Missouri Gov. Mike Parson pardoned Mark and Patricia McCloskey Tuesday, absolving the couple for waving and pointing firearms at protesters who marched past their Central West End home last summer.
Last month, a judge accepted the couple’s plea deal, requiring them to pay a collective $2,750 in fines. The Republican governor’s pardon wipes out both that deal and the penalties.
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“Mark McCloskey has publicly stated that if he were involved in the same situation, he would have the exact same conduct,” the McCloskeys’ lawyer said Tuesday. “He believes that the pardon vindicates that conduct.”
Initially charged with unlawful weapon use and tampering with evidence, Mark McCloskey pleaded guilty to misdemeanor charges of fourth-degree assault in June.
Patricia McCloskey faced similar felony charges initially but pleaded guilty to second-degree harassment — also a misdemeanor.
The McCloskeys claimed they felt threatened by Black protesters and allies demonstrating after George Floyd’s death. The court required the couple to turn over the two weapons used in the June 2020 incident — an AR-15 rifle and a semiautomatic pistol — to Missouri officials to be destroyed.
“I’d do it again,” McCloskey said previously. “Any time the mob approaches me, I’ll do what I can to put them in imminent threat of physical injury because that’s what kept them from destroying my house and my family.”
The special prosecutor assigned to the case determined the protesters were all unarmed and peaceful.
In May, Mark McCloskey announced plans to campaign for the U.S. Senate, running against former Missouri Gov. Eric Greitens and attorney general Eric Schmitt in the Republican primary.
*story by Audacy