Filmmaker Lexi Alexander drew immediate backlash after reposting content on X appearing to celebrate the stabbing death of Bank of America executive Erin Piacenti in Times Square, with a reference to Luigi Mangione, the man accused of killing UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson in 2024. Piacenti was killed in the Monday knife attack during her first week back at Bank of America after five months of maternity leave caring for her newborn daughter.
The post Alexander shared paired a news headline about Piacenti's death with an image of Batman looking up at a bat signal redesigned to show Mangione's face. X labeled the content sensitive, but it remained visible on Alexander's profile. When critics responded, Alexander, who directed "Green Street Hooligans" in 2005 and "Punisher: War Zone" in 2008, did not walk the post back.
A second person was wounded in the attack before officers shot and killed the suspect. Authorities and family members said the suspect had a history of mental illness. Police have yet to establish a motive.
The political framing Alexander applied
Rather than engage critics on substance, Alexander identified them as "hasbara bots," invoking the Hebrew term for Israeli public relations activity. She connected the backlash to Bank of America's reported support for Israel, framing the anger as protection of the bank's financial interests rather than concern for Piacenti. "Israel doesn't care about the woman who got killed, they care about the positive rating BofA gave them in the middle of a genocide," she wrote on X. She also retweeted a post from a user who said she "didn't care" about Piacenti's death and had received death threats from "Zionists" as a result.
The Mangione cultural current
The episode follows a pattern. Mangione received a wave of public support after allegedly killing Thompson in 2024, with portions of the public framing the act as political rather than criminal. Journalist and New York Post contributor Douglas Murray addressed this on "America's Newsroom" in 2025, noting that far-left Americans in particular were justifying violence following the killings of Thompson and Charlie Kirk. "Do people have the right, or should they be justified, in taking things into their own hands and murdering other Americans in cold blood on the street?" Murray asked. He added that some prominent politicians had made excuses for the use of violence, a situation he said demanded a direct public answer.