Mark Manley, AKA “Mark Choppa,” a prominent Second Amendment advocate and community activist based in Baltimore, had his home raided by the Bureau for Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) in November.
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Manley, who has dedicated his life to empowering underserved communities through firearms education, conflict resolution, and self-defense training, became the subject of an early-morning raid on his home in which officers pointed rifles at him and his wife and children.
The raid occurred at about 4 a.m., catching Manley and his wife and children off guard. Manley’s wife alerted him to the presence of law enforcement officers in front of their home. “I looked out the window, and I’m literally watching them crawl through my grass,” he told me during an interview on my podcast.
The agents then broke into the home, throwing a flashbang grenade into the living room where Manley’s wife was drinking coffee.
The activist described the traumatic moment when federal agents aimed their guns at his children. “I can see my children, and I can see that they still have their rifles drawn on my children while they were…with their hands up.” He recounted. “That is where I have a problem, and that is something that I can’t ignore.”
In the video footage, Manley can be heard telling officers to stop pointing their weapons at his daughter.
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ATF agents were supposedly searching for illegal firearms. Manley has many guns in his home, which he owns legally and is licensed to carry. Despite the harrowing raid, the agency has not filed charges against Manley, and they took no evidence except for a cell phone. “I’m a law-abiding citizen, and I don’t break any laws,” he said. “But I was already presumed, assumed guilty for you guys to come do my family like that.”
Manley indicated that the raid could have happened because someone falsely told them he possessed illegal firearms. “They were looking for illegal firearms. They were looking for machine guns. And it was said that somebody had said these things about me, that I had illegal firearms,” the activist said.
Through his work, Manley, a high school educator and girl’s flag football coach, has made quite a name for himself in his community. He teaches workshops on de-escalation techniques, conflict resolution, and firearm safety to young people. “We didn’t have that kind of education in urban cities,” he explained. “Most kids in the District of Columbia or Baltimore City have never been…target practicing or hunting or fishing.”
Despite trying to be a positive force in his community, Manley’s work has faced constant resistance from authorities, which Choppa attributes to his efforts to educate and empower his community. “The government has been shutting down my two-way events,” he said. “They’ve been shutting down my workshops, and the only thing they can say is because they received a complaint.” In one instance, authorities threatened to imprison both Choppa and his wife if he proceeded with a planned event.
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“They sent an injunction, and the injunction said, ‘If you have this event, we’re not only going to lock you up, but we’re going to lock your wife up,’” he recalled.
Nevertheless, Manley has continued his work. “I want to normalize educated Black firearm owners in the inner city,” he said. “I want to put emphasis on self-defense laws and teach our youth how to be responsible.”
The activist also had some choice words for government entities trying to stop him: “You put my children at risk. You put my wife at risk. I’m not going to allow anybody to silence me. I’m not going to allow anybody to push me. I’m going to keep fighting. I’m going to keep spreading the word.”
You can watch the full interview here: