Assault rifle-wielding lawyer claims ‘dangerous’ BLM protesters would have killed him if he hadn’t pulled gun
THE St Louis lawyer filmed brandishing his rifle has said he believed that BLM protesters would have murdered him, his family and burned their house down.
Mark McCloskey, 63, told Good Morning Britain: “I thought what was coming through that gate was my death and I took the appropriate action.”
“I do not regret my actions. I felt that if we didn’t take the action we did the house would have been stormed, we would have been killed and the house would have been burned.
“Instead of sitting here on British Television we’d have been going to my wake today”
Protesters say they entered through an open gate, that McColsky insists was broken down.
The protest was on its way to the Mayors office to demand her resignation over publishing names and addresses of protesters.
He described how “mostly caucasian” protesters who were passing on the road allegedly threatened to burn his house down.
People are shouting, death threats, saying they’re going to burn my house down, pointing to different windows saying that’s where my bedroom’s gonna be after we kill you.
“The moment they broke down the gate the pretense of civility, of peace, was broken,” he said.
“People are shouting, death threats, saying they’re going to burn my house down, pointing to different windows saying that’s where my bedroom’s gonna be after we kill you.
“They threatened my dog. One guy took two loaded pistol magazines out of the pockets in his body armor, shows me they’re loaded, clicks them together points at me, and says ‘you’re next’.”
There is no evidence that any of the protesters were armed or threatening until guns were pointed at them by the McCloskey’s, nor that they moved onto his $multi-million property directly.
“When I brought out the rifle the advance toward me stopped. The advance did not stop toward my wife who was out on the lawn.
‘I DON’T HAVE A CLEAN LINE OF FIRE’
“This gate was 70 ft from where we were having dinner on the porch. By the time I had a rifle in my hands the crowd had advanced to maybe 30, 40 feet of me.
“Hundreds of them shouting and screaming. It was a huge and dangerous-looking crowd.
“Then I see my wife out in the front yard with a pistol looking like they were surrounding her. I don’t have a clean, for want of a better word, line of fire.”
McCloskey has defended his actions through his lawyer, Albert Watkins, who has a history of representing whites in controversial racially charged cases.
Watkins said: “We’re not dealing with crack heads. We’re dealing with two professionals, a husband and wife, both attorneys, people who brought into the city of St Louis when white flight had given rise to the decimation of entire neighborhoods.
“In Missouri we are rugged individualists. We are from the heartland of America. You mess with a man’s castle you compromise the integrity and safety of his castle, his wife, his children and his property.
“Let’s look at the facts, you have trespassers people who have violated the law who have gone into private property.”
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Adding: “What’s more important is that we have a Police report by the St Louis police department that completely corroborates and is consistent with [McCloskey’s] story, the version, the truth.”
McCloskey said he was terrified from live coverage over the past weeks.
“In the city of St Louis, on June 2, the city was set on fire.
“I watched while a convenience store was burned down live on TV from the first glass broken to the looting of the shop to the setting of the fire to the engulfing of that building in flame. 40 minutes of live TV. Nobody showed up and no one came.” he said.
He also cited the murder of retired cop David Dorn, 77, who was gunned down in early June by looters.
In spite of the fact that he and his wife Patricia were filmed screaming at protesters while brandishing guns, McColskey says that they are long term advocates for civil rights.
“There was no thought in my head when I grabbed the rifle of the race, nationality, religion of the people coming through that gate were.” he said.
He added: “Race had absolutely nothing to do with it, it never entered by mind and it is political crap to turn this into something that it absolutely wasn’t.”
McCloskey and his wife are now under investigation.
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