Missouri Gov. Mike Parson on Tuesday issued pardons to a St. Louis couple who brandished weapons at Black Lives Matter protesters last year.
Parson pardoned Mark McCloskey and Patricia McCloskey after they pleaded guilty to assault and harassment charges last month for the June 2020 incident at their home.
Mark McCloskey pointed an AR-15 at protesters while his wife waved a semiautomatic handgun as protesters walked through the gated community of Portland Place on their way to the mayor’s home.
Last month, Mark McCloskey, 64, pleaded guilty to fourth-degree assault and was fined $750. Patricia McCloskey, 62, pleaded guilty to second-degree harassment and will pay a $2,000 fine and neither was sentenced to jail time.
They were also ordered to forfeit their weapons.
The couple previously pleaded not guilty to more serious charges, but a new plea agreement was reached after special prosecutor Richard Callahan amended charges.
In court proceedings, the couple said they felt threatened by the protesters, who they accused of breaking down an iron gate and ignoring a “no trespassing” sign.
Protesters said the demonstration was peaceful and Callahan said they “simply made a wrong turn on their way to protest in front of the mayor’s house,” adding there was no evidence any of the protesters were armed.
Since the incident, the McCloskeys gained national attention, including a speaking slot at the Republican National Convention and in May, Mark McCloskey announced a run for the Missouri state Senate.
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Good, at least someone has real folks backs who deserve to be protected. They shouldn’t have to pay any fines. Who is going to pay for any damages to their property? Who is going to reimburse them for what they had to forfeit? Maybe these thugs that threatened them will also be sent a lesson too. Probably not.
I wonder, are they ever going to get BACK, the firearms, that the city LITERALLY CONFISCATED from them, and broke??
A little late GOV. they should NEVER have been arrested. Just how many of that trespassing rioting group were arrested and charged?
ZERO!!!!!!!!!!!
Not
A
Single
Bloody
One..
Once again Lady Justice puts her hand on the scales of Justice and removes her blindfold to favor social criminals who break down gates and ignore legal no trespassing signs. She must be really getting off on Joe Biden sniffing her hair and blowing into her ear to do the same to those who do the very same thing on our borders. Apparently in the land where equity replaces equality, people of ill intent get to enter your personal safe places with impunity and set up housekeeping in your very bedrooms or courtrooms and halls of justice, and even enter you showers and toilet areas at will. Lady Justice in America today has put down her scales of equality for weighing justice and sold it for the price of political correctness, replaced her blindfold with snake scales that distort her vision, and put down the sword that once slew lies and criminals, but now is used to punish law-abiding Americans who must be taken down a peg or two to the lowest common denominator of equity so the criminals can live in peace with their own relabeled kind.
More like she got taken off her pedstal, and chained up, to the will of the mob….
Good for him. Good for them. They didn’t deserve the harassment laid on them by the BIG gubment.
HE Should have done this, MONTHS AGO… Especially before that witch of a DA started PERSECUTING these two…
FINALLY!
WHY didn’t you pardon them BEFORE they were dragged through this?
If the 2nd Amendment DOESN’T give you a RIGHT to protect yourself and your property, then WHAT does it protect?
I wish the McCloskey’s had SUED the City/State over the law that they (allegedly) violated – as being UNCONSTITUTIONAL!
Or is the City/State insisting that people who are threatened by an unruly crowd, actually SHOOT (and kill) people (rather than just brandishing their weapons)?
These anti-gun Nazis are INSANE!
It is good that they were pardoned—finally. Was this due to the governor seeing how ridiculous it all was or was it from increased public pressure to do so?
They should never have been charged with anything—they should not have had to plead guilty to anything, either—nor should they have had to surrender their weapons. I do think, however, this is a bit of a publicity stunt designed to make both sides look good. The unrighted wrongs against the McCloskeys still remain.
As for the “protesters” who created the disturbance—what price did they pay?
IMO those cretins, paid not a damn thing…
The wording of this UPI article is deliberately slanted to denigrate the McCloskey’s. It IGNORES that that ‘peaceful’ crowd destroyed a private gate to gain access to that private drive. It ignores that members of that crowd shouted threats at them, saying members would kill them and their dog and burn their house down.
None of the articles about this riotous group mentions that the reason they wanted to use this private drive to get to the Mayor’s house was because every other access road was blocked by police and their barricades. MAYOR Tishaura Jones used police to protect her own home, provided no police for neighbors in surrounding homes, then had the audacity to have her circuit attorney Kimberly Gardner charge them for unlawful use of a weapon.
IT was only peacefully destroyed…
Those two never should have been arrested in the first place. But it’s good to see some actual justice for once.
Good for them. It took the governor long enough.
Good. Now give them back their guns because now they are targets of the “mob”
You said it! Those BLM punks, who also had guns as shown in the video, will be out to get the McCloskeys and the idiot jackass attorney that tried to convict the McCloskeys has already said “The McCloskeys day will come.” That looks like a threat to me.
IT certainly WAS a threat.. Heck, i wouldn’t be shocked to see her having already stated somewhere, “IF someone does ‘get the McClosky’s, i will REFUSE to prosecute them”..
Missouri has Stand Your Ground Law as should every state coast to coast. The couple in Saint Louis did exactly what the law was made for; defend their live and property from rioters.
God bless this couple.
God bless the Missouri governor.
God bless America.
THEN WHY Did they get charged, if those SYG laws exist?!
What we are experiencing is the closest thing to being invaded and occupied by an enemy force…
That is why when you are sworn in to the Military we swear to protect the Constitution, not only from enemies on the outside, but also from enemies within. They are daring us to fight back.
Let’s see what the Lord has decided.
“…a St. Louis couple who brandished weapons at Black Lives Matter trespassers…”
Fixed it for you.