The brother of Ted Kaczynski, the domestic terrorist known as the “Unabomber,” said Tuesday he hopes the man accused of killing UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson doesn’t see his brother as an “important role model.” He said he was concerned that he did not consider himself an “important model.” Acts from decades ago can motivate violence today.
Ted Kaczynski carried out deadly bombings that killed three people and injured 23 over a 20-year period before being arrested in the Montana wilderness in 1996. Kaczynski mocked authorities with a rambling manifesto and was arrested after the longest FBI investigation in history.
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The suspect in Thompson’s murder, Luigi Mangione, an Ivy League technology graduate, wrote a review of Kaczynski’s “Industrial Society and its Future” (also known as “The Unabomber Manifesto”) in January, and posted the following on the book review site Goodreads: It was written as follows. Quickly and thoughtlessly dismiss this as a madman’s manifesto to avoid confronting some of the unpleasant problems it identifies. It is simply impossible to ignore how prescient many of his predictions about modern society turned out to be. ”
But David Kaczynski said his brother, who died by suicide in federal custody in 2023, is not someone to look up to.
“His actions are like a virus,” David Kaczynski said in a telephone interview. “They could be like a virus, unless you understand that he’s a very angry and agitated man. It doesn’t mean his thoughts are the thoughts of a madman, but his I believe the actions are the actions of a madman.”
David Kaczynski added: “If you think he’s reframed violence as some kind of normalization or good for humanity, that’s a terrible mistake.”
Ted Kaczynski, a Harvard-educated mathematician, wrote from 1978 to 1995 railing against technology and setting off homemade pipe bombs at universities and American Airlines planes, federal prosecutors say. Announced. He wrote a 35,000-word manifesto against the “industrial-technical system” in hopes of revolutionizing modern society.
Mangione, 26, graduated from the University of Pennsylvania in 2020 with a bachelor’s degree in computer science and a minor in mathematics, as well as a graduate degree in computer and information science, the school said.
He was arrested at a McDonald’s in Altoona, Pennsylvania, on Monday after a multi-day manhunt following Thompson’s death last Wednesday. The 50-year-old CEO was shot dead in front of a New York City hotel in what New York City police said was a “premeditated, premeditated, targeted attack.”
At a hearing Tuesday afternoon in Pennsylvania, Mangione elected to fight extradition to New York, where he will face charges including second-degree murder. Bail was refused.
“This is completely outrageous and an insult to the intelligence and lived experience of the American people,” Mangione shouted at reporters before entering the courtroom.
NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch told reporters Monday that investigators found handwritten documents that “speak to both his motives and his mindset.” Details were not disclosed, but NYPD Chief of Detectives Joseph Kenney said Mangione appeared to have “malicious intentions toward American businesses.”
In a preliminary analysis of the New York City police shooting, investigators are looking into whether the attack was the culmination of the suspect’s apparent troubles and a series of grievances, including that the murder was linked to corporate There is also the possibility that it was a “symbolic killing” in the fight against the authorities. game. ”
Investigators also suggested that the suspect praised Kaczynski’s attacks and may have echoed his concerns about technological advances.
According to Mangione’s Goodreads account, he has read 65 books on topics ranging from Elon Musk to dieting. He rated Kaczynski’s book four out of five stars. He also cited “an opinion” he found online, which he said was “interesting.”
Online comments about Kaczynski include: “When all other means of communication fail, violence is necessary for survival. You may not like the way he does it, but when you look at things from his perspective, it’s It’s not terrorism, it’s war and revolution.”
David Kaczynski was instrumental in his brother’s arrest. After the Washington Post published the “Unabomber Manifesto” in 1995, David Kaczynski realized that his brother might be one of the FBI’s most wanted fugitives and helped the FBI capture him. .
David Kaczynski understands that people may still look at his brother’s work and see a connection to his belief that rapid technological advances are eroding human freedom. He said he is doing so. But violence cannot accompany change, he added.
“I think we always have to remember that human motivation is very complex,” David Kaczynski said. “There are many factors that go into what motivates a person to take such a bold move. I hope that my brother was not, in some ways, an important role model for him.”
David Kaczynski declined to comment on his brother’s death in prison in June 2023. Ted Kaczynski was serving a life sentence without the possibility of parole and had been diagnosed with rectal cancer when he committed suicide alone at the age of 81 in his cell at Federal Medical College. Center in Butner, North Carolina. His autopsy results, obtained by NBC News in April, said he had been “sent for psychiatric evaluation for depression” a month before his suicide.
“Just as acts of love can send waves of benefit, both visible and invisible, to other people and to humanity as a whole, acts of violence do the same. It pains me personally to think that my brother’s actions in any way influenced a man like this to kill an innocent human being.”