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Governor pardons St. Louis couple who stood their ground with BLM protesters

August 4, 2021 | | Print Article

Missouri Gov. Mike Parson has officially pardoned Mark and Patricia McCloskey who came to fame for waving guns at Black Lives Matter protesters who cut through a gate and swarmed in front of their home in 2020.

“It’s a correction of something that should have never happened in the first place,” Mark McCloskey told Fox News.

The couple both pleaded guilty to misdemeanors in connection to the incident and had to pay fines. Mark McCloskey pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor fourth-degree assault over waiving an AR-15 rifle at the protesters who violated his property. He paid a $750 fine for it. Patricia McClosky pleaded guilty to harassment and had to pay a $2,000 fine.

The pardon was announced by Parson’s office on Tuesday and was officially granted on July 30. The McCloskeys are both attorneys in their 60s. They did not lose their law licenses or their firearms over the charges. Their pardon was one of 12 that the Republican governor issued along with two commutations.

(Video Credit: KCTV5 News)

The couple was trashed on social media and in the press after images and videos of them standing off against Black Lives Matter protesters on their property went viral. Their home is in a gated community that was breached by the protesters who then gathered on a private street outside their mansion. The couple felt they had to protect their home and their lives by utilizing their right to bear arms.

The mob was on the march towards then-Mayor Lyda Krewson’s home over the police-involved death of George Floyd.

Mark McCloskey was seen on video wielding a rifle and images showed his wife appearing to be holding a handgun with her finger on the trigger as hundreds of protesters threatened them. No shots were ever fired.

“[They said] that they were going to kill us,” Patricia McCloskey told Fox News host Sean Hannity at the time. “They were going to come in there. They were going to burn down the house. They were going to be living in our house after I was dead, and they were pointing to different rooms and said, ‘That’s going to be my bedroom and that’s going to be the living room and I’m going to be taking a shower in that room.’”

Following the altercation, the McCloskeys became famous in conservative circles for exercising their constitutional rights. They even gave a speech at the 2020 Republican National Convention. A number of Republicans and former President Trump spoke out in defense of the couple.

St. Louis Circuit Attorney Kimberly Gardner sought to prosecute the husband and wife for protecting themselves by filing weapons and evidence tampering charges against them. She was removed from the case after defense attorneys argued she was using the prosecution of the couple in fundraising emails.

Mark McCloskey has announced that he is running on the Republican ticket for a Missouri U.S. Senate seat. He contends that conservatives were prosecuted for minor incidents while social justice criminals who looted and rioted were given a pass.

(Video Credit: The Hill)

“I’d do it again,” he proclaimed from the courthouse steps in downtown St. Louis. “Any time the mob approaches me, I’ll do what I can to put them in imminent threat of physical injury because that’s what kept them from destroying my house and my family.”

The protesters who broke into the McCloskey’s community didn’t even get a slap on the wrist for doing so. Nine Black Lives Matters demonstrators reportedly received trespassing citations for threatening the couple that day and terrorizing their neighborhood. Prosecutors refused to move forward on the charges. They claimed the demonstrators acted peacefully.

“There was no evidence that any of them had a weapon and no one I interviewed realized they had ventured onto a private enclave,” special prosecutor Richard Callahan said in a news release following the McCloskeys pleading guilty.

“If you’ve got an ‘R’ behind your name, you’re subject to one kind of justice system and if you have a ‘D,’ you’re subjected to another,” the couple’s attorney stated.

The McCloskeys have become folk heroes of a sort and they are finding a lot of support on Twitter:

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Terresa Monroe-Hamilton
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