Imagine the tremendous fear one would feel watching as a group of individuals destroyed the wrought-iron gate protecting one’s private community. This fear would quickly turn into terror as a mob of Black Lives Matter members 300 strong began to flow through the breach into the neighborhood.
One’s first reaction would surely be to call the police. But what if the police never came?
This was the situation Mark and Patricia McCloskey, both attorneys, were confronted with on the evening of June 28. When the couple saw that several members of this group were armed, they called 911, grabbed their legally owned firearms, and faced the mob that had trespassed on their property and allegedly threatened to kill them and burn down their home.
The police never showed up. According to St. Louis’ KMOV4, police claim no 911 calls had been received from that street during the time of the incident. In the absence of the police protection U.S. citizens have come to expect, the McCloskeys, armed with a rifle and a pistol, were forced to fend for themselves.
This last Friday evening, St. Louis police executed a search warrant at the McCloskey home. The police seized the rifle Mr. McCloskey had held during the encounter and were told that the pistol used by his wife was in the possession of their attorney. The Federalist’s Kylee Zempel reported on this story here.
BREAKING: Sources tell Five On Your Side police seized one of the weapons, the rifle, from the couple and they told police their attorney has the pistol seen in photos. https://t.co/MMUWIz7iJs
— KSDK News (@ksdknews) July 11, 2020
Mark McCloskey joined Fox News’ Tucker Carlson on Monday night to discuss his situation. He told Carlson “the rumor is that we are going to be indicted shortly.”
Regarding the police officers who executed the search warrant and confiscated his rifle on Friday night, McCloskey said the police, “unfortunately, are stuck between a circuit attorney [Kim Gardner] that wants to prosecute us, and their own belief that we did nothing wrong.”
McCloskey explained that “when you have certain elements of society encouraging violence, [and] at the same time asking the police to stand down, what’s the only possible result? The only possible solution is for individual citizens to stand up to defend themselves, and I’m afraid what’s being promoted is causing citizens to stand up and defend themselves so they can be chilled and abused the way we have been.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=McX-BcXmKKk
Although the use of firearms to protect one’s life and property is the reason our founders included the Second Amendment in the Bill of Rights, leftists are questioning the couple’s actions. Saint Louis lawyer John Amman succinctly sums up their position. The homeowners’ actions “could possibly be classified as assault by putting protesters in fear of their safety…People have a right to threaten force if they are threatened. However, if a group of protesters is walking by a home and not doing anything to the homeowners specifically, then they don’t have the right to threaten lethal force without an imminent threat.”
Let’s get this straight. Amman is concerned that the St. Louis couple who protected their home after a group of 300 BLM members had just broken down an iron gate to enter their private community illegally may have put members of the mob in fear for their safety. Is he kidding us?
The woman behind the search warrant is far-left St. Louis Circuit Attorney Kimberly Gardner. According to Fox News, Gardner’s 2016 campaign was backed by far-left billionaire George Soros.
Gardner was one of four candidates on the primary ballot in the St. Louis circuit attorney race. The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported that a new campaign ad had been financed by The Safety & Justice Committee (SJC), a Washington, D.C. super PAC that was “at least partly funded by” Soros. The Post-Dispatch noted that the super PAC had been “established in June [2016] and reported $30,000 in initial funds from Soros. No other contributors were listed as of its last public filing June 30.”
On their June 30 quarterly statement, Gardner’s campaign reported a $67,693.23 in-kind contribution from the super PAC. Further, The Post-Dispatch revealed: “On July 26, Gardner’s campaign reported to the Missouri Ethics Commission a $24,548.37 in-kind donation from the same federal campaign committee, a day after reporting a $25,738.86 contribution from that super PAC. Then on July 29, Gardner reported an additional $72,770.27 from Safety & Justice, bringing the Soros-backed super PAC total contribution to Gardner’s campaign to at least $190,750.73.”
These dollar amounts may not sound like much, however, this was a local race and the SJC contributions “more than doubled Gardner’s campaign cash.”
Questioned about the SJC donations, Gardner emphasized that their mission aligned with hers. She said SJC had “reached out and heard my platform and liked what I was saying about building trust. They said they’d like to support me and get my message out.”
The Soros connection is relevant because Gardner is up for reelection in November. Making an issue of the McCloskey’s threat of lethal force against a BLM group would impress SJC decision makers and could lead to additional financial assistance.
The day after the June 28 incident, Gardner’s office issued a statement that read:
I am alarmed at the events that occurred over the weekend, where peaceful protesters were met by guns and a violent assault. We must protect the right to peacefully protest, and any attempt to chill it through intimidation or threat of deadly force will not be tolerated. My office is currently working with the public and the police to investigate these events. Make no mistake: We will not tolerate the use of force against those exercising their First Amendment rights and will use the full power of Missouri law to hold people accountable.
Incredibly, many on the left agree with Amman and Gardner. Trying to gain an understanding of how a victim can suddenly become a villain, I watched a discussion among the ladies of ABC’s “The View.”
Co-host Joy Behar said there were a lot more questions than answers in this episode: “If I were a protestor, I wouldn’t appreciate having an AR-15 pointed my way or a woman, who seemed crazed, with her finger on the trigger…They [the McCloskeys] claim they are BLM supporters. Well, in that case, why not go out to these supporters and say, ‘I appreciate that you’re protesting. I agree with you.’ Acknowledge what they’re doing and lend a hand…neutralize the possibility of violence. She had her finger on the trigger, this woman.”
Co-host Sunny Hostin acknowledged that Missouri is an open-carry state for firearms but noted “the issue is it would be a crime to brandish a weapon in a threatening manner. That is actually a felony.” Hostin asked, if the McCloskeys felt threatened by the protestors, why didn’t they stay inside their home and call the police? (The rest of this discussion can be viewed here.)
Sorry ladies, but a mob of 300 BLM members trespassing through a private neighborhood forfeits their claim to the term “protestors.” The remedies Behar and Hostin suggest are just plain foolish. The McCloskeys told reporters that once they noticed two members of the mob were armed, they armed themselves and called 911. As mentioned earlier, the police never came.
Describing the experience to reporters, Mark McCloskey said, “It was like the storming of the Bastille, the gate came down and a large crowd of angry, aggressive people poured through. I was terrified that we’d be murdered within seconds. Our house would be burned down, our pets would be killed.” He added, “One fellow standing right in front of me pulled out two pistol magazines, clicked them together and said ‘You’re next.’”
Police said that when the McCloskeys demanded that the group leave their property, they “began yelling obscenities and threats of harm to both victims.”
Last Monday night, Patricia McCloskey told Sean Hannity: “[They said] that they were going to kill us. 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.’”
The BLM group members are not the victims we need to protect here. The McCloskeys were entirely justified in their actions. Gardner’s concern over the couple’s threat of force against the “peaceful protestors” is just another politically motivated lie.
It will likely have the unintended effect of adding to the recent spike in firearm sales. Situations like this are precisely why Americans own guns and must work to preserve our Second Amendment rights.
