Missouri AG dropping charges against St. Louis couple who defended their home with guns
|July 30, 2020
ST. LOUIS, MO – Kim Gardner, Circuit Attorney for St. Louis, brought charges against a local couple last month who were caught on video brandishing weapons on the porch of their mansion. Now the Missouri Attorney General is dismissing those charges.
Mark and Patricia McCloskey’s response to a mob of protesters tearing down the gate to a private driveway and trespassing across their yard went viral.
The McCloskey’s who are both attorneys, were eating dinner on their patio when several hundred Black Lives Matter protesters, tore down a gate to gain access to a private community that was clearly marked as private with “No Trespassing” signs.
Mark McCloskey claims that the protesters began making threats towards his wife and himself. He went into the home and retrieved a pistol and what appeared to be an AR-15.
Luckily, no one was injured, and the guns that the McCloskey’s legally owned did the trick by keeping the protesters from causing them harm.
According to The Lion Times:
“Republican Attorney General Eric Schmitt is intervening in state Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner’s legal action against Mark and Patricia McCloskey, for brandishing a rifle.
The McCloskeys took up arms when extreme ‘anarchist’ demonstrators gathered outside their home on June 28. The weapon was confiscated after the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department searched the property. “
The AG released a video on Twitter, where he stated:
“As Missouri’s chief law enforcement officer, I simply will not stand by while Missouri laws are being ignored.
That is why I am entering the case in terms of seeking the dismissal of the case to protect the rights of Missourians to defend themselves in their property under Missouri’s castle doctrine.”
We provided a breakdown of the Missouri laws around self defense in a previous article, which will be shared again below
Schmitt said:
“The right to keep and bear arms is given the highest level of protection in the Missouri Constitution and their laws, which I am charged for protecting,”
He continued:
“This includes the Missouri castle doctrine, which provides broad rights for Missourians to protect and defend their personal safety, and property against those who wish to do them harm.”
The attorney general said that the charges issued by Gardner was nothing more than politics.
“The shameless circuit attorney filed suit against a St. Louis couple who, according to published reports, say they were doing just that–defending the safety of their property,”
He went on to say:
“A political prosecution, such as this one, would have a chilling effect on Missourians exercising their right to self-defense. The law of Missouri is clear and must be protected … enough is enough.”
We have not been able to confirm that McCloskey will get his illegally seized weapon returned to him.
https://www.lawenforcementtoday.com/missouri-ag-dropping-charges-against-st-louis-couple-who-defended-their-home-with-guns/