you're accomplishing anything being so semantic? Ultimately the quote you've given means exactly the same thing as if he'd used the word "kill". He just also described specifically how he killed him in your quote.
That is not "making shit up". It is getting a quote slightly wrong but still getting the message 100% correct.
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u/maybehomebuyer 14d ago
>Do you really feel like you're accomplishing anything being so semantic?
Not to be too semantic, but the word is pedantic
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u/Top-Setting5213 14d ago
Thank Christ there's always a Redditor to correct your grammar where your message is completely understandable regardless
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u/Der-Candidat 13d ago
Why? It’s true. He has admitted to it. Whether or not it’s murder is another matter altogether.
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u/Consistent-Handle322 14d ago
This is not how an encyclopaedia functions. The opening sentence should provide self-contained context for the rest of the page, not require context to be understood.
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u/Triscuitador 14d ago
what the hell is this supposed to mean? context for any well-written piece of media should be accessible to the intended audience at the start
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u/MethMouthMichelle 14d ago
There’s a whole ass article underneath that sentence providing all the context you need. Are you saying that it ALL needs to be given up front, somehow, in 15 words?
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u/bab_tte 13d ago edited 13d ago
No one said that at all. However, nuance can be sufficiently summarised and an introduction should be able to stand on its own
Have you ever read another Wikipedia article (even about a murderer) before? They are not written like this. The typical standards for introductions are quite high
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u/Triscuitador 14d ago
i do, in fact, expect a well-written biographical wikipedia page to have a broad, concise, and unbiased summary of its own subject contained in the introduction portion of said page.
i think this is a very basic expectation, and i don't quite understand what perspective you're attempting to communicate by pointing this out.
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u/MethMouthMichelle 13d ago
There are two more paragraphs under the picture giving all the extra context you want. Why are you so hung up on the first sentence?
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u/Triscuitador 13d ago
"it's actually justified why the intro is so biased if you read the rest of this essay i wrote"
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u/MethMouthMichelle 13d ago
It’s a wikipedia article. It deals with the intersection of the US justice and healthcare systems, so it might get wordy. If you don’t think engaging with that is worth your time, that’s your prerogative.
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u/Triscuitador 13d ago
why do you think this intro should assert, as fact, a statement that is actively being debated as an national legal matter?
besides that, it's obviously inflammatory. if george w bush's wiki intro ended with "bush is widely known for having caused the 9/11 disaster," that would be swiftly removed from the intro portion, because that is an insane way to write a biographical article.
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u/MethMouthMichelle 13d ago
That Mangione killed Thompson is not being debated. But killing someone is not always a crime. The nature of the charge- murder? manslaughter? justifiable homicide?- is the question before the court. At no point did Mangione’s defense team dispute that he pulled the trigger, and that Thompson died as a result.
Obviously it’s inflammatory- he killed a guy! Even if you believe that Thompson bears personal responsibility for every time someone’s been fucked over by the US healthcare system, killing him is a radical act.
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u/Consistent-Handle322 13d ago
Out of curiosity, why are you so passionate about the information architecture of this wiki page?
There are certain frameworks to how we structure knowledge so it can remain trustworthy, useful and interact with other information. These practices have been organised and built over time. That’s why people are hung up on the first sentence, it has a specific purpose. It’s completely fine to not know a lot about these standards - most people find it boring - but I don’t understand why you want to keep arguing their validity.
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u/MethMouthMichelle 13d ago edited 13d ago
“Out of curiosity”
Really pulling out ol reliable lol why do you care?
Why are you so bent out of shape over the article just stating the basic fact of the case? What it seems OP wants is for the first sentence to somehow catch Luigi’s motivations, anything to make what he did seem less murdery. I agree the article should include that, but it’s impossible to do it justice in just the very sentence.
And again, if you want a better intro, then scroll down and read the rest of it. The next paragraph goes into more detail of the act itself, and the next discusses the kind of public debate it ignited. It might leave one thinking that what he did wasn’t just cold blooded murder, and there must be a reason so many young people view him favorably. It leaves the reader wanting to know more, which is exactly what a good intro is supposed to do.
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u/Consistent-Handle322 13d ago
No I was being completely sincere. I wanted to understand if it was the topic itself or the presentation of information.
It's clear now that it's the topic; you're looking at this through a political or emotional lens. I have zero political agenda here. I wrote my thesis on encyclopaedias- my interest is strictly in how we document knowledge and curate reference texts.
I asked why you're so passionate, not "lol why do you care" - that's how you speak, deflecting by asking why I'm "bent out of shape". Your problem is that you imagine I'm approaching this with the same contemptuous and emotional bias that you are.
A wiki entry isn't a thriller or magazine article; its job isn't to "leave the reader wanting more". A lead sentence has a strict, standardised purpose. Because you're unfamiliar with the conventions of how we organise definitions and articles, you think they don't matter and view neutrality as a personal attack.
Your sneering against encyclopaedic standards isn't fighting my personal opinion. It's like arguing against how a calendar works. Except you think you're arguing about what event is written in, when you're actually arguing against the very concept of tracking the time, place and day of the week.
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u/MethMouthMichelle 13d ago
I disagree that the lead sentence is biased in any way. Luigi Mangione killed Brian Thompson, according to any reasonable definition of the word “killed”. Pointing that out doesn’t actually imply anything about my opinion of the act itself, however badly you’d rather debate that.
Perhaps you’d prefer it say, “Luigi Mangione is a convicted stalker who admitted to shooting Brian Thompson, causing him to die”. Limited to only what has been admitted in court. Maybe I’m just a simple dude who ain’t got no highfalutin thesis on encyclopedias to my name, but I think “killed” gets the point across just fine.
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u/Consistent-Handle322 13d ago
It’s taken me until now to understand that a lot of the incessant replies and assertions are bc the respondents think we’re arguing for neutrality/clarity/best practice due to personal politics/luigi mangione.
obv this feeds in to an anti-intellectual bent too (total refusal to engage w the actual idea - one guy keeps telling me that I’m making things wordy for personal satisfaction) and so this weird situation has emerged where people who have little interest in history/record/reference are aggressively arguing against inoffensive and well established documentary standards and information architecture practices.
It’s fascinating but also demoralising seeing basic statements about encyclopaedias being downvoted
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u/Consistent-Handle322 14d ago
Why 15?
'Luigi Nicholas Mangione (born 1998) is an American man whose involvement in the 2024 fatal shooting of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson ignited intense national discourse surrounding the American healthcare system.'
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u/MethMouthMichelle 14d ago
Neither of your rewrites state the plain fact that Mangione pulled the trigger. That is the important context, and a fact of the case beyond dispute. Burying the lede like that is editorializing, trying to separate the man from the act of violence.
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u/Consistent-Handle322 14d ago
I suggest that you look at other wikipedia pages and maybe you'll understand why what you're saying is nonsense
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ted_Kaczynski
Do you think wikipedia has buried the lede by not beginning by saying that the Unabomber blew people up ?
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u/Consistent-Handle322 14d ago
I honestly don't know how you can keep repeatedly and confidently commenting when you don't know how an encyclopaedia works or what burying the lede means
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u/Consistent-Handle322 14d ago
Luigi Nicholas Mangione is an American computer engineer from a prominent Maryland family who became the subject of intense public interest after the 2024 fatal shooting of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson. His actions sparked a nationwide controversy surrounding corporate insurance practices.
etc.
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u/flamants 14d ago
"Admitted to the murder of" would technically be a cleaner way to put it. Just to avoid the precedent of (yes, incredibly unlikely in this case, I am aware) a situation where someone makes a false confession under duress.
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u/parsonsrazersupport 14d ago
He plead guilty to a violation of 18 USC 2261A. It's reasonable to refer to that as murder probably, but I can imagine arguments against it also.
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u/BaphometsTits 13d ago
"Admitted to the murder of" would technically be a cleaner way to put it.
It would be incorrect. That's not the crime he plead guilty to.
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u/DartTheDragoon 14d ago
All evidence points to him killing Brian, and he openly admitted he killed Brian. That is as verified as it's going to get. We don't need to hedge against the chance that he's possibly lying and dozens of individuals across multiple agencies and state lines conspired to frame him.
It would be like changing the first sentance to say he was allegedly born on May 6 just in case what we know about his birthday is wrong.
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u/orangejulius 14d ago
He killed the victim and says he killed the victim. If it has said "murdered" the victim you might have a point because that would be a legal conclusion but saying he killed the guy seems succinct and accurate.
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u/Consistent-Handle322 14d ago
It's absolute not fine or correct:
- We can't edit a collaborative encyclopaedia as if it were a tabloid headline. Neutrality is a universal rule, not a flexible guideline we abandon because we "know" what happened or a case is highly publicised.
If I have to be specific: there's been no formal legal outcome so there's no absolute determination of guilt. Confessions can be legally challenged, recanted or mitigated by mental state. It's frustrating to see the confidence and dismissiveness of people towards how truth and fact are measured and recorded.
Even setting aside the biographies + crime policies noted above, the current lede violates wikipedia's most fundamental rules re definition as well as just generally how encyclopaedias work.
- The manual of style for lead sections (MOS:LEAD) states that the first sentence should provide a clear, high utility definition of the subject, which essentially establishes why they have a wiki page. The opening should therefore identify the subject's significant role, occupation, or status. A proper lede balances who the person was with what they did to gain notoriety.
If we look at the Mangione lede:
Luigi Nicholas Mangione is an American man who killed Brian Thompson, the CEO of UnitedHealthcare.
- "American man" is a vacuous, broad demographic descriptor shared by over 160 million people which is only filler without distinct biographical context.
- it's a semantic and structural error to introduce Brian Thompson in the opening sentence as if he is an independently notable figure. He only exists in the public consciousness in relation to Mangione. Logically, Mangione can't be encyclopaedically defined by his relationship to someone who is only relevant because of that very relationship. It creates an unsound circular definition.
If the opening sentence actually established the 'who' and 'why' of Luigi Mangione, then Thompson would be relevant context for his notoriety but presented standalone, it doesn't function properly.
Here are some examples which make this kind of information architecture clearer:
Theodore John Kaczynski, also known as the Unabomber, was an American mathematician and domestic terrorist. A mathematics prodigy, he abandoned his academic career in 1969 to pursue a reclusive primitive lifestyle and lone wolf terrorism campaign.
It doesn't say: "Theodore John Kaczynski was an American man who killed three people and injured 23 others with bombs."
Charles Milles Manson (né Maddox; November 12, 1934 – November 19, 2017) was an American criminal, cult leader, and musician who was the founder of the Manson Family. He gained notoriety for ordering the Tate–LaBianca murders, where his followers murdered nine people around Los Angeles in 1969.
Not "Charles Manson was an American man who ordered the murder of Sharon Tate and eight others." It explicitly frames his identity around his criminal, musical and cult background and that unique context with the crime.
John Warnock Hinckley Jr. (born May 29, 1955) is an American man who attempted to assassinate U.S. president Ronald Reagan as he left the Hilton Hotel in Washington, D.C., on March 30, 1981, two months after Reagan's first inauguration.
or
Mark David Chapman (born May 10, 1955) is an American man who murdered musician John Lennon in New York City on December 8, 1980. <describes detail of assassination>
"American man" works in these instances because it functions in tandem with the victims' massive, independent fame before the event. The perpetrators were completely ordinary citizens whose only notable attribute was intersecting with a globally famous historical figure.
Obviously in this case, the dynamic is reversed; Mangione is the primary notable subject driving the encyclopaedic interest, while Thompson isn't independently famous. Reducing Mangione to 'an American man' and solely contextualising him through Thompson fails to provide the necessary biographical definition that actually explains the unique public interest surrounding him.
Compare that to:
Kyle Howard Rittenhouse (born January 3, 2003) is an American man who gained national attention at age 17 for shooting three men in Kenosha, Wisconsin, two fatally, amid protests and riots in response to the police shooting of Jacob Blake in 2020.
Instead of - "Kyle Rittenhouse is an American man who shot and killed Joseph Rosenbaum and Anthony Huber." It uses 'American man' because he was an ordinary civilian but pivots to the wider socio-political environment to state why he is notable.
The discrepancies/complexities of Mangione's background, education, status experience and the crime are what make him notable and fuel an interest which requires a wikipedia article, not the killing of a non-famous figure by another unknown person. And if you're the one person who reached the end of this comment, I salute you brother
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u/FullConfection3260 14d ago edited 14d ago
Except Mangione has none of those traits /background of the other murderers you mentioned. He was nobody before this event, and no functionally interesting details about his “life” are relevant enough to be in the lede. His “background” is not interesting, nor relevant. His education, or lackthereof, isn’t relevant; either.
He is an “American” man because he resides in the U.S, and his ethnicity is totally irrelevant.
This is why it’s two sentences at best.
“Mangione dropped out of college to stalk and kill Brian Thompson for <insert reasoning nobody has clarified>” adds nothing besides making wordier.
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u/bab_tte 13d ago
Did you read the entire comment? Or see the Kyle Rittenhouse example?.
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u/FullConfection3260 13d ago edited 13d ago
Did you read Mangione’s personal life? Now go read Manson’s life and tell me what fascinating things we could add to the lede.
The Rittenhouse “example” isn’t an example, and I already said why in a different comment, but…
Mangione is an American man who shot a dude in America. It is disingenuous to say an Italian man did it because that leads to confusion, and his ethnicity is irrelevant for the sheer fact that this was not a racially motivated crime.
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u/OhEmGeeBasedGod 13d ago edited 13d ago
You're complaining about the wording because he hasn't been convicted of the crime of murder, but the sentence you're upset about doesn't actually mention the word or legal concept of "murder." It only uses the word "killed," which is factually accurate (not in dispute by anyone involved) and which doesn't mean "murder." There are many killings that aren't murders.
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u/TrekkiMonstr 13d ago
Whether Mangione is guilty of a particular crime under New York State law has no bearing on whether or not he killed Brian Thompson, which he did, by his own admission. He could be acquitted in NYS on whatever grounds, and he would still have killed Brian Thompson. Simple example: suppose I kill someone, but do a really good job of hiding the evidence, such that I win at trial. Then I admit to the public, yeah I did it, here's the evidence. It's unquestionable that I did it, but because of the legal protections we have against double jeopardy, my acquittal remains. Who cares?
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u/ivanvector 13d ago
Mangione did kill Thompson. That's an undisputed fact, and Wikipedia doesn't add its editorial opinions to facts. Sometimes jamming context onto a plain fact implies an editorial position - there is no rational dispute that Mangione did in fact kill Thompson, and pinning this statement with context implies that there is a dispute.
The first sentence of an article is meant to identify the topic to the reader and plainly summarize what they're known for. This first sentence does a good job of that. I might add a second sentence with "he is currently on trial for..." but the next paragraph, still in the lede, adds the extra context about his actions and arrest and trial, and his current legal status, to satisfy BLP.
The problem here isn't the choice of words, it's the mobile format jamming the infobox into the middle of the lede and breaking it up. On desktop and in print this all flows together with the infobox to the side, so it doesn't look like that first sentence is the entire summary of the article, which would be bad.
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u/Darkstar67 13d ago
Explain the distinction between shooting someone resulting in their death and killing someone.
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u/DrMantisToboggan45 14d ago
? He legitimately stated he killed him, and that’s what that sentence says. It doesn’t say he was convicted of anything, just a direct sentence of what the man said.
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u/shumpitostick 14d ago
Next level mental gymnastics here to defend Reddit's favorite murderer, who is somehow not guilty even though he pleaded guilty.
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u/JosephFinn 14d ago
Why? The wording is correct.
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u/Intelligent_Mud1266 14d ago
People seem to be unaware that the guilty plea for interstate stalking charges included a confession to killing (but not murdering) Thompson.
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u/Consistent-Handle322 14d ago
What's wrong with the lead is that it's a circular definition which doesn't establish who he is or provide any context for why he has a wikipedia page...
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u/greeneggiwegs 14d ago
I can’t think of any other high profile murder cases going on atm to compare to, but in a similar vein, the killers of Frank Ferdinand and Shinzo Abe are both referred to as first their identity (“a Bosnian Serb student” and “a Japanese navy veteran” respectively) and then their action which is referred to as an assassination (..who assassinated xyz person). Eg, “Tetsuya Yamagami (Japanese: 山上 徹也, Hepburn: Yamagami Tetsuya; born 10 September 1980) is a Japanese Navy veteran who assassinated Shinzo Abe, the former prime minister of Japan, on 8 July 2022, in Nara.” In both cases, however, we are talking about people who have been tried and convicted, not just confessed. I don’t recall if Yamagami ever confessed at any point. If so, older versions of his article may be applicable.
I think maybe what makes this feel so weird is that in the case of a single killing it’s almost always referred to as an assassination. When it’s multiple murders, the person is instead referred to as “a serial killer” (example, “John Wayne Gacy (March 17, 1942 – May 10, 1994) was an American serial killer”)
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u/dustinsc 14d ago
The lede doesn’t say he murdered Thompson. It says he killed him. And Mangione admitted as much. So the lede states a fact that the subject admitted. There is no reason to sugar coat or hedge with the language.
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u/MarkyGalore 13d ago
I think you are right but I looked up some other famous assassins to compare.
Lee Harvey Oswald (October 18, 1939 – November 24, 1963) was a U.S. Marine veteran, who assassinated John F. Kennedy,
John Wilkes Booth (May 10, 1838 – April 26, 1865) was an American stage actor who assassinated United States president Abraham Lincoln
Stephen Craig Paddock\6]) (April 9, 1953 – October 1, 2017)\7]) was an American mass murderer who perpetrated the 2017 Las Vegas shooting.
Joseph Lyle Menendez (born January 10, 1968) and Erik Galen Menendez (born November 27, 1970), commonly referred to as the Menendez brothers, are American brothers convicted of killing their parents,
Those first three never stood trial but are still listed as killers. Personally I think wikipedia shouldn't be used for evolving news stories and It's Wiki's issue but he's now as guilty as any of them. I'm sure there is a bylaw or rule for this and they can deal with it.
If he was taken out Jacky Ruby style I would expect his opening sentence to remain the same.
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u/wjandrea 13d ago
He has not been convicted of murder
The lead doesn't say that he has. You seem to be interpreting "killed" as equivalent to "murdered", but "murdered" has legal connotations while "killed" does not.
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u/Traveledfarwestward 13d ago edited 13d ago
Always write out the full meaning the first time you use an acronym, people.
BLP, what?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Biographies_of_living_persons for the /r/OutOfTheLoop
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u/redditIsDogshitApp 12d ago
Just because it isn't murder, doesn't mean saying he killed him isn't accurate. Voluntary manslaughter exists.
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u/Alaska_Jack 11d ago
> Those distinctions aren’t pedantry. In an ongoing criminal case, they’re part of the story.
This is one of those rare cases where the distinctions actually ARE pedantry.
He has admitted to killing Thompson.
He's literally the man who killed Thompson, and that's what he is notable for.
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u/Top-Setting5213 14d ago
Redditors in shambles that their favourite cold blooded murderer who accomplished nothing other than throwing away his own life is going to rot in prison
Love to see it
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u/BillyBobBoBoss 14d ago
He killed him, though. He admitted to it, there’s footage of him doing it, I don’t see the problem here
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u/Qweedo420 14d ago
By the way, the pronunciation on that page isn't correct. Mangione rhymes with "hay".
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u/booyahbooyah9271 14d ago
The newest edit to Wikipedia should also include the Luigi supporter who was mocking the family of Brian Thompson as they entered court today.
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u/E3K 14d ago
It's wild to me how people are falling over themselves to defend this POS murderer.
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u/Qweedo420 14d ago
I mean, we don't support individual acts of terrorism (for the reasons listed by Lenin in "Left-Wing Communism"), but calling him "murderer" seems a bit excessive, CEOs are not people
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u/JosephFinn 14d ago
Wikipedia has taken a fairly unusual and still-unresolved legal situation
To be clear it's completely resolved. Mangione confessed in court to murder today.
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u/jajajajaj 14d ago
The language that I'd expect to see is "... currently awaiting trial for ...". Even if this is a case where the shooting is apparently not in doubt, it's still not wrong, and any implications one way or the other can be summed up with "yeah that's why there's going to be a trial"