Mark and Patricia McCloskey, the St. Louis couple who went viral last month when they brandished weapons as they confronted Black Lives Matter protesters outside their home, appeared at a virtual Trump campaign event on Friday night. They were interviewed by Kimberly Guilfoyle, the girlfriend of Donald Trump Jr. and the former Fox News personality who is now hosting a web series for the campaign called “Making the Case,” which is also the title of his 2015 memoir.
“I thought I was going to die,” Mark McCloskey told Guilfoyle. Video circulating about the June 28 demonstration showed protesters walking through an unbroken door in the neighborhood, but McCloskey said Friday that protesters “broke” the door. A photo on CMO St. Louis affiliate KMOV shows that the door is now broken, but it’s unclear when it was damaged.
“I thought in a matter of seconds they would invade us, be in the house, burn down and kill us,” Mark McCloskey told Guilfoyle. Patricia McCloskey maintains that they called the police before taking up arms even though the police stated that they received no street calls from the couple at the time of the incident, KMOV reported.
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Guilfoyle also praised Patricia McCloskey for “supporting her husband with a gun.” Later, Patricia McCloskey told Guilfoyle that “it is time for us not to just stay behind the men. We need to get up and learn.”
Police executed a search warrant last week and took Mark McCloskey’s gun. The couple’s former attorney then handed over Patricia McCloskey’s gun. Guilfoyle asked what they are doing to retrieve the firearms, and the McCloskeys responded by saying that “they depend on private security.”
Guilfoyle emphasized that it is his “constitutional right” to have weapons, and said that “apparently, people are simply allowed to burn people’s houses, shoot or kill people.”
The McCloskeys have become right-wing symbols ever since the photos and videos of them with their guns went viral, especially among gun rights activists and Republicans who have tried to portray the Republican Party as the party of ” law”.
Missouri Governor Mike Parson said President Trump is monitoring the case, according to KMOV. During a phone call, Mr. Trump told the Governor that he “understands the situation in St. Louis and how out of control it is for a prosecutor to leave violent criminals and not do their job and attempt to attack respectful citizens of the law”. KMOV reported.
US Senator Josh Hawley of Missouri urged Attorney General William Barr to initiate a federal civil rights investigation by St. Louis Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner on Thursday, accusing her of abuse of power in her investigation of a couple who He was wielding weapons while defending his home during a protest.
The McCloskeys have not been charged, but St. Louis police requested orders earlier this week, KMOV reported.
Nicole Sganga contributed to this report.
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