By COLE SINANIAN
Queens Congressional Candidate Chuck Park was arrested at around 3:20pm May 1 while protesting right outside the New York Stock exchange in the Financial District. He had been at a rally for International Workers’ Day (May Day) organized by the Sunrise Movement, an environmental organization known for its disruptive protests and advocacy for a Green New Deal. According to Park’s press team, about 100 New Yorkers attended the protest, 25 of whom were arrested alongside Park.
He was released at about 6pm the same day, and faces charges of failure to disperse and blocking pedestrian traffic.
“We learned that Chuck was arrested by the NYPD SRG Unit while peacefully demonstrating with Sunrise Movement outside of the NYSE,” a spokesperson for Park wrote in a statement. “For too long the establishment has prioritized billionaires and corporate oligarchs over the interests of millions of laborers and union members who keep NYC running. It’s time to TAX THE RICH and make billionaires finally pay their fair share.”
In a video posted to Instagram, Park — clad in a black T-shirt with the words “No Work, No School, No Trading” — can be seen with his hands behind his back, being escorted by the NYPD’s Strategic Response Unit.
“We can’t take it anymore,” he says in the video. “We gotta tax the rich! I’m being arrested, I’m being arrested because billionaires have bought our democracy, man.”
Park is running as a progressive challenger to incumbent Democrat Grace Meng in New York’s 6th Congressional District. His campaign has focused on ending foreign wars, boosting social welfare, abolishing ICE, and getting big money out of politics. Park has also staunchly opposed the Metropolitan Park Casino project in Flushing and has been highly critical of so-called “establishment Democrats” who take money from corporate and foreign lobbies and who he says govern on behalf of the wealthy instead of everyday working voters.
“I just got out of the holding cell at One Police Plaza,” Park says in another video posted to Instagram. “I’m OK— earlier today I was in an action for May Day with the Sunrise Movement. We were calling for taxing the rich to pay for healthcare and childcare for every working person in Queens and New York City and across this country. Apparently, the powers that be don’t want that.”
