St. Louis man on confrontation with protesters: ‘I was worried that I was going to be killed’

The St. Louis man who was seen with his wife brandishing weapons at Black Lives Matter protesters over the weekend said late Tuesday that he was worried he was “going to be killed.”

Mark McCloskey told Fox News host Tucker Carlson that he and his wife Patricia were having dinner when they saw a “flood of people” coming through their gated community.

“They’re angry, they’re screaming, they’ve got spittle coming out of their mouth, and they’re coming toward the house,” McCloskey claimed, recalling recent protests in the city.

“When I saw that mob come through the gate with their rage and their anger, I thought that we would be overrun in a second. By the time I was out there with my rifle, the people were 20 or 30 feet from my front wall,” he continued. “I was literally afraid that within seconds they would surmount the wall, come into the house, kill us, burn the house down and everything that I had worked for and struggled for for the last 32 years.”

The McCloskeys, both personal-injury attorneys, live in a mansion that has been valued at more than $1 million.

Carlson asked Mark McCloskey to respond to “attacks” he has received since the incident over doing “what we used to believe every homeowner had an obligation to do.”

“Why are they denouncing you as a racist?” Carlson asked.

“I don’t understand. I’ve spent my career defending people that are defenseless,” McCloskey responded. “For people that are having a hard time making their miracle happen, for people that don’t have a voice. My Black clients love us. The night that this happened, I had some of our Black clients calling us up till 2:30 in the morning telling us how wrong it was the way the press [was] writing us up.”

He added that the incident had “nothing to do with race.”

“I wasn’t worried what the race was of the mob that came through my gate, I was worried that I was going to be killed. I didn’t care what race they were,” McCloskey said.

Watch: Mark McCloskey talks with Fox News’ @TuckerCarlson about the media’s smear of him and his wife for arming themselves to defend their home against a mob of 300 people trespassing on their property.
pic.twitter.com/66OcJzhpUD

— TV News HQ (@TVNewsHQ) July 1, 2020

The incident took place on Sunday night in the affluent Central West End neighborhood of St. Louis.

Protesters were marching toward the home of Mayor Lyda Krewson (D) to demand her resignation after she read the names and addresses of several individuals who wrote to her office suggesting that the police department in the city be defunded. Krewson has since apologized.

A group of about 500 demonstrators marched to her home down the middle of the street and the couple came out of their home brandishing firearms.

Mark and Patricia McCloskey told the police that they heard a commotion and saw “a large group of subjects forcefully break an iron gate marked with ‘No Trespassing’ and ‘Private Street’ signs.”

Mark McCloskey repeatedly shouted “private property” and “get out” at the protesters walking roughly 20 yards away, according to the St. Louis Post Dispatch. Some protesters could be heard urging others to “keep moving” as the couple kept weapons pointed in their direction.

The incident has been viewed tens of millions of times on social media and was shared on Twitter by President Trump.

A couple pointed guns at protesters in St. Louis as a group marched toward the mayor’s home to demand her resignation. https://t.co/5EqDd43QCd pic.twitter.com/KWNaif77ch

— ABC News (@ABC) June 29, 2020

The couple is now under investigation by the St. Louis Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner, who said she was “alarmed” that peaceful protesters would be met with guns.

“We must protect the right to peacefully protest, and any attempt to chill it through intimidation or threat of deadly force will not be tolerated,” Gardner said, adding that her office would not tolerate “the use of force against those exercising their First Amendment rights.”