McCloskeys want guns they waved at protesters back after pardon from governor

Mark and Patricia McCloskey pleaded guilty in plea agreement

The Missouri couple who waved guns at racial injustice protesters outside their mansion, want their weapons back after being pardoned by the state’s governor.

Mark and Patricia McCloskey had the guns taken from them by law enforcement agencies following the high-profile incident in St Louis in 2020.

But despite a court order to destroy the guns, they still remain in the custody of the police and sheriff’s department, a court was told.

Mr McCloskey, who is now running as a Republican candidate for the US Senate, has sued St Louis, the state and sheriff to get his guns back.

But the city says that the couple forfeited them as part of their misdemeanor plea agreement for waving guns at the Black Lives Matter protesters on their private and gated street.

The couple pleaded guilty to wielding the guns at protesters who were marching in the wake of George Floyd’s death in Minneapolis.

Mr McCloskey, 65, has sued for the return of a Colt AR-15 rifle and a Bryco .380-caliber pistol.

He says that following the July 30 pardons handed out by governor Mike Parsons, he is entitled to get the guns back and fines of $872.50 repaid.

“The loss of that property would certainly be a legal disqualification, impediment or other legal disadvantage, of which I have now been absolved by the governor, and therefore the state no longer has any legitimate reason to hold the property,” he told a virtual court hearing on Wednesday.

Robert Dierker of the City Counselor’s Office, which is representing the law enforcement agencies, told the hearing that the guns had not yet been disposed of by the city.

“Obviously with our customary efficiency, we should have destroyed (the weapons) months ago,” said Mr Dierker.

“We haven’t. So McCloskey’s a beneficiary of bureaucratic, I want to say, ineptitude. But in any event, it’s fortuitous that the weapons still exist.”

The city has argued that the pardon relates to the conviction not to the terms of the plea bargain the couple made with prosecutors.