VIDEO: Tea Party Leader Arrested On Gun Charges Flees Cameras Into Boulevard of Death

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Tea Party Patriots leader Mark Mecker has never seen a TV camera he didn’t love. He seems to relish his Fox News appearances and hamming it up before the cameras at press conferences, rallies, and any other place he can get his mug on the big screen. But yesterday, Meckler was caught on tape literally running through oncoming traffic in New York City to avoid reporters, after he was arrested for illegally possessing a gun and charged with a felony. Meckler had gone to LaGuardia airport to catch a flight to LA and checked a locked case carrying a box that contained a Glock handgun and 19 cartridges of 9mm ammo.

A local CBS news station, which shot the footage, describes the chase:

As he left the courthouse after his arraignment he was desperate to avoid news cameras. A man accompanying Meckler put his hand over the lens of CBS 2’s camera and repeatedly tried to interfere with our photographer as Meckler raced through the courthouse to a side door.

As two photographers gave chase, Meckler ran to Queens Boulevard, the infamous “Boulevard of Death,” and ran across one lane of traffic, jumped over a wrought iron barricade and then high-tailed it to the other side before disappearing into the night.

Meckler has a concealed carry permit to carry the weapon in California, but that doesn’t make it legal in New York City, where Meckler had apparently been tooling around for a few days (on a trip that his lawyer diplomatically described as “temporary transit” through the state). He claimed he brought the gun because he’s gotten death threats, which raises the question of whether Meckler was actually packing heat during his entire stay in New York, which would be a big violation of the law there. After all, if he needs a gun because he’s gotten death threats, it’s not going to do him much good locked in a TSA-approved travel box.

Which may be why Meckler was so eager to avoid reporters. Watch his amazing fence-leaping skills as he navigates the Boulevard of Death here:

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

If you can, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones—that exists to make a difference, not a profit—with a donation of any amount today. We need more donations than normal to come in from this specific blurb to help close our funding gap before it gets any bigger.

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