From the St. Louis Post-Dispatch:
Couple points guns at protesters marching to St. Louis mayor’s home to demand resignation
“Private property!” Mark McCloskey shouted repeatedly at the crowd, as he held a rifle. “Get out! Private property, get out!” Patricia McCloskey pointed a small handgun.
To access Portland Place, the crowd entered through an iron pedestrian gate. The McCloskeys told police the protesters broke the gate to get in.
St. Louis police said the couple had called police for help once they saw the large crowd enter Portland Place. The McCloskeys had been at home and heard a loud commotion coming from the street; they went to investigate and saw “a large group of subjects forcefully break an iron gate marked with ‘No Trespassing’ and ‘Private Street’ signs,” police said.
“The group began yelling obscenities and threats of harm to both victims,” police said. “When the victims observed multiple subjects who were armed, they then armed themselves and contacted police.”
Here is the good news:
Anders Walker, a constitutional law professor at St. Louis University, said that although it’s “very dangerous” to engage protesters with guns, the homeowners broke no laws by brandishing or pointing weapons at them because Portland Place is a private street. He said they are legally protected by Missouri’s Castle Doctrine, which allows people to use deadly force to defend private property.
“The protesters thought they had a right to protest,” Walker said. “But as a technical matter, they were not allowed to be there … It’s essentially a private estate. If anyone was violating the law, it was the protesters.”
Ultimately this might go before a judge, and we know how political they’ve gotten. But for now it seems like they have a very solid case for their actions being legal.
Let’s hope the rule of law still applies.
And that’s where the mob failed their gun safety exam: invading private property and threatening the occupants in a state with the castle doctrine.
The St. Louis prosecutor says she is going to prefer charges against the couple. Read about it and if you want to comment, her office email is: http://www.circuitattorney.org/Emailus.aspx
Ma’s Ayoob’s “Acute failure of the victim selection process”
This is why states need a law like the one in NH, which says:
A person who responds to a threat which would be considered by a reasonable person as likely to cause serious bodily injury or death to the person or to another by displaying a firearm or other means of self-defense with the intent to warn away the person making the threat shall not have committed a criminal act. (RSA 627:4 (II-a))
In other words, it isn’t “brandishing” if it is a “stop threatening me” signal.
Oh it’s going before a judge alright….
https://twitter.com/tomgara/status/1277677144735395843
“The group began yelling obscenities and threats of harm to both victims,” police said. “When the victims observed multiple subjects who were armed, they then armed themselves and contacted police.”
IANAL, but it looks like, in order of occurence:
1. Large group forcibly breaks into private property (Opportunity)
2. Large group verbally threatens residents with actual harm (Jeopardy)
3. Residents of private property observe some members of large group are armed (Ability)
4. Residents arm themselves
With the “A-O-J triad” observed, the couple is well within their rights to arm up to defend themselves, even without Castle Doctrine. If the group was armed with guns, they don’t have to “close distance” to be a threat, and even if they weren’t armed with guns they don’t have to get far onto the property to be within the “21-foot” critical distance. Plus there are a lot of them (disparity of numbers), who are probably a lot younger and stronger than the couple (disparity of strength/conditioning), not to mention the weapons (disparity of force).
Retreat being unreasonable under the circumstances (large group, possibility of projectile weapons), it’s arguably straight-up self-defense. The claim is bolstered by Castle Doctrine, but it doesn’t hinge on it.
Being lawyers, the residents probably know all this, even if only passingly (the article doesn’t say what their legal specialties are), and acted accordingly within the legal boundaries.
But, they are white, therefore they are racist by definition. Anything other than charging them with the harshest crime possible is a clear demonstration of white privilege.
/sarc
Who will they charge? Do they even have names or IDs to attach to the warrants?
I’d love to see a few of these worms get hooked up, but I’m not holding my breath either.
Local Circuit Attorney is investigation charging the homeowners.
https://mobile.twitter.com/stlcao