Mark and Patricia McCloskey, the couple seen protecting their home with firearms during unrest last summer, want their criminal case to be "revisited" by a grand jury after Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner was found by a judge to have ulterior motives in the proceedings.
“Due to the bias of Kim Gardner’s office, we believe the grand jury process was tainted and should be reviewed and revisited,” Joel Schwartz, the attorney for the pair, told the Associated Press on Wednesday.
The McCloskeys were charged in July with unlawful use of a weapon in addition to evidence tampering following the circulation of the viral video that showed the duo confronting protesters in front of their St. Louis mansion following the death of George Floyd. Mark McCloskey, donning a pink polo, walked around his lawn with an AR-15, while his wife, Patricia, carried a silver handgun, according to the July footage. The pair pleaded not guilty to the charges in October.
In December, Gardner was removed from the case after it was determined she raised the appearance of initiating a "criminal prosecution for political purposes,” following reports that she used the charges to circulate fundraising emails for her reelection bid, Circuit Judge Thomas Clark said at the time. In late January 2021, Gardner lost her second appeal to lead the prosecution effort against the duo.
Kim Gardner
The Missouri Court of Appeals struck down Gardner's plea, siding against her claim that she should not have been disqualified from the case by Circuit Judge Michael Stelzer in December.
In July, law enforcement executed a search warrant on Mark McCloskey's home and seized his AR-15 following Gardner's initial charging announcement. The city's decision drew outcry from conservative figures and gun rights activists after it came to light that the pair feared for their lives.
“[They said] that they were going to kill us,” Patricia McCloskey told Fox News in July about the demonstrators around her home. “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.'"
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The McCloskeys quickly gained recognition in conservative circles as the pair spoke at the 2020 Republican National Convention. On Wednesday, Mark McCloskey indicated a willingness to run for Senate in the state of Missouri.
Running for the seat, which retiring Republican Sen. Roy Blunt will vacate in 2022, is “a consideration," he said.
