Category: EVIL MF
by Lee Williams
Mark “Choppa” Manley is a gun owner, a gun collector and a Second Amendment advocate who has more than 70 legally owned firearms stored in a gun safe at his Baltimore home.
All of his firearms comply with both federal law and the laws of Maryland. He is always very careful about that.
Manley works as an intervention specialist for his local school district. His day begins early and ends late, usually around 7 p.m., because he also coaches girls’ flag football.
Manley and his wife, who did not want her first name used in this story, get up early for their jobs. For them, November 21st began just like any other workday.
“The morning of the raid started just like any other morning,” Manley told the Second Amendment Foundation’s Investigative Journalism Project.
“My wife went downstairs around 4:30 a.m. to make coffee,” he said. “I was sitting on the side of the bed, getting myself together.”
“Mark, there’s someone outside the house!” his wife yelled. She saw people moving around in their front yard.
Manley grabbed a handgun and looked out the window. He could see ATF agents making “tactical movements” all over his front yard.
“I could see agents crouching down with long guns,” he told SAF.
Manley checked his home security system’s monitor and saw more agents taking tactical positions in his backyard. He put down his pistol and quickly woke his two daughters, but not his 15-year-old son who was sleeping in the basement.
“I looked out the window again and could tell they were going to bust down our door,” Manley said. “I yelled ‘Hello! We are up here.’ All of a sudden, a bomb went off. My wife screamed. She followed right behind me on our way out, but she was disoriented. She was in pure shock.”
As the family walked out through their front door, they saw dozens of heavily armed ATF agents.
“I got my arms up and I’m walking down the steps. When I got to the bottom I turned around and saw that the agents had rifles pointed at my daughters,” Manley said. “I have young kids. They had guns pointed at my children. It was a pretty emotional moment for me. I was about to lose control. I yelled ‘You have guns on my f—ing children!’ They lowered their weapons.”
Manely and his 17-year-old daughter were each handcuffed. His wife and children were moved to the rear of a SWAT van. It was 20-degrees outside, and they were only wearing pajamas.
“I would like you to take the handcuffs off my daughter,” Manley’s wife told the ATF agents. “Why did you handcuff my husband? He complied with everything you asked for.”
The family then overheard ATF agents talking about their 15-year-old son, who was flash-banged in his basement bedroom.
“My son loves the basement,” Manley said. “He has his own place, but they busted down his door, threw a grenade and 14 agents ran into his room, guns drawn and threatening to shoot him. He was woken by surprise. They busted down the glass door to his room and had guns drawn. We were relieved to see him when they brought him out.”
“They brought our son out as we were ready to get back inside the house,” Manley’s wife said. “It was a half-hour later.”
Manley started thinking about his neighbors. He and his family had only moved into their home three months ago. Their neighborhood is predominantly white.
“For us to be the only black family on the block — the ATF just assumed they would find something in our home,” his wife said.
Next, the ATF agents brought police canines and their handlers into the home.
“The dogs ransacked our house,” Manley said. “They defecated everywhere — even on my daughter’s bed. This was completely uncalled for.”
Meanwhile, Manley said a host of ATF agents “ransacked” his home.
“They threatened to blow up my gun safe,” Manley said. “I don’t have anything to hide, so I told them I’d open the safe. They uncuffed me and told me ‘Don’t try to run.’ Where was I gonna run to? My family was right there.”
Manley unlocked his gun safe and slowly swung open the door.
“They were all standing around waiting and hoping,” he said “This was their moment, they thought. They started pulling out rifles and shotguns, but everything was registered and Maryland-compliant. ‘We got nothing here,’ one of them said.”
One ATF agent, who had told Manley’s wife he was the lead investigator, asked her later via a phone text for dimensions and other information about the doors and windows his team had destroyed, which he promised to replace.
“I didn’t want to talk to them,” she said. “I didn’t reply. They had just waged war on us.”
Aftermath
The Manley family was never told, at least officially, why they were mistakenly targeted by the ATF.
“I have done nothing illegal. I don’t sell guns. I don’t own any machineguns,” Manley said.
“The search warrant said he is a felon,” Mrs. Manley said. “It said he is a felon in possession of firearms.”
“I don’t have any felony record,” Manley said.
Their home was terribly damaged in the raid. It needs new floors in the living room and in their son’s bedroom because of the flash-bang grenades, and their front and rear doors still remain shattered. The police canine feces the family cleaned up themselves.
The agents asked Manley why “someone would make up stuff about you?”
“Are you kidding me?” Manley said. “I made it out of the inner city and poverty. People who are still there know me and envy what I’ve become. I do all of the giving back, but there is still hate and jealousy. Someone must have gotten caught with something and said, ‘Mark’s got all kinds of guns.’ To this day we just don’t know. Someone must have gotten caught and said some lies. It was all too easy for them to kick down my doors.”
Manley and his family have started a Go Fund Me page, which so far has raised more than $18,000. They are also speaking with several attorneys.
Neither Toni M. Crosby, the Special Agent in Charge of ATF’s Baltimore Field Division, nor Katherine Rottman, the office’s Public Information Officer, returned calls or emails Thursday afternoon.
“Thank you for contacting the ATF Baltimore Field Division. This inbox is not actively monitored but we are in receipt of your email and a member of our team will follow up with you,” an email reply states.
Said Manley: “Would this happen if I was white? Probably, but I feel like more of a target because I am black, but I don’t want to. I was targeted because I am such a strong supporter of the Second Amendment. I am heavily armed. I’m a black man, but me being a black man doesn’t help my case. They put me in the worst position as the man of the house. It was all just horrific, man.”
Suspect Luigi Mangione caught a on surveillance prior to killing UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson.Firearms have an undesirable way of finding their way into too many of our nation’s top news stories. A school shooting in Wisconsin. The attempted assassination of a political candidate. The robbery and shooting of a professional athlete. An argument that turns violent…and deadly.
For those of us who value our Second Amendment freedoms, are upstanding citizens, responsible gun owners and merely want to enjoy our hobbies and keep ourselves and our families safe, it can be unbearable to watch the senseless violence that takes place daily in this country.
That’s because unless we are directly involved in a situation such as a victim or family member or close friend of a victim, gun owners feel the pain of violent crime committed with firearms more severely than those who have no personal stake in the crime itself.
“How is that?” you might ask. “Crime in our communities affects us all.” And it does. But it affects the gun owner worse than the non-gun owner because we know every crime reshapes the debate over firearms and threatens a way of life and a sense of protection that we hold dear.
And to be honest, by the very nature of our involvement with firearms and understanding of gun safety and responsibility, we better understand the intricacies of the gun debate than the average citizen who goes no further than headline deep on stories that affect and shape gun legislation—and our rights.
The recent killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson by a man who waited for him like a hunter has brought another unwelcome spotlight on homemade and 3D printed guns, so called “ghost guns.” But more significantly in this case, it has brought an unwelcome light on the healthcare industry in general.
And the public, albeit likely a small, but vocal minority, has responded. Finding a voice in our nation’s 24-hour news cycle; selling products such as t-shirts exclaiming “Free Luigi” and “Deny, Defend, Depose,” the words police said were written on the shell casings discovered at the scene of Thompson’s murder; and raising funds for his defense, they have elevated the discussion on the frustrations many people already feel about healthcare and treatment by corporate America in general.
Let’s be clear: The evidence made available through the news in the killing of Thompson, if accurate, paints Luigi Mangione as nothing more than a savage killer, who shot an unaware man in the back as he walked to a meeting. He is no more honorable than Bob Ford, a disloyal friend who, as legend has it in order to collect a reward, shot bandit Jesse James in the back as he attempted to straighten a photo on his wall.
But because Mangione appears to have had some political motive brewing in his mind in response to a perceived injustice committed by big healthcare, an injustice many Americans are familiar with and can relate to, Mangione is being painted by some as a hero for the people. I doubt Thompson’s two young sons feel that way.
If he is a hero and his actions are deemed justifiable, what is to stop anyone who decides an injustice has been committed against them by say the manager of a grocery store who sells groceries that are deemed expensive, their own doctor when he fails to cure an illness or the mechanic who fixes their car when repairs take longer than expected or cost more than hoped? But that’s exactly what will happen if we justify Mangione’s actions. And in that case, everyone will always need to carry a gun for self-defense (some of you already do), because depending on what our job is, we could all find ourselves in the crosshairs.
As the late Martin Luther King Jr. once proclaimed, “The old law of an eye for an eye leaves everyone blind.”
Support is “Shocking”
As New York prosecutors pursue murder charges, Mangione’s supporters are rallying to his defense in shocking numbers. A crowdfunding campaign on GiveSendGo, organized by an anonymous group dubbed “The December 4th Legal Committee,” raised over $100,000 in less than a week.
“We are not here to celebrate violence, but we do believe in the constitutional right to fair legal representation,” the group stated.
The campaign struck a chord with donors who left comments reflecting their frustrations with the healthcare system. One donor, identifying as “A frustrated citizen,” thanked Mangione for “sparking the awareness and thought across this sleeping nation.”
Reddit threads have similarly erupted, not necessarily in support of Mangione’s crime but condemning the healthcare industry’s practices, which many argue push Americans to the brink. User Atlhart shared, “A friend of mine had knee surgery…the surgery was preauthorized. She just received a notice from UnitedHealthcare that they are denying the claim for the imaging used during surgery…UHC is saying it wasn’t necessary. $6000.”
Others echoed similar stories. Subhuman Resources described having an emergency appendectomy for their son rejected as “medically unnecessary,” a $96,000 charge: “Every claim is a fight.” Another user, No_Clue_7894, recounted their role as a pharmacy worker forced to deny life-saving medications to families, while sharing the personal burden of their husband’s cancer treatment.
111anza called out the hypocrisy between Mangione’s actions and corporate healthcare practices in their post:
“The CEO killer shot one person in broad daylight and he is charged 2nd degree murder for the horrible crime committed, rightfully so, justice will be served in a court of law.
“The CEO who was murdered, led a major healthcare company with an industry high profit margin of 28% that was the result of denying almost 1 out of 3 medical treatment. The CEO was never charged for any wrong doing even though his “business” decision certainly killed many people, instead, just last year along, he took home over $51 million dollars for (j)ob well done.
“People think the public is crazy for making this murderer a celebrity. No, the public knows that Luigi is a [murderer], and the public is not crazy. When you can profit by killing people en masse, legally, it’s the world that’s crazy.“
The Law Must Be Upheld
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, however, remains resolute, telling ABC News that Mangione’s supporters are on dangerous ground.
“Celebrating this conduct is abhorrent to me. It’s deeply disturbing,” he said. “We will be vigilant and hold people accountable.”
Amazon and Etsy have already removed merchandise in support of Mangione and glorifying or making light of his actions. Meanwhile, law enforcement agencies are alarmed by reports of “wanted posters” for other executives and banners advocating further violence.
Retired FBI agent Richard Frankel compared the public response to Mangione’s actions to past cases like the Unabomber or Eric Rudolph, calling it a “politically charged” reaction.
“You can be up in arms about the healthcare industry, but you can’t threaten or actually hurt members of the healthcare industry,” Frankel told ABC News.
Mangione’s attorney, Thomas Dickey, insists his client will plead not guilty and emphasizes his presumption of innocence. Still, the broader question looms: Are Mangione’s actions a disturbing symptom of public anger or a frightening precedent of vigilante justice?
Which to be clear, is a far cry from a defensive shooting where a threat is posing an immediate and imminent risk of death or severe bodily harm. And what culpability do corporations, particularly healthcare companies, and even our legal and political system have in leaving so many Americans feeling powerless to find justice in their lives that they can relate to this guy.
As one Reddit user grimly put it: “No one should be surprised this happened.” No, not surprised, but the rule of law must prevail or the rule of gunplay will, as nobody will ever be safe.