The movie version of “The Godfather” has a scene where mob boss Vito Corleone is shot and wounded by two anonymous hit men decked in fedoras and trench coats. They swiftly carry out their deed and then blend back into the hurlyburly of New York’s Little Italy. That scene unfolds in the 1940s, and it’s not hard to imagine that a real-life Mafia hit might have been carried out in a similar fashion in those days, with the identity of the two perpetrators never known.
Who would want to rat out members of the mob, first of all. But, more importantly, in a city full of men in trench coats and fedoras, how could you really identify them? Not anymore. The arrest in Altoona Monday of Luigi Mangione, the 26-year-old accused killer of United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson in Manhattan on Dec.
4, has highlighted many Americans’ dissatisfaction with the health care system and insurance industry, even though vigilantism should never be an acceptable avenue to express that discontent. But it has also brought to the fore the depth of the surveillance within 21st century American society. During the manhunt for Mangione, The New York Times reported on the thousands of surveillance cameras that permeate the city, and that allowed police to track his movements before and after he allegedly assassinated Thompson.
They had images of Mangione in a hostel, at a Starbucks, walking to the scene of the shooting, carrying it out, on a bike, in a taxi and, thanks to the surveillance cameras, th.
