ST. LOUIS (AP) 鈥 A judge has expunged the misdemeanor convictions of a St. Louis couple who waved guns at racial injustice protesters outside their mansion in 2020. Now they want their guns back.
Attorneys Mark and Patricia McCloskey filed a request in January to have the convictions wiped away. Judge Joseph P. Whyte wrote in an order Wednesday that the purpose of an expungement is to give people who have rehabilitated themselves a second chance, the reported. City prosecutors and police opposed the expungements.
Immediately after the judge's ruling, Mark McCloskey demanded that the city return the two guns seized as part of his 2021 to misdemeanor assault. Republican Gov. Mike Parson the couple weeks after the plea.
鈥淚t鈥檚 time for the city to cough up my guns,鈥 he told the Post-Dispatch.
If it doesn鈥檛, he said, he鈥檒l file a lawsuit.
The McCloskeys said they felt threatened by the protesters, who were in June 2020 on their way to demonstrate in front of the mayor鈥檚 house nearby. It was one of hundreds of demonstrations around the country after the police killing of in Minneapolis. The couple also said the group was trespassing on a private street.
Mark McCloskey emerged from his home with an AR-15-style rifle, and Patricia McCloskey waved a semi-automatic pistol.
