Mark and Patricia McCloskey — the couple who became infamous after they waved their guns from their porch as a group of protestors gathered near their home in St. Louis last year — pleaded guilty in court Thursday.
Mark McCloskey, who is a Republican U.S. Senate candidate, pleaded guilty to a Class C misdemeanor of assault in the fourth degree and agreed to a $750 fine. Patricia McCloskey pleaded guilty to a Class A misdemeanor of harassment in the second degree and agreed to a $2,000 fine.
Both McCloskeys agreed to turn over their firearms to the state.
“One year ago, an angry mob crashed through my gate and threatened my wife, my family, and my home. The prosecutor dropped all charges against me except for a claim that I put people in imminent fear of physical harm. That’s exactly what I did, that’s what the guns were for. And any time the mob comes and threatens me, I’ll do the same thing again to protect my family,” Mark McCloskey said in a statement to The Missouri Times.
“I will never back down to the liberal mob in the Senate, and I will always stand strong for Missouri.”
Mark McCloskey also addressed the incident in a video posted to Twitter Thursday in which both he and his wife hold guns. Mark McCloskey is wearing a pink polo like he did during the altercation last year.
A year ago, the mob came to my door to attack my family— I backed them down
The mob came for me, the media attacked me & prosecutors tried to punish me for defending my family
They dropped all charges, except for a claim I instilled “imminent fear” in the mob
I’d do it again. pic.twitter.com/ECPsSwa2Iw
— Mark McCloskey (@mccloskeyusa) June 17, 2021
The incident stemmed as nationwide protests broke out last year following the police killing of George Floyd, an unarmed Black man in Minneapolis. The officer who killed Floyd has since been convicted of murder. Protesters in St. Louis were marching to the mayor’s house when they turned onto the private street where the McCloskeys lived. The couple said there feared for their safety.
Judge Richard Callahan, the special prosecutor assigned to the case, said he did not take into consideration Mark McCloskey’s status as an attorney or rumors of a pardon from Gov. Mike Parson when handling the case.
“If by happenstance the governor does take the time to consider a pardon in this case, I hope it will trigger an interest in the backlog of pardon applicants who may or may not merit executive clemency, but at least deserve an answer,” Callahan said.
Kaitlyn Schallhorn was the editor in chief of The Missouri Times from 2020-2022. She joined the newspaper in early 2019 after working as a reporter for Fox News in New York City.
Throughout her career, Kaitlyn has covered political campaigns across the U.S., including the 2016 presidential election, and humanitarian aid efforts in Africa and the Middle East.
She is a native of Missouri who studied journalism at Winthrop University in South Carolina. She is also an alumna of the National Journalism Center in Washington, D.C.
Contact Kaitlyn at kaitlyn@themissouritimes.com.
