The Missouri attorney general is moving to dismiss the charges against a St. Louis couple with firearms who confronted Black Lives Matter protesters last month, just hours after local prosecutors announced the charges.
State Attorney General Eric Schmitt said Monday that circuit prosecutor Kim Gardner’s “political persecution” of Mark and Patricia McCloskey would have “a chilling effect on the exercise of the right of self-defense by the people of Missouri.”
“The right to keep and bear arms receives the highest level of protection in the Missouri Constitution and our laws, which I am accused of protecting,” Schmitt said in a video posted on his Twitter page.
And yet, in the wake of radical calls to fire the police, and with violent crime rates skyrocketing every day, the St. Louis circuit attorney filed a lawsuit against a St. Louis couple who, According to published reports, they were doing exactly that: defending the safety of their family and property. “
“Enough is enough,” he said. “As a Missouri chief law enforcement officer, I just won’t wait while ignoring a Missouri law. That is why I go into this case and seek her removal to protect the rights of the people of Missouri to defend themselves and their property. “
The McCloskeys were caught in a viral video on June 28 outside their palatial home in the city’s Central West End neighborhood, each with a gun as protesters marched down the private driveway.
The couple said they armed themselves because they feared for their safety.
But Gardner said Monday that he had filed fourth-degree assault charges and possession of weapons against the couple, saying “it is illegal to wave weapons in a threatening manner” within city limits.
Schmitt, however, cited the Missouri “Castle Doctrine,” a state law that allows residents to use physical force if they believe they or their property is being threatened, saying that the statute authorized the McCloskeys “to protect and defend your security and personal property. “
He said the state is in crisis and said the last thing it needs is a “divisive decision that is not based on the law.”
.
