Negative Google reviews are defaming a McDonald’s location in Altoona, Pennsylvania after one of its employees tipped the police about spotting the suspect for the UnitedHealthcare CEO shooting. The reviews — which follow a slew of social media praise for the alleged gunman — are criticizing the fast-food restaurant for snitching on the suspect, who was later identified as Luigi Mangione.
Mangione was arrested at the McDonald’s location for the shooting of the UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson in Manhattan on Wednesday, December 4. The Pennsylvania McDonald’s location has received one-star ratings and scrutinizing comments by users on Google. Google stepped in to remove the reviews that did not relate to the restaurant’s food nor service quality and the tech company said it will continue to remove comments related to the suspect’s arrest.
The negative McDonald’s reviews are just one example of online championing for the gunman since the shooting. Many social media users who disapprove of the health insurance industry and the U.S. healthcare system, in general, have expressed their support for Mangione across various platforms. Will the review bombing lead to the kind of loss of customers that McDonald’s faced as part of the E. coli outbreak earlier this year? Probably not, especially with Google actively cleaning up the reviews.
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What Happened At McDonald’s?
A police car blares its lights – Zag Advertising/Shutterstock
On Monday, a McDonald’s customer noticed a man wearing a medical face mask and a black hoodie at the Altoona, Pennsylvania McDonald’s who looked like the suspect for the shooting. Pictures and videos of the suspect had been circulating social media and news outlets in the six days since the event, so the customer pointed him out to an employee who then called local law enforcement. The suspect was arrested at the McDonald’s, where he was found with a gun similar to the one used to shoot the CEOs, several fake IDs, and a paper manifesto condemning the health insurance industry. It’s not the first shady thing to go down at McDonald’s, and it likely won’t be the last.
Following his arrest, Mangione was charged with murder, second-degree criminal possession of a weapon, second-degree possession of a forged document, and third-degree criminal possession of a firearm. Online support for Mangione has turned into a #FreeLuigi movement, which includes the negative reviews left on the Pennsylvania McDonald’s Google page. It’s not entirely clear what demographics support the alleged killer, but if social resentment over companies valuing profits over people, it makes sense that McDonald’s isn’t getting a pass seeing how lucrative the fast food franchise has become.
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