Ian Wagner, the man who allegedly threatened violence near UnitedHealthcare‘s headquarters in Minnesota, flew into an outburst in a court on Wednesday, shouting, “Power, money, and corruption.”
The judge then ordered for the 26-year-old to be put in custody without bond, citing “threat to public safety.” It was not immediately clear what led to the outburst and what he meant by those words.
Wagner attended the hearing in a flak jacket designed to prevent him from “harming” himself. According to Cheryl Wagner, Ian’s mother, her son suffers from mental illness.
“It’s heartbreaking. I feel helpless. He’s obviously not going to get the help that he needs in there,” she said outside the court, accompanied by her husband, Levi.
The Wagners attended Ian’s first court appearance, hoping he could get the requisite mental health treatment.
‘Made multiple attempts to arrest Ian Wagner’
On Wednesday, Hennepin County officials stated they made “multiple attempts” to arrest Wagner since he violated his probation in a separate case, on April 3, an episode during which he also violated the terms of his electronic home monitoring device.
The officials said the monitoring device was not equipped with GPS, and notifies authorities only if he’s out of a certain range.
On Monday, too, the police attempted to arrest Wagner for the violation. However, the search “spooked” Ian, who fled to his grandparents’ house, retrieved a gun, and travelled to the entrance of the healthcare giant in the Minnetonka, a suburb of Minneapolis.
An emergency 911 call informed authorities about his presence at the UnitedHealthcare headquarters.
In December last year, the company’s chief executive officer, Brian Thompson, was shot dead outside a hotel in New York City. The suspect, Luigi Mangione, was eventually arrested from a McDonald’s outlet in Altoona, Pennsylvania.
