St. Louis Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner has filed charges against a St. Louis couple who confronted protesters with guns in June, 5 On Your Side has learned.
Mark and Patricia McCloskey, the Central West End couple who confronted protesters June 28 with a rifle and a gun in Mayor Lyda Krewson’s neighborhood, have been charged with unlawful use of a weapon/flourishing.
The unlawful use of a weapon charge is a class E felony, which can carry a sentence of up to four years in prison and a fine of $10,000. Sources tell 5 On Your Side Gardner's office will be issuing a summons for the couple to appear in court.
In a statement announcing the charges, Gardner said the McCloskeys waved their weapons in a "threatening manner" at "peaceful, unarmed protesters."
"It is illegal to wave weapons in a threatening manner at those participating in a nonviolent protest, and while we are fortunate this situation did not escalate into deadly force, this type of conduct is unacceptable in St. Louis," she wrote. "The decision to issue charges was made after a thorough investigation with the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department."
That gun might have been the reason things stayed peaceful, Kimmy. After all, a man here died during this thing. But how confident is Kimmy in her case? This confident; she's basically walked a lot of it back.
But Gardner said she is "open" to recommending the McCloskeys participate in one of her diversion programs designed to "reduce unnecessary involvement with the courts."
UPDATE: Stock up on the microwave popcorn because this is going to get really good. Missouri's AG moves to dismiss. More here.
The unlawful use of a weapon charge is a class E felony, which can carry a sentence of up to four years in prison and a fine of $10,000. Sources tell 5 On Your Side Gardner's office will be issuing a summons for the couple to appear in court.
In a statement announcing the charges, Gardner said the McCloskeys waved their weapons in a "threatening manner" at "peaceful, unarmed protesters."
"It is illegal to wave weapons in a threatening manner at those participating in a nonviolent protest, and while we are fortunate this situation did not escalate into deadly force, this type of conduct is unacceptable in St. Louis," she wrote. "The decision to issue charges was made after a thorough investigation with the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department."
That gun might have been the reason things stayed peaceful, Kimmy. After all, a man here died during this thing. But how confident is Kimmy in her case? This confident; she's basically walked a lot of it back.
But Gardner said she is "open" to recommending the McCloskeys participate in one of her diversion programs designed to "reduce unnecessary involvement with the courts."
UPDATE: Stock up on the microwave popcorn because this is going to get really good. Missouri's AG moves to dismiss. More here.
10 comments:
Since the "peaceful" protesters broke down a gate and trespassed, the McCloskeys had good reason to assume they were in danger and to defend themselves per Missouri law. These two criminal defense attorneys will presumably beat these charges and then sue the pants off Gardner.
First, Kimmy totally screws up the Greitens business and now this. Local Democrats may kick her to the curb before the McCloskeys get a chance at her.
Kimmy is going to lose this one, and she must know it. So why do it? To appease the mob of course.
I think she knows that or else why the "avoid the courts" play? Like I said, stock up on the popcorn because this should be fun.
You are fortunate to have an AG who knows the law.
This is so transparently sectarian it ought to be quashed on those grounds alone.
Everything that's been written about this woman suggests she's (1) malicious and (2) incompetent. Baltimore was saddled with a like specimen and, after she'd generated an obtrusive disaster, decided to re-elect her. Decline is a choice.
She couldn't *not* do it.
She's a true believer, and she has to set a precedent.
For my part, I honestly think she imagines herself to be on firm ground.
That constitutional rights have any part in this never entered her mind.
Why should they? From her perspective, it's an overblown and clearly-outdated parchment written by self-serving racists.
No, the diversion idea is her way of signalling "moderation."
I think you're right, Dale. It's funny. I'm old enough to remember when "Missouri" and "Democratic Party" were basically interchangeable terms. Harry Truman and all that. I can still remember how utterly astonished people here were when Republican John Danforth was elected MO Attorney General. Now the governor's Republican, all state-wide offices are held by Republicans and the General Assembly's solidly, veto-proof Republican. The Democrats are reduced to a congressional district in St. Louis and one in Kansas City. Kimmy's posturing is all they have left around here.
Yeah, Blue-ification is not the only trend in America, even if it happens more often.
The weird thing is that my politics really boil down to "Cold War Catholic Democrat." I'm not remotely a business cheerleader (except for small businesses)--the Sherman Anti-Trust Act needs to be deployed with gleeful abandon right now.
But being serious about Catholicism makes me an unacceptable extremist to Senators Hirano and Harris. Say whatever else you will about those two members of the World's Greatest Deliberative Body--at least they were being honest. The rest of their party agrees, but they don't want to say it out loud.
Yet.
But being serious about Catholicism makes me an unacceptable extremist to Senators Hirano and Harris. Say whatever else you will about those two members of the World's Greatest Deliberative Body--at least they were being honest. The rest of their party agrees, but they don't want to say it out loud.
Our political parties as corporate bodies are antiques. There aren't many examples of abroad with comparable institutional continuity. Because the polarities and disputes in society are not fixed, the parties themselves have been vessels for a kalaidoscopic array of interests, networks, and trains of thought. Right now the Republicans are a collecting pool of those who prefer that political struggle not invade every sphere of life, of people who are advocates of individual accomplishment within impartial procedures, of people who want common-and-garden laws impartially enforced, and of people who don't want the country's history and institutions trashed by grifters in the media, the academy, or miscellaneous NGOs. They're also the party of people reserved about the degree to which public policy should see to it that everyone's income be appropriated to build patron-client networks between the Democratic Party and it's favored occupational guilds.
About a dozen years ago, the late Joe Bageant offered that 'common sense was about equally distributed between the political parties in 1960'. Writing as a Democrat in 2007, he knew that was no longer so. Now we live in an age where partisan Democrats have politicized craft sites like Ravelry. If you're opposed to the suck, you have to favor the Republicans, because no one else is.
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