By the Associated Press
The city of St. Louis has not destroyed guns seized months ago from the couple who made headlines by waving the weapons at protesters, and the couple is trying to get them back.
Robert Dierker of the City Counselor’s Office told a judge during a virtual hearing Wednesday that the guns taken in 2020 from Mark and Patricia McCloskey have not been disposed of, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported.
“Obviously with our customary efficiency, we should have destroyed (the weapons) months ago,” Dierker said. “We haven’t. So McCloskey’s a beneficiary of bureaucratic, I want to say, ineptitude. But in any event, it’s fortuitous that the weapons still exist.”
The McCloskeys, both lawyers in their 60s, said they felt threatened by the protesters who walked onto their private street during global protests that followed the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis. Mark McCloskey emerged from his home with an AR-15-style rifle, and Patricia McCloskey waved a semi-automatic pistol.
Photos and cellphone video captured the confrontation, which drew widespread attention and made the couple heroes to some and villains to others. No shots were fired, and no one was hurt.
The use of weapons led to charges and the McCloskeys both pleaded guilty in June to misdemeanors. As part of the plea, they voluntarily gave up the guns. Republican Gov. Mike Parson granted pardons weeks later.
Mark McCloskey, who is running for the U.S. Senate as a Republican, sued St. Louis, the city sheriff and state to get back the guns. He said during Wednesday’s hearing that the pardons also entitle the couple to a refund of their fines.
“The loss of that property would certainly be a legal disqualification, impediment or other legal disadvantage, of which I have now been absolved by the governor, and therefore the state no longer has any legitimate reason to hold the property,” McCloskey said.
The City Counselor’s Office contends that Parson’s pardon obliterated the conviction, but not the plea agreement in which McCloskey forfeited the guns.
Circuit Judge Joan Moriarty took the case under advisement.
2nd Amendment. No crime. Give them their guns back. It was illegal to seize them anyway! And fire the DA and all other government employees who participated in this charade and forfeit any retirement benefits. They actually should all go to prison for this fraudulent prosecution!
The guns weren’t seized. As part of their plea they voluntarily gave up the guns. Basically, they chose the plea rather than going through a trial for it.
Mark McCloskey pleaded guilty to a fourth-degree misdemeanor of assault and was ordered to pay a $750 fine. Patricia McCloskey pleaded guilty to a second-degree misdemeanor of harassment and ordered to pay $2,000.
So extortion shakedown. As EVERYTHING the Fed Dept of “Justice” touches?
Done. Your wish is my command.
Yes they should give the guns back.
The McCloskey’s should have never been charged with anything.
My wife is a freelance journalists, she was there that day covering what was happening. I was there with her and her crew. We saw what really happened, and the McCloskey’s had every right to arm up.
People in the crowd threatened to kill them, a lot of them. For example, this white guy was with the mob and he told them he was going to kill them and started forward > https://a57.foxnews.com/static.foxnews.com/foxnews.com/content/uploads/2021/05/1862/1048/2020-06-29T000000Z_1475611792_RC22JH9T56UO_RTRMADP_3_MINNEAPOLIS-POLICE-PROTESTS-ST-LOUIS.jpg?ve=1&tl=1 > and when he did he stepped onto their property and Mark McCloskey was ready for him.
Every time the McCloskey’s actually pointed their weapons it was in response to a threat of harm from the so called “peaceful protestors”.
I covered all this previously in the comments for another TTAG article, its kind of spread out across the comments so you’ll need to piece it together > https://dev.thetruthaboutguns.com/breaking-mark-mccloskey-argues-with-blm-protestors-while-rittenhouse-jury-deliberates-video/#comment-5331046
What you saw in the media is not the whole story and most of it is heavily biased and inaccurate and deliberately misleading. None of my wife’s video coverage showing the threats and the mob wandering around the houses looking in windows and the members of the mob with firearms damaging property was ever used although some of her still pics were, in the media outlet that contracted her. We were never subpoena’d to testify even though the McCloskey’s knew who we were after identifying our selves to them and offering and I’m not sure why.
The protestors screamed they were going to come in the house and get them and kill them and some started moving towards the house. They shouted they were going to burn down the house and be living in the house after the McCloskey’s were dead. Basically, after the threats and some started moving towards the house is when the the McCloskey’s came out with the guns.
The mob leaders actually tried to get my wife to only get video and pics of black people because there were so many white people but it didn’t work out that way for them. Over 90% of the video and pics provided to media outlets for that day, from not only her but other sources, was never used and the public never saw it and those reveal what really happened.
The McCloskey’s are assholes, no doubt about it, but they should not have been charged with anything. They were under threat of being killed by an angry mob who entered their property with a stated intent to carry out their threats.
This was not a peaceful protest, and anyone who tells you it was is flat out lying.
The protestors did indeed leave the street and enter private property, and anyone who tells you they didn’t is flat out lying.
There were protestors with firearms and other forms of weapons, and anyone who tells you there wasn’t is flat out lying.
“What you saw in the media is not the whole story and most of it is heavily biased and inaccurate and deliberately misleading.”
this changes everything.
another victim of civil forfeiture
thats right no crime give their guns back .
THEIR RIGHTS WHERE TAKEN AWAY , THE MOB JUST KEPT GOING ON WITH THEIR RIGHTS A..HOLES MOB .
@ NTexas ….right, the McCroskey’s rights and security were violated and taken from them when the mob group swelled of several hundred “so-called protesters”, some pushing bicycles, some carried Black Lives Matter signs, nearly all wore masks as they chanted, sang and began unruled moving up and down the street, broke down the iron gates to the private property of their gated community!
I’m live in stl and they voluntarily gave up their weapons. Their fault. Sorry they were stupid but not sorry.
We all know them voluntarily giving up their rights as a plea deal is because they are being threatened by the court system do do so or face harsher punishment. The court system has become like the mob. instead of doing what is right and upholding people’s rights, they have decided to threaten people into pleading guilty.
Hmmmm,
Your going to hell ,or you can go to purgatory if you give me your gunm.
Okay
Ahh shucks your not going to purgatory.
Can I have my gunm back?
Hell no.
Meh…they knew what they were doing as professional mouthpieces. The wife’s “gun” was reportedly fake.
The way she holds that gun makes me irrationally angry
The tactical Karen stance. Nobody’s quite sure who’s in the sights. Not even the spotter.
he’s helping her sight in fotay.
That gun she is holding, it was 100% inoperable at the time.
It was transported to the St. Louis crime lab, where it was stripped and put back together to render it operable upon instructions from the prosecutor. In the charging documents Assistant Circuit Attorney Chris Hinckley stated that the gun was “readily capable of lethal use” which was a lie because the firearm could not have been fired by Pat McCloskey.
According to the crime lab report:
“The firearm could not be test fired as submitted. At the request of ACA (Assistant Circuit Attorney) Chris Hinckley, the firearm was field stripped and found to have been assembled incorrectly. The firing pin spring was placed in front of the firing pin, which was backwards, and will not fire in this condition. The firearm was reassembled properly, test fired and functioned as designed.”
https://www.ksdk.com/article/news/local/gardner-staffer-ordered-crime-lab-to-reassemble-patricia-mccloskeys-gun/63-be112149-d06c-4f54-a225-6545e74b5c2d?utm_campaign=snd-autopilot
Well, the “ineptitude” has probably been corrected by now. I can already hear the city attorney, “Well, you see your honor, when we discovered the the guns had not been destroyed the PD corrected the error. We deeply regret the problem.” Judge: “case dismissed.”
FREE THE MCCLOSKEY GUNS NOW!
They are lucky to be attorneys and wealthy. The attorney fees for getting guns back in unfriendly jurisdictions is usually more than most guns are worth. Ask me how I know (not necessary since the answer is obvious). The police can just claim they were lost when they get back from the range trying them out and diving them up and they know almost no one will spend the money to make it uncomfortable for them.
Hope they get their stuff back, but given their legal prowess I wouldn’t be rushing out to hire them anytime soon.
What do suppose the Stasi St Louis have been soaking the bore in over the last months?
“What do suppose the Stasi St Louis have been soaking the bore in over the last months?”
A mixture of beer and powdered donut sugar.
I’d imagine that the guns have already been first lost on paper and then claimed by the individual officers that are their new owners. That’s the way cops roll from what I have heard, mostly over drinks with current and former officers from more than one city. My uncle was a former fireman living in Ft Lauderdale and his drinking buddies were former firemen and cops (mostly officer ranks) living well there in retirement. I drank with them dozens of nights over the years and the stories I heard from both were horrifying – and they though it was funny. Having spiked one’s pension was the most popular brag though.
Never been in the situation, but I really don’t think I would have pled guilty to anything at all. That complicates things, it gives the anti-gun crowd some kind of excuse to continue screwing them over.
If the city and the state had any decency at all, they would just order the arseholes to hand the weapons back. No matter how the plea deal came about, a pardon removes the conviction. You can’t punish someone without a conviction.
Where are the jail sentences for the law breaking protesters?
Perhaps they will dedicate some time for some training. 8>)
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