‘I’d do it again’: Lawyers who waved guns at BLM protesters fined
Mark and Patricia McCloskey have been officially pardoned after pointing guns at BLM marchers.
A St Louis couple who captured worldwide attention for pointing guns at Black Lives Matter demonstrators last year have pleaded guilty to misdemeanour charges.
Patricia McCloskey pleaded guilty to misdemeanour harassment and was fined $US2000 ($A2644).
Her husband, Mark McCloskey, pleaded guilty to misdemeanour fourth-degree assault and was fined $US750.
The pair has agreed to give up the weapons they used during the confrontation
When several hundred demonstrators marched past their home in June of 2020, the couple waved weapons at them.
They claimed the protesters were trespassing and that they feared for their safety.
The McCloskeys, both of them lawyers in their 60s, wore blue blazers and spoke calmly in answering questions from Judge David Mason during the hearing on Thursday (local time).
Judge Mason asked Mark McCloskey if he acknowledged that his actions put people at risk of personal injury.
He replied, “I sure did your honour.”
Mark McCloskey, who announced in May that he was running for a US Senate seat in Missouri, was unapologetic after the hearing.
“I’d do it again,” he said 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.”
Tweet from @mccloskeyusa
The McCloskeys’ defence lawyer, Joel Schwartz, said after the hearing the couple had hoped to raise money by donating Mark’s rifle to charity but acknowledged that it was an unusual request.
Because the charges are misdemeanours, the McCloskeys do not face the possibility of losing their law licences and can continue to own firearms.
“This particular resolution of these two cases represents my best judgment of an appropriate and fair disposition for the parties involved as well as the public good,” special prosecutor Richard Callahan said after the hearing.
The protesters, Mr Callahan said, “were a racially mixed and peaceful group, including women and children, who simply made a wrong turn on their way to protest in front of the mayor’s house. There was no evidence that any of them had a weapon and no one I interviewed realised they had ventured onto a private enclave.”
The June 28, 2020, protests came weeks after George Floyd’s death under a Minneapolis police officer’s knee.
-with agencies
