U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said the comments on social media following the murder of New York Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson earlier this month were “extremely shocking.”
“It speaks to what’s really going on in this country, and unfortunately we’re seeing that manifest in violence, the domestic violent extremism that exists,” he told CBS’s “Face the Nation” on Sunday.
Some on social media praised Luigi Mangione, the man accused of shooting Mr Thompson, and expressed anger at private US health insurance companies.
Mayorkas said he was “shocked by the heroism” shown by an alleged murderer who killed a father of two on the streets of New York.
Earlier on December 4, Thompson, the 50-year-old CEO of UnitedHealthcare, the largest health insurance company in the United States, was shot and killed outside a Manhattan hotel, triggering a massive manhunt for the killer.
Mangione, 26, was arrested days later in Pennsylvania and flown to New York, where he faces federal and state charges, including first-degree murder in furtherance of terrorism.
Investigators have accused him of carrying out targeted killings and pointed to evidence of long-standing hostility toward the U.S. health care industry. On social media, support for Mr. Mangione is often accompanied by dissatisfaction and complaints about the health insurance sector.
“We’ve been concerned about rhetoric on social media for some time,” Mayorkas said Sunday. “We’ve seen narratives of hate. We’ve seen narratives of anti-government sentiment. We’ve seen individuals in violent language. dissatisfied.”
Mayorkas, whose Homeland Security department is partly responsible for protecting Americans from domestic terrorism, said his department sees “a wide range of rhetoric” that “drives some people toward violence.”
“This is something we are very concerned about,” he said. “This is a highly threat environment.”
But the 65-year-old police chief, whose term ends next month, stressed Mr Thompson’s killing was an “individual act”. [and] Does not reflect the American public.”
Mr Mangione will remain jailed in New York as his lawyers said last week they would not seek bail. He is being held in federal custody at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, the same facility where Sean “Diddy” Combs is being held.
Law enforcement sources told the BBC’s US partner CBS that he may be assigned a roommate and receive daily visits from medical and psychological services.
While there is no death penalty in New York, he faces four federal charges, including murder and stalking, that could make him eligible for punishment. He also faces multiple state charges.
He is expected to stand trial on those state charges in New York on Monday. Mr. Mangione faces 11 charges, including first-degree murder and terrorism-criminal murder.