US couple who were filmed outside their mansion waving guns at social justice protesters last summer has pleaded guilty to misdemeanor charges. Mark and Patricia McCloskey agreed to provide up the guns employed within the 28 June confrontation in St Louis, Missouri. The couple, both lawyers, made national news when footage of them went viral, launching them to a cameo eventually year’s Republican National Convention. Mr. McCloskey defended his reaction to what he called an “angry mob”. “I’d couple again,” he said outside court on Thursday, US media report. “Any time the mob approaches me, I’ll do what I can to place them in imminent threat of physical injury because that is what kept them from destroying my house and my family.” Mr. McCloskey, 63, pleaded guilty to misdemeanor fourth-degree assault and was fined $750 (£538). His wife, 61, pleaded guilty to misdemeanor harassment and was fined $2,000. Because the fees are misdemeanors, the private injury lawyers can keep their law licenses and still own firearms. Judge David Mason accepted their guilty pleas, but rejected their request to donate Mr. McCloskey’s rifle during a fundraiser, US media said. A jury had indicted the attached felony charges, which could have sent them to jail if convicted. But special prosecutor Richard Callahan said in an exceedingly very statement he opted for misdemeanor charges for a series of things including “the age and lack of a record for the McCloskeys, the particular fact they initially called the police, and also the incontrovertible fact that no-one was hurt and no shots were fired”. Mr. Callahan described the demonstrators as a “racially mixed and peaceful group, including women and children”, who had made a wrong activate because of their protest. There was no evidence the group was armed, he said. Participants had marched past the couple’s $1.15m mansion on their due to the house of then-St Louis Mayor Lyda Krewson. The protest came weeks after George Floyd’s death while in police custody in Minneapolis, Minnesota. His murder incited a wave of demonstrations worldwide, with participants demanding racial equality and an end to police brutality. The McCloskeys have since branded themselves as conservative defenders against left-wing rioters. In May, Mr. McCloskey announced he would run as a Republican during an extremely bid for a senate seat in Missouri.
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