‘I knew it was him’: Cop who found Luigi Mangione testifies in court

“It’s him … I’m not kidding. He’s real nervous, and he didn’t talk too much,” Detwiler is heard telling a supervisor by phone from the restaurant parking lot moments after meeting Mangione, according to the officer’s body-camera video.

Altoona Police Officer Joseph Detwiler, who was on scene during Luigi Mangione's arrest, testifies that he recognized Mangione as the person of interest in UHC CEO Brian Thompson's assassination as soon as he saw him pull his mask down. pic.twitter.com/Upa38C42Wl

— Michael Ruiz (@mikerreports) December 2, 2025

It was played in court on Tuesday, the second day of a hearing about evidence in the case.

What Joseph Detwiler said

According to The Associated Press, Detwiler testified that he’d noticed the man’s fingers shaking as they interacted and officers patted him down. Over the ensuing minutes, Mangione placidly ate a hash brown as the officers waited for colleagues and claimed they were simply responding to loitering concerns at the eatery.

“I was trying to keep him calm,” Detwiler told the court, adding that he at one point started whistling over the restaurant’s holiday-season music to “make him think that nothing was different about this call than any other call.”

Lawyers for Mangione want to block evidence

Lawyers for Mangione want to block prosecutors from showing or telling jurors at his eventual Manhattan trial about statements he allegedly made and items authorities said they seized from his backpack during his arrest.

The objects include a 9 mm handgun that prosecutors say matches the one used in the killing and a notebook in which they say Mangione described his intent to “wack” a health insurance executive.

The defense contends the items should be excluded because police didn’t get a warrant before searching Mangione’s backpack. They also want to suppress some statements Mangione made to law enforcement personnel, such as allegedly giving a false name, because officers started asking questions before telling him he had a right to remain silent.

What prosecutors said

Prosecutors with the office of Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg have opposed Mangione’s requests to suppress the evidence.

Prosecutors have also denied claims that Mangione was illegally searched and questioned.

Surveillance footage played on Monday showed police speaking to Mangione in a McDonald’s restaurant for more than 30 minutes before arresting him, which could be important to the defense’s claim that he was questioned without being informed of his rights against self-incrimination.

Detwiler testified that he never told Mangione he couldn’t leave, nor mentioned the New York shooting.

Defense lawyers, however, have argued in court filings that officers “strategically” stood in a way that prevented him from leaving.

Guard says Mangione told about 3D-printed pistol

During the second day of the hearing, a prison guard testified that Mangione told him without prompting that he had a 3D-printed pistol in his backpack, which police say they found along with a silencer and journal writings that allegedly implicate him in the killing.

A defense lawyer cast doubt on the guard’s assertion that Mangione volunteered such incriminating information on his own and sought to show the guard may have questioned him without advising him of his rights.

“You weren’t asking him any questions, you weren’t speaking to him at all… And out of nowhere he says to you, ‘I had a 3D-printed pistol’?” defense lawyer Marc Agnifilo asked.

The guard said he did not ask Mangione any questions and testified during follow-up questioning by a prosecutor that he did not care about the outcome of the case.

Charges against Mangione

Mangione was arrested in December 2024 and charged with fatally shooting UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson on a sidewalk in Midtown Manhattan.

Mangione, the Ivy League-educated scion of a wealthy Maryland family, has pleaded not guilty to state and federal murder charges. The state charges carry the possibility of life in prison, while federal prosecutors are seeking the death penalty.