The St. Louis man who became nationally recognized after he and his wife were recorded pointing firearms at protesters outside their house is standing by his action.
Mark McCloskey said he had feared for his life after local protesters marched through the gated neighborhood where they live to call for the resignation of St. Louis Mayor Lyda Krewson after she had posted the names and addresses of people who demanded the city defund its police department.
“When I saw that mob come through the gate with their rage and their anger, I thought that we would be overrun in a second,” McCloskey said on Fox News’s Tucker Carlson Tonight. “By the time I was out there with my rifle, the people were 20 or 30 feet from my front wall … And so, I was literally afraid that within seconds, they would surmount the wall, come into the house, kill us, burn the house down and everything that I’ve worked for and struggled for for the last 32 years.”
McCloskey and his wife Patricia are both lawyers who previously said they support the Black Lives Matter movement and that their actions had nothing to do with the race of the protesters, who they claim were mostly white.
“I wasn’t worried what the race was of the mob that came through my gate. I was worried that I was going to be killed,” McCloskey said. “I didn’t care what race they were.”
St. Louis Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner’s office is investigating the situation.
“I am alarmed at the events that occurred over the weekend, where peaceful protesters were met by guns and a violent assault,” Gardner tweeted on Monday. “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.”
