Trump retweets video of armed couple menacing protesters

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Donald Trump courted controversy on Monday – and perhaps sought to deflect attention from reports about Russia placing bounties on US soldiers in Afghanistan – by retweeting news footage of a white couple in St Louis, Missouri, who pointed guns at protesters marching for police reform.

The president’s action came a day after he retweeted footage of protesters clashing in Florida in which a Trump supporter could be heard to say: “White power! White power!”

The protesters in St Louis were marching to the mayor’s home to demand her resignation.

In a Facebook live briefing on Friday, Lyda Krewson read the names and addresses of several residents who wrote letters suggesting she defund the police department, as part of protests arising from the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis on 25 May.

The video was removed from Facebook and Krewson apologized on Friday, stating she did not “intend to cause distress”. On Sunday evening a group of at least 500 people headed towards the mayor’s home, chanting, “Resign Lyda, take the cops with you.”

Video on social media showed the armed white couple standing outside their home in the Central West End neighbourhood, shouting at protesters. The man carried an assault-style rifle, the woman a handgun. People in the march moved the crowd forward, urging participants to ignore them.

Buzzfeed News reported that a police report detailed the couple’s claim to have been threatened with harm and to have “observed multiple subjects who were armed”.

The couple were not immediately officially identified but multiple news reports identified the couple as personal injury lawyers Mark and Patricia McCloskey, owners of the grand “midwestern palazzo” home seen in video footage.

Mark McCloskey later told KMOV-TV a mob rushed toward the home as the family was having dinner and “put us in fear of our lives”.

“This is all private property,” he said. “There are no public sidewalks or public streets. We were told that we would be killed, our home burned and our dog killed. We were all alone facing an angry mob.”

The St Louis police department said that they were investigating the incident, and that it currently regarded Mark and Patricia McCloskey, the white couple with guns, as the victims.

Asked whether the McCloskeys were being currently being investigated for committing any crime last night, a St Louis police spokesperson said that the local prosecutor would have to make that decision.

“Any changes regarding whether the victims would be charged would be determined by the prosecutor’s office,” a St Louis police department spokesperson said.

The police were currently investigating the incident as one of “trespassing” and “intimidation” against the McCloskeys, the spokesperson said.

St Louis elected its first black prosecutor, Kimberly Gardner, a criminal justice reformer, in 2016. Gardner said in a public statement on Monday that she was “alarmed” to see an incident “where peaceful protestors were met by guns and a violent assault”, and that her office was investigating the incident along with the police.

“We must protect the right to peacefully protest, and any attempt to chill it through intimidation or threat of deadly force will not be tolerated,” Gardner wrote. “Make no mistake: we will not tolerate the use of force against those exercising their first amendment rights.”

Missouri has liberal gun laws but Nico Bocur of the Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence told BuzzFeed: “The right to bear arms does not give anyone the right to harass, intimidate and point guns at Americans they disagree with.”

Mayor Krewson, who is white, was elected as the first female mayor of St Louis in April 2017, pledging to reduce crime and improve impoverished neighborhoods. Her husband, Jeff Krewson, was killed in a carjacking in 1995. She and her two young children were in the car.

The names and addresses Krewson read out are considered public records but her actions prompted a heavy backlash. An online petition calling for her resignation had more than 43,000 signatures by Monday morning.

“As a leader, you don’t do stuff like that … it’s only right that we visit her at her home,” said the state representative Rasheen Aldridge, speaking into a megaphone at the protest on Sunday.

“As a leader, you don’t do stuff like that … it’s only right that we visit her at her home,” said the state representative Rasheen Aldridge, speaking into a megaphone at the protest on Sunday.

Addressing Trump’s “white power” retweet earlier the same day, Tim Scott of South Carolina, the sole African American Republican in the Senate, said: “There’s no question that he should not have retweeted it.”

Andrew Stroehlein, the European media director of Human Rights Watch, said on Twitter that retweet was “not surprising for a man who’s called neo-Nazis ‘very fine people’ and hired white nationalists to work in the White House, but still, immensely dangerous. With his poll numbers falling, he wants a race war.”

Trump also retweeted a series of messages seeking to identify protesters involved in attempts to remove statues of figures from American history.

Their home is like a museum.

1. The McCloskeys Bought Their Million-Dollar Home at Portland Place in February 1988 & Were Profiled in a St.
Louis Magazine After Renovating It
The couple was featured in St. Louis Magazine for their impressive renovation of the famous estate in 1988. Now more than 30 years after purchasing the home, which was once owned by Edward and Anna Busch Faust — the son of a revered St. Louis restaurateur and daughter of the beer-making Busch family — they have restored the Renaissance palazzo back to its original glory.

Mark McCloskey told the magazine, “All the plumbing was made by Mott, which was the premiere manufacturer at the turn of the century, and all the door and window hardware was made by P.E. Guerin.” Patricia McCloskey noted “the glass in the windows” was from the second-floor reception hall at the 14th century Palazzo Davanzati in Florence, “and the shutters, at least the ironwork, are probably original.” The property is appraised at $1.15 million, according to St. Louis city property records.

In 1992, the couple were involved in a “brouhaha” over cohabitation rules in the Portland Place neighborhood, according to an article from The St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Patty McCloskey was at the time a board member for the Portland Place homeowners’ association. She opposed a bylaw change to allow cohabitation in the HOA, which put the association in line with city law that doesn’t allow for discrimination.

Patty McCLoskey disputed claims made at the time by her opponents that she and her husband were trying to keep gay people out of the neighborhood. “This is insanity,” she told the newspaper. “It isn’t about gay-bashing. I want to enforce restrictions. … certain people on the street are renting their houses, and we couldn’t get a few of the trustees to agree to make a phone call and tell them it was inappropriate.” A neighbor, Dr. Saul Boyarsky, told the newspaper the McCloskeys were, “trying to preserve the exclusivity of the neighborhood.”

In videos on Sunday, the McCloskeys could be seen outside their million-dollar home with guns. While holding a rifle, Mark McCloskey can be heard yelling to the crowd, “Private property! Get out! Private property, get out!” Patricia McCloskey, holding a handgun, also yelled at the protesters. One person in the protest can be heard yelling back, “Calm down,” as others tell the group to keep moving and not engage with the couple. Another person can be heard saying, “Then call the f—— cops, you idiot!” and “It’s a public street.” The area where the McCloskeys live does have signs saying it is a private street. But it is not clear if Missouri law allows them to point guns at people for entering into the area.

2. The Couple, Who Have Been Married Since 1985 & Run the McCloskey Law Center, Located Inside the Historic Nieman Mansion, Met While Studying at SMU Law School
As stated on their website, the McCloskeys, “have devoted their professional careers to assisting those sustaining serious traumatic brain injury, neck, back, spinal cord and other serious, disabling or fatal neurological injuries. The goal of our practice is to provide those sustaining such devastating injuries, or the survivors of those killed as a result of such devastating injuries, with meaningful compensation.

“We strive to provide the seriously injured and their survivors with a means to having as full and as comfortable a life as possible by obtaining every penny of reasonable compensation for their injuries and losses.”

They started their law firm, McCloskey, P.C., in 1994, according to Mark McCloskey’s LinkedIn profile. McCloskey writes on his LinkedIn profile:

We have focused our practice on the representation of individuals suffering brain/head injury, spinal cord injury, birth injuries, and all other serious injuries as the result of the negligence of others for over 29 years. If you have suffered devastating injury or the loss of a loved one as the result of car wrecks, airplane crash, medical errors, dangerous or defective products or machines, explosion, fire, falls, or through any other causes, let us help you put your lives back together. ‘If it wasn’t your fault, why are you paying for it?’

Mark and Patricia McCloskey have been married since 1985 and have one adult daughter, according to their website and social media profiles. They met while studying at the Southern Methodist University Law School. They both graduated from SMU Law.

Their office is located inside the historic Nieman Mansion in St. Louis’ Central West End, which the McCloskeys have also restored.

3. Mark McCloskey, Who Has Been an Attorney Since 1986, Represents a Victim of Police Brutality
McCloskey is representing a victim of police brutality in a lawsuit against a Missouri police department and officer. According to the Associated Press, David Maas, a Woodson Terrace Police officer at the time, was caught on dashcam video appearing to assault a man and was indicted on a federal charge in March.

For the incident, which took place in April 2019, Maas was charged with one count of deprivation fo rights under color of law, according to the U.S. attorney’s office. The victim was identified by the initials, “I.F.,” which matches the 2019 civil lawsuit brought by Isaiah Forman, the AP reported. Maas is accused of kicking Forman, who is black, while he was surrendering.

“I’m glad that the law enforcement agencies are subject to the same standard as everybody else,” Mark McCloskey, said to the AP.

On his Facebook page, McCloskey defended the jury’s decision in the 2011 case against Casey Anthony, who was accused of murder in the death of her daughter. McCloskey wrote on Facebook after the controversial 2011 verdict, “thank God that the jury saw through all the hype and found there WAS in fact not enough evidence on this case. Stop your crazy RAILING after you’ve spent so much time trying this girl in the media.”

Mark McCloskey is also a member of a St. Louis Lamborghini club.

In 1993, Mark McCloskey wrote a letter to the editor about crime in St. Louis. He wrote, “the reason high-income people leave the city, and why I can’t talk my friends into moving in, is crime. Why live where your life is at risk, where you are affronted by thugs, bums, drug addicts and punks when you can afford not to. What St. Louis can do without are the murderers, beggars, drug addicts and street corner drunks. St. Louis needs more people of substance and fewer of subsistence.”

4. Patricia McCloskey Is Originally From Pennsylvania & Studied at Penn State Before Attending SMU Law School
According to her Facebook profile, Patricia Novak McCloskey is a native of Industry, Pennsylvania, where she graduated from Western Beaver High School in 1977. McCloskey then studied at Penn State University, graduating in 1982 with a degree in labor studies and a minor in Spanish. She, like her husband, attended SMU Law School in Dallas, graduating in 1986.

According to their law firm’s website, “Patricia N. McCloskey is a Phi Beta Kappa, Summa Cum Laude graduate of Pennsylvania State University, graduating first in her class and with the highest cumulative average in her department in forty-seven years. Patricia N. McCloskey is also a graduate of Southern Methodist University School of Law, which she completed while simultaneously working full time and still graduating in the top quarter of her class.” The website adds:

After several years working with a major law firm in St. Louis on the defense side, she moved to representation of the injured. Since 1994, she has exclusively represented those injured by the negligence of others with Mark McCloskey. She has acted in various roles in the community including being a past Board Member of Therapeutic Horsemanship, a law student mentor, a member of the Missouri Bar Association ethical review panel and a St. Louis city committee woman.

Patricia McCloskey has extensive trial experience in personal injury and wrongful death cases arising out of all aspects of negligence, including traumatic brain injury, products liability and product defect, medical malpractice, wrongful death, neck, back and spinal cord injuries, motor vehicle collisions, motorcycle collisions, airplane crashes, and many others as set forth further

Patricia McCloskey is licensed to practice law in Missouri and Illinois, according to the law firm’s website.

5. The McCloskeys Were Given the Meme Treatment on Twitter
Thousands of online users slammed Mark and Patty McCloskey not only for pulling out firearms against peaceful protesters but for the way they incorrectly held their weapons, for running out of their home barefoot, for Mark’s salmon-colored shirt, and more.

While some Twitter members remade popular movie posters to feature the personal injury lawyers, others wondered if the trial attorneys broke the law by pointing their weapons at the protesters. Don Calloway tweeted, “A fellow lawyer from Missouri, a guy I know named Mark McCloskey committed an assault tonight in STL by pointing his AR 15 at peaceful protesters. He should be arrested and charged with assault immediately. The MO Bar should revoke their licenses.”

The McCloskeys also had their share of supporters online. One man tweeted, “The same people destroying private property and threatening residents wonder why residents are coming out of their homes with AR-15’s…? Lmao.” Ryan Fournier, founder of Students for Trump, tweeted, “God Bless the couple in St. Louis who stood their ground and defended their property. God Bless the Second Amendment.”

While some on social media have claimed the McCloskeys are registered Democrats, it was not immediately possible to determine whether the couple are actually registered as Democrats or if they are registered Republicans. But Federal Election Commission records show Mark McCloskey has contributed thousands of dollars to the Trump Make America Great Again Committee, the Republican National Committee and Donald J. Trump for President Inc. He also made contributions to a Republican congressional candidate, Bill Phelps, in 1996, and to the Bush-Quayle campaign in 1992.

Patricia McCloskey also made a contribution to the RNC in 2018 and to a Republican Senate dinner in 1988.

In another article I read that a protestor told the homeowner it’s a public street, call the police etc.

So, which is it? A public street or private property?

There’s no such thing as private residential streets where I live. All roads are public. Even in neighbourhoods with $20-60M houses - anyone can drive or walk down the streets outside of them.

The shocking thing was that it’s only valued at $1.15M USD. Around here it would range from several Million to tens of Millions depending on location. Land value aside, there’s Zero Chance that that home could be constructed here for only $1.15M USD in materials and labour. None, whatsoever. A very typical regular detached house in the city of Vancouver costs about $1M CDN in construction costs these days for the level of fit and finish expected of them.

They literally broke down a locked iron gate to get in. And even if the street were public, his lawn isn't.







Apparently they bought it as an old run down mansion way back in the 80's or something, and have been spending a lot of time, effort and money on restoring it. It's entirely possible there's still significant work that needs to be done that's reducing the value significantly.


And after seeing the phone video taken from the rioters point of view, I'm not sure that I wouldn't have opened fire if I was faced with this bullshit on my property, threatening my home and my family. Especially considering the recent shootings, the vandalism and the arson. "Call the police" is a bloody taunt in this context.

Laws are way different in the USA and people are allowed to shoot people who try to break into their homes.

Isn't being able to shoot people who are trying to break into your home a good thing though? When seconds count the police are just minutes away.

P.S. I do not own any guns.