Rifle-wielding St. Louis lawyer breaks silence after incident with protesters

The St. Louis lawyer who went viral after wielding a rifle to ward off protesters as they marched through his neighborhood said he feared the crowd was going to kill him and his wife and burn their mansion down like the “storming of the Bastille.”

Mark McCloskey told a local NBC affiliate KDSK the crowd of protesters had broken a gate to his estate as they marched toward the mayor’s house on the city’s Central West End on Sunday evening.

The crowd then began threatening him and his wife, McCloskey claimed.

“We were threatened with our lives, threatened with a house being burned down, my office building being burned down, even our dog’s life being threatened,” he said in the interview.

“It was, it was about as bad as it can get. I mean, those you know, I really thought it was Storming the Bastille that we would be dead and the house would be burned and there was nothing we could do about it,” he added.

McCloskey grabbed a semiautomatic rifle and his wife, Patricia McCloskey, brandished a silver pistol, pointing it at the protesters and yelling at them that their house and street is private property.

“The only thing we said is this is private property. Go back. Private property. Leave now,” McCloskey said in the interview.

He and his wife live on Portland Place, a private street in a historic section of the city that is lined with million-dollar homes and other mansions.

He told KDSK that the mob of demonstrators broke a gate that seals off the street from the public, claiming that as soon as they passed through the entrance they were trespassing on private property.

“Everything inside the Portland Place gate is private property. There is nothing public in Portland Place,” McCloskey said in the interview.

“Being inside that gate is like being in my living room.”

The protesters were en route to St. Louis Mayor Lyda Krewson’s home to demand her resignation after she released names and addresses of residents who joined in anti-cop protests.

The McCloskey’s “Midwestern palazzo” home was featured in St. Louis Magazine in August 2018 after they completed a major renovation.

In the piece, they showed off their dome gilt ceiling and curved double staircase of marble leading to the second- and third-floor landings.

Additional reporting by Elizabeth Rosner