They called it the fire that swallowed paradise. The Palisades Fire, which erupted on New Year's Day 2025, scorched over 23,000 acres, devoured nearly 7,000 structures, and killed a dozen people. Now, the man accused of lighting that inferno is revealing a disturbing motive: he was obsessed with a killer America can't stop talking about.
Jonathan Rinderknecht, a 30-year-old former Uber driver, wasn't just angry at the world. He was fixated on Luigi Mangione—the man charged with executing UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson in broad daylight on a Manhattan street. As the Palisades Fire burned, Rinderknecht was allegedly searching terms like "free Luigi Mangione" and "lets take down all the billionaires." His passengers that night described him as enraged, erratic, ranting about capitalism and vigilantism.
"We’re basically being enslaved by them," Rinderknecht told investigators when asked why anyone would torch a wealthy neighborhood like Pacific Palisades. He compared his own act of arson to the murder that made Mangione infamous. But Rinderknecht is far from alone—a dark wave of copycat violence is sweeping the nation, with Mangione's name becoming a rallying cry for those who feel pushed to the edge.
In April, a 20-year-old named Moreno-Gama allegedly traveled from Texas to San Francisco with one goal: kill OpenAI CEO Sam Altman. He threw a Molotov cocktail at Altman's home, then stormed OpenAI's headquarters, hurling a chair through glass doors and threatening to burn the building down. Weeks earlier, he'd joked online about "Luigi’ing some tech CEOs."
Across the country, another 20-year-old, Abdulkarim, set fire to a massive Kimberly-Clark warehouse—a 1.2-million-square-foot hub that went up in $500 million flames. He filmed himself doing it, complaining about his wages. "If you’re not going to pay us enough to live… at least pay us enough not to do this," he said. In subsequent calls, he invoked Mangione. "Luigi popped that mutherf-----," he bragged, claiming people would understand.
Then there's Riley Jane English. In January 2025, she walked up to a U.S. Capitol Police officer and said, "I’d like to turn myself in." She had two Molotov cocktails and two knives. Her target? Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent—and she also wanted to kill the War Secretary and the Speaker of the House. She cited a terminal illness and called her planned violence "fate." Prosecutors noted she explicitly mentioned being influenced by Mangione.
Nearly a year earlier, in July 2025, Shane Tamura stormed an NFL office building in Manhattan with an assault rifle, killing four people—including an off-duty cop and a financial executive. Like Mangione, he left behind evidence blaming the NFL for causing brain damage. Sympathizers online cheered him as a hero continuing Mangione's philosophy.
Each act is a chilling echo. Each perpetrator points to the same name. And while Mangione's attorney insists he condemns all political violence, the pattern is unmistakable: a new American assassination culture is being born—one fueled by resentment, economic rage, and the dark allure of a single, infamous killer.
