AG, governor want case against gun-wielding couple dropped

[Dial H For Hero]

Source: https://abcnews.go.com/US/ag-governor-case-gun-wie

Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt filed briefings in support of a St. Louis couple charged for brandishing their guns at civil rights protesters outside their mansion last month, claiming self defense.

St. Louis' top prosecutor charged Mark and Patricia McCloskey on Monday with felony unlawful use of a weapon for allegedly displaying their guns in a threatening manner, but Schmitt said he's seeking to have those charges dropped.

"Enough is enough," Schmitt said in a video statement shortly after the charges were filed. "A political prosecution such as this one would have a chilling effect on Missourians exercising the right to self defense."

Schmitt said the couple, both white attorneys in their 60s, has the right to keep and bear arms under state laws and it's a right that he plans to protect, according to the statement.

Read more: ABC News

[mr_lebowski]

1. If all they did was 'keep and bear arms' they wouldn't be in trouble, dipshit (nt)

[guillaumeb]

2. What if the couple were black?

We all know how it would have ended.

[raccoon]

13. You beat me to it. Nt

[DBoon]

14. Charges could be dropped posthumously

They would still be very dead after the immediate police reaction

[guillaumeb]

24. Exactly. eom

[SWBTATTReg]

3. They don't have the right to pull guns on neighbors walking down the damn sidewalks. Period. I ...

hope the city of STLMO circuit attorney keeps at it and fully prosecutes these two gun toting idiots.

[Jedi Guy]

4. The fact that the sidewalk in question is private property is probably driving some of this.

Their argument is that because the protesters had broken down a gate (disputed by the protesters themselves) and then proceeded to enter their private property, they were justified in brandishing guns as a result of being in fear for their lives. Seems to me that if they were that scared, they'd have gone into their panic room and called the cops. But the private property angle is likely giving them cover here.

[angrychair]

6. Thus is not the story I heard

The road they were on is a county maintained road, therefore a public road.you cannot block access to a road being maintained with public funds.

[Jedi Guy]

7. From a WaPo article posted yesterday, italics mine.

"Lawyers Mark McCloskey, 61, and Patricia McCloskey, 63, have said they were merely defending their home on a private street in an upscale neighborhood from a crowd that was marching to Mayor Lyda Krewson’s house to protest racial injustice."

Evidently it's a gated community and a private street/sidewalk. They allege that the protesters broke down an iron gate and entered that way, which the protesters deny.

[angrychair]

9. Really good article

That talks specifically about the gate and the road issues

https://usa.streetsblog.org/2020/06/29/meet-the-mccloskeys-private-places-lead-to-spatial-anti-blackness-in-st-louis/

For the record, I was wrong, it does appear to be a private road but that hardly justifies the reaction

[Jedi Guy]

10. Agreed, their reaction was wildly disproportionate and over the top given the situation.

I was taught that if I'm in fear of my life because someone is on my property, the smart play is to get to a safe place within my home, if at all possible, and call the police to come deal with interloper. I was most definitely not taught to grab my gun and go play Rambo.

Their reaction tells me that they wanted to flex and prove a point. They weren't afraid at all. Rather, they wanted others to be afraid of them.

[PaulRevere08]

8. It's a gated community right in the middle of the city. I did a virtual tour via Google earth

And there are fences all around and gated on the few roads that enter the area called Portland Place. On the night at hand, the police had closed many of the side roads and basically funneled the protesters into the "private" roads. I outlined the area that is in question.

[link:https://imgur.com/ANuUeWG|

[moriah]

15. IMHO it doesn't, and shouldn't, matter.

The Missouri Code does not recognize "communal private property" in its justification statute, which would mean they would have had to unlawfully come on that *couple's* private property, not just a public easement/sidewalk in a "private neighborhood".

Even then, display of a firearm under Missouri law is only protected if it is either a brief, non-threatening "flash" showing that a person is armed, or when a person would have the right to shoot in self-defense.

More than laws, what irritates me about this couple's behavior is that such brandishing just reduces overall gun safety.

You don't draw unless you intend to shoot. You definitely don't cover anything with your muzzle, like a person, that you don't intend to destroy. The woman, at least, is seen in several photographs training her gun on/at the crowd. If they were truly "scared for their lives", afraid it was "the storming of the Bastille", then that meant they were nervous enough to have squeezed a trigger -- and if they had, someone not directly threatening them would have died.

We can't legislate people not putting their booger-picker on the bang button until they're ready to shoot, but we can, and Missouri has, legislated that it is illegal to cover someone with your muzzle unless you'd have the right to shoot them in that moment.

And that couple brandished before then.

Edit to clarify: IMHO the test for the judges should be "If this couple had discharged their weapons vs 'merely' aiming them, would it have been considered justified?" And I don't think it would have been.

[obamanut2012]

17. wrong, public

[Jedi Guy]

19. Not according to the news articles I've read.

Do you have a source?

[Jedi Guy]

27. I guess not, then. N/T

[totodeinhere]

12. It won't matter. The governor already said he would pardon them if necessary. n/t

[GeorgeGist]

5. Misery loves company ...

they just misspelled it 'Missouri".

[47of74]

11. Fornicate both of them

The Governor and this clown are two of the big reasons I told my work I would not move to their Missouri office.

[Calista241]

16. She might as well drop the charges.

This case is going to come down to does the castle doctrine / self defense apply.

Witness A for the defense is going to be the AG, and witness B is going to be the Governor that signed the law, and both of them are saying charges shouldn't be valid in this case.

Does Kim Gardner want to go to war against her boss and her bosses boss?

[SWBTATTReg]

21. Kim works for the city of STLMO, my city. I want Ms. Gardner to prosecute these 2 for ...

recklessly threaten protesters on a public sidewalk w/ their guns for no reason at all. Believe me, a lot of these protesters are going to have video clips so the 'real' story will come out.

[Polybius]

22. It was private, not public

See posts 7 and 9.

[SWBTATTReg]

23. I disagree w/ this ... otherwise how do these people get mail delivered? How do deliveries of any

kind get delivered? What happens if a neighbor has a party (which I have been too, several times in that area, and I didn't have to 'check in' w/ the security guards or personnel (they were not any)). These streets do have traffic still on them and its a common thing to see (people and traffic). I saw the posts 7 and 9, you referred to, and just because someone is claiming something (private vs. public) doesn't mean that a crime hasn't happened. The circuit attorney is still going ahead and charging these two thugs w/ the random flourishing of weapons (which as a city resident, I'm very happy to hear)):

"It is illegal to wave weapons in a threatening matter at those participating in nonviolent protest, and while we are fortunate this situation did not escalate into deadly force, this type of conduct is unacceptable in St. Louis," Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner said in a statement. "We must protect the right to peacefully protest, and any attempt to chill it through intimidation will not be tolerated."

[Polybius]

26. I don't live on a private block, but my aunt does

Mail and other deliveries are exempt, as are sanitation etc. If you have a party, that’s considered a personal invitation, so they are also allowed. Anyone not invited is considered trespassing.

[Vinca]

18. Close your eyes and imagine the couple as black. We'd be talking funerals not pardons.

[mahatmakanejeeves]

20. Crime lab reassembled Patricia McCloskey's gun: 'readily capable of lethal use'

LOCAL
Crime lab reassembled Patricia McCloskey's gun: 'readily capable of lethal use'
Assistant Circuit Attorney Chris Hinckley stated in charging documents that the gun was "readily capable of lethal use"

Author: Christine Byers (KSDK)
Published: 3:32 PM CDT July 21, 2020
Updated: 5:22 AM CDT July 22, 2020

ST. LOUIS — The gun Patricia McCloskey waved at protesters was inoperable when it arrived at the St. Louis police crime lab, but crime lab experts reassembled it and wrote that it was “readily capable of lethal use” in charging documents filed Monday, 5 On Your Side has learned.

In Missouri, police and prosecutors must prove that a weapon is “readily” capable of lethal use when it is used in the type of crime with which the McCloskeys have been charged.

Crime lab staff members field stripped the handgun and found it had been assembled incorrectly. Specifically, the firing pin spring was put in front of the firing pin, which was backward, and made the gun incapable of firing, according to the documents.

Firearms experts then put the gun back together in the correct order and test-fired it, finding that it worked, according to the documents.

Credit: Provided photo
Excerpt of document obtained by 5 On Your Side showing Assistant Circuit Attorney Chris Hinckley's orders to crime lab experts.

Crime lab workers photographed the disassembly and reassembly of the gun, according to the documents.

Patricia McCloskey and her husband, Mark McCloskey, have said the handgun Patricia McCloskey waved at protesters was inoperable because they had used it as a prop during a lawsuit they once filed against a gun manufacturer. In order to bring it into a courtroom, they made it inoperable.

{snip}

[Yeehah]

25. Lawless goons want criminals to sail scot-free

Fixed the headline!