‘We were told that we would be killed, our home burned, and our dog killed…’
(Claire Russel, Liberty Headlines) The St. Louis couple who confronted violent protesters in the driveway of their home are now being investigated for potential “unlawful use of a weapon.”
The couple, identified as personal injury lawyers Mark and Patricia McCloskey, stood outside their mansion on Monday and pointed guns at angry protesters who had broken into the gated community and marched toward the mayor’s home to demand her resignation. Mark McCloskey said he and his wife went out to the driveway after the mob had illegally burst through the fence, and that they were immediately threatened.
“A mob of at least 100 [protesters] smashed through the historic wrought-iron gates of Portland Place, destroying them, rushed towards my home where my family was having dinner outside, and put us in fear of our lives,” Mark McCloskey told KMOV-TV. “This is all private property. There are no public sidewalks or public streets. We were told that we would be killed, our home burned, and our dog killed. We were all alone facing an angry mob.”
A video of the encounter proves that the McCloskey’s residence was in fact in a private community:
In this livestream footage you can clearly see the STL black lives matter mob entered through the gate to a private community. This was not a public sidewalk. https://t.co/NeKHgTBWEu pic.twitter.com/UdYq3pGtlb
— Cassandra Fairbanks (@CassandraRules) June 29, 2020
But St. Louis prosecutor Kimberly Gardner said she is determined to get to the bottom of the incident, accusing the McCloskeys of meeting “peaceful protesters” with “guns and a violent assault.”
Under Missouri’s “Castle Doctrine,” residents are allowed to use force against an intruder on their property.
And because protesters broke into a private neighborhood and gathered on a gated road, the law supports the McCloskey’s actions, said the couple’s lawyer, Albert Watkins.
“Both Mr. and Mrs. McCloskey acted lawfully on their property which sits on a private gated lane in the City of St. Louis,” Watkins said in a statement. “Their actions were borne solely of fear and apprehension, the genesis of which was not race-related. In fact, the agitators responsible for the trepidation were white.”
Moreover, the McCloskeys made it clear on Tuesday that they support the Black Lives Matter movement. It wasn’t the protest they had a problem with, he said, but the way in which protesters went about it.
“The peaceful protesters were not the subject of scorn or disdain by the McCloskeys,” Watkins said. “To the contrary, they were expecting and supportive of the message of the protesters.”