Protesters en route to demonstrate outside the St. Louis mayor’s residence were walking on a private street when two armed individuals came out of a home brandishing weapons.
Daniel Shular, a local reporter, took one of the videos and said he watched the entire roughly 10-minute long incident unfold. About 500 protesters were cutting through Portland Place, according to Shular, to bypass road closures nearby that blocked access to the mayor’s home.
«A door next to the gate at Portland Place was unlocked and protesters went through it to cut through the neighborhood to get to Krewson’s house,» he told CNN.
That’s when Shular says the man and the woman — now identified as Mark and Patricia McCloskey — came out of the house with the firearms. At one point in his 31-second video, the woman points the handgun in the direction of protesters.
Couple that brandished firearms speaks out
«A mob of at least 100 smashed through the historic wrought iron gates of Portland Place, destroying them, rushed towards my home where my family was having dinner outside and put us in fear of our lives,» Mark McCloskey, 63, told CNN affiliate KMOV.
Property records obtained by CNN confirm the two own the property. The St Louis Streets Department confirmed to CNN that Portland Place is a private street.
«The peaceful protesters were not the subject of scorn or disdain by the McCloskeys,» their attorney, Albert S. Watkins, said in a statement to CNN. «To the contrary, they were expecting and supportive of the message of the protesters. The actions of violence, destruction of property and acts of threatening aggression by a few individuals commingling with the peaceful protesters, gave rise to trepidation and fear of imminent and grave.»
Watkins says his clients acted, «lawfully on their property,» and that «their actions were borne solely of fear and apprehension, the genesis of which was not race related. In fact, the agitators responsible for the trepidation were white.»
Firearms were brandished, pointed at protesters
«This is all private property,» McCloskey went on to say in his statement to KMOV.
