St. Louis Protesters Return To Neighborhood Where Couple Pointed Guns At Them

Protesters in St. Louis, Missouri, again marched past the neighborhood where, a week earlier, a couple famously emerged from their home pointing guns at them, KSDK-TV reported. This time the couple was nowhere to be seen.

Last week, as reported at the time by The Inquisitr, an incident unfolded in a St. Louis neighborhood that made international headlines. Protesters marched through the city’s Portland Place, a private neighborhood of stately mansions, with a view toward protesting in front of the home of the city’s mayor, Lyda Krewson.

However, two neighbors, later identified as Mark McCloskey, 61, and his 63-year-old wife, Patricia, emerged from their home bearing guns and pointing them at the protesters. Patricia held what appeared to be a handgun, while Mark bore what appeared to be an assault rifle.

A video of the incident can be seen here.

Mark McCloskey would later go on to say that the protesters had breached the gate that closes off the private neighborhood to outsiders and that he and his wife felt threatened by the “mob” and that their lives were in danger.

A group of residents in the neighborhood condemned the couple’s actions in a statement.

The statement read, in part that the resident did not support “The behavior of anyone who uses threats of violence, especially through the brandishing of firearms, to disrupt peaceful protest, whether it be in this neighborhood or anywhere in the United States.”

On Friday, another protest took place at the home, albeit under slightly different circumstances.

This time, the protesters were on adjoining Kingshighway, a busy street that butts up against the neighborhood but, unlike Portland Place, is open to traffic. This time, protesters did not breach the gate, which appeared to have been beefed up with extra barriers. One protester did climb atop the gate and acted as if he were going to jump over it, but he did not.

On a balcony of the couple’s home, a dozen or so men in plain clothes could be seen walking about, though none displayed weapons or appeared to show any signs of aggression. One man even clapped along with the protesters as they chanted.

After the protest near the McCloskeys’ mansion, the protesters marched along the street to nearby Highway 64, which police had closed off to protests in both directions. There, the group sat on the ground for nearly 8 minutes, a reference to the amount of time during which a Minneapolis police officer pushed his knee into George Floyd’s neck as he begged for his life.