Luigi Mangione has been charged with the murder of United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson, but some are hailing him as a hero.

Others, however, worry that this reaction may unleash a wave of copycat crimes. Mangione’s mugshot is making the rounds across social media, and memes and merchandise abound. In New York City, wanted signs for CEOs have popped up, while a Florida woman was arrested after threatening her health insurer with language similar to engravings on the bullets found near Thompson’s body.

Thompson’s murder has struck a chord with Americans who are disgusted by the broken health insurance system and increasingly frustrated by growing inequality, but is lionizing Mangione the appropriate response? According to one study published in the journal Crime & Delinquency, one-fourth of juvenile offenders said they have attempted a copycat crime.

Fast Company spoke with Dr. Jacqueline Helfgott, a professor of criminal justice at Seattle University and the author of Copycat Crime: How Media, Technology, and Digital Culture Inspire Criminal Behavior and Violence (Bloomsbury, 2023), about the possible impact that Thompson’s death and the reaction to it will have on crime.

Let’s jump right into it. Do you think this will trigger a wave of copycat crimes?

I think we’re already seeing it, and we’re going to see more. In Seattle, someone put up a flashing road sign that said “one less CEO, many more to go.” Who knows how many other places that’s happening? This case has all the elements of setting the stage for copycat crime. We’re being bombarded with........

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