St. Louis Police Seize Gun Seen in Viral Standoff with Protesters
Police, with a search warrant in hand, reportedly seized a rifle on Friday from the St. Louis couple that went viral for brandishing weapons at protesters to defend their mansion, the husband told a local news outlet.
St. Louis police executed a search on the home of Mark and Patricia McCloskey and left the property with the AR-15 that Mark McCloskey is seen carrying in a viral video, KSDK reported.
The couple is not facing criminal charges in Missouri.
“We complied with the search warrant. They took my AR,” Mark McCloskey told Todd Starnes, a conservative radio host. “I’m absolutely surprised by this.”
Photos appear to show the search warrant and police in the act of confiscating the rifle.
Fox News’s Shannon Bream shows photos of search warrant/police seizing the rifle seen in a viral video late last month showing the St. Louis couple, the McCloskeys, waving firearms at protesters marching through their gated neighborhood — https://t.co/a4R0F4hKIR — @dcexaminer pic.twitter.com/L1V59N9HyW
— Daniel Chaitin (@danielchaitin7) July 11, 2020
The chrome pistol brandished by Patricia McCloskey in the viral video was not seized, as it’s reportedly in the hands of their criminal defense lawyer.
The couple faced both widespread praise and criticism after the video of them confronting protesters outside their home went viral in June.
The pair’s lawyer alleges the unruly group tore down a gate that led to the McCloskey’s private community, according to Fox News.
“My clients were not arming themselves against peaceful protesters, they were arming themselves about people with a really bad motive, a motive that runs afoul of the fundamental tenets of our country,” Al Watkins, the couple’s lawyer, told Fox.
Patricia McCloskey said protesters threatened to kill her and commandeer her home, according to a separate Fox report.
“[They said] that they were going to kill us,” Patricia McCloskey told Fox.
“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,” she continued.
St. Louis police did not immediately respond to a request for comment from the Daily Caller News Foundation.
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A version of this article appeared on The Daily Caller News Foundation website.
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