Social media users have been drawing comparisons between online support for accused killers Elias Rodriguez, Rodney Hinton Jr. and Luigi Mangione.
“That people who commit murder are receiving any meaningful amount of public support, seemingly because the victims are seen by the murder’s supporters as belonging to the political opposition, is an exceptionally bad sign for our society,” Nicholas Creel, Georgia College and State University ethics professor, told Fox News Digital. “Democracy requires people to be committed to certain values, such as the peaceable resolution of our differences. Without that, we’re at risk for a far wider breakdown in the rule of law, the kind where mass atrocities can easily arise.”
Rodriguez, 31, of Chicago, is accused of killing Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Milgrim, a young engaged couple who worked at the Israeli Embassy in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday evening outside the Capital Jewish Museum.
Mangione, 26, is charged with first-degree murder in furtherance of an act of terrorism, stalking and a slew of other state and federal charges in both New York and Pennsylvania for allegedly gunning down UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, a 50-year-old married father of two, on a sidewalk in Manhattan on Dec. 4, 2024.
Paul Mauro, former NYPD inspector and Fox News contributor, told Fox News Digital that Mangione, Rodriguez, Hinton and Crooks represent “a very specialized class of violent losers.”
Rodney Hinton Jr. has been charged with aggravated murder in the death of retired Hamilton County Deputy Larry Henderson. (Phil Didion/The Enquirer/Imagn)
“At some point, everybody’s been down in their luck,” Mauro said. “But … when you are in and around 30 years old, and you are still clinging to these adolescent beliefs about the world and how you are on the side of the righteous because you are a member of a particular internet forum, and you’re willing to … extinguish the lives of others … you’re going to take away loved ones from families. Well, I’m sorry, but you guys are in a class by yourselves.”
He added that law enforcement professionals have seen such activity by young radicals “developing” since about 2020.
Mauro also said officials should be following the money that U.S. colleges and universities are receiving from nongovernment organizations and whether any of that funding comes from U.S. adversaries, such as Iran.
Thomas Matthew Crooks was killed during the July 13, 2024, assassination attempt on then-former President Donald Trump. (Bethel Park School District)
The former NYPD inspector noted that Rodriguez, Mangione, Crooks and, to an extent, Hinton are all relatively young men who had “their whole lives ahead of them” before allegedly hunting down people they believed to be their political or personal “opponents.”
“They weaponize these college kids who are susceptible and naive and who have never really been scuffed up by the real world,” Mauro said. “And in many cases, they don’t want to be. They don’t really want to go out and get jobs and do all the stuff that we did. … And they stay in this hyperprogressive bubble thinking that they’re on the side of the righteous. And then what happens is they manage to survive.”
Creel and Rynarzewska similarly noted that young people who are lonely or isolated tend to find a sense of community in people who share radical views online.
“From a bigger societal perspective, that’s where we really see the destructive influence on … youth,” Creel said. “When you’re young, you’re developing your sense of the world. You’re coming to figure out, when you come of age, what’s acceptable, what’s not. That’s when norms are being developed, your values take hold. And so, because of that, when you see these far more fringe-type positions of people supporting violence – murder, even – that becomes one of those things that then you think is normalized.”
Mangione and Hinton have pleaded not guilty to their respective crimes. Fox News Digital has reached out to their attorneys for comment.
