Whatever tough-talking, populist-pandering nonsense Mark McCloskey tells voters in his U.S. Senate bid, the St. Louis personal injury lawyer pleaded guilty to a crime after recklessly wielding a gun at protesters marching peacefully past his home last year. And he said he’d do it again. That makes a question before the Missouri Supreme Court an easy one: Both McCloskey and his wife, law partner and fellow pretend-Rambo Patricia McCloskey, should have their law licenses suspended.
On June 28 of last year, as a Black Lives Matter protest streamed past their Central West End home en route to the home of then-Mayor Lyda Krewson, the McCloskeys emerged, armed and barefoot, and made a spectacle of confronting protesters who weren’t confronting them. Mark McCloskey cradled a semi-automatic rifle; Patricia McCloskey held a small handgun — which, in a move of stunning recklessness, she pointed directly at the crowd. Luckily, the protesters were more level-headed than the couple, and moved on.
The couple was subsequently charged with felony unlawful use of weapons, a textbook description of what these two sworn officers of the court did. They ultimately took a plea bargain, pleading guilty to lesser misdemeanor charges of assault and harassment and agreeing to pay small fines without jail time. But Republican Missouri Gov. Mike Parson, preening for his base as always, pardoned the couple of even that modest conviction.
