The couple that came out of their St. Louis mansion wielding guns and telling protesters to leave their property Sunday night are lawyers representing a victim of police brutality.
Mark and Patricia McCloskey — a husband-wife attorney team at McCloskey Law Center — specialize in brain injury, spinal injury and catastrophic injury cases. Mark McCloskey is representing Isaiah Forman, a black man who alleges he was unjustly kicked by Officer David Maas in a 2019 incident, The Associated Press reported.
“I’m glad that the law enforcement agencies are subject to the same standard as everybody else,” Mark McCloskey said after Maas was indicted on federal charges in March, according to the AP.
Police released dashcam footage of the incident in 2019 that appeared to show Maas kicking Forman, who is on the ground, in the head. Police charged Forman with second-degree assault for crashing into a police cruiser in a St. Louis suburb, according to CBS affiliate KMOV-TV.
“There could be some existing circumstance that would explain [the police officer’s] behavior, but I would be hard pressed to think of one,” University of Missouri-St. Louis Criminology Professor David Klinger told KMOV-TV when asked about the 2019 incident.
Video of the McCloskeys, armed with a rifle and a handgun, defending their St. Louis mansion during a protest Sunday night has racked up millions of views. Protesters appeared to veer onto the McCloskeys’ private street during a demonstration.
WATCH:
“Private property, get out,” a barefoot Mark McCloskey is heard yelling to protesters while holding a rifle in separate footage of the incident.
Several protesters can be seen screaming at the McCloskeys while others are heard saying “keep moving.”
“The Black Lives Matter movement is here to stay, it is the right message and it is about time,” Albert Watkins, legal counsel for the McCloskeys, said in a statement Monday.
Watkins added that his clients’ work in the Forman case proves their commitment to protecting the civil rights of individuals “victimized at the hands of law enforcement.”
President Donald Trump retweeted footage of the incident Monday morning. (RELATED: Police Arrest 2 St. Louis Women After Protesters Paint ‘Black Lives Matter’ On The Street)
The protesters were on their way to Democratic Mayor Lyda Krewson’s home to demand her resignation, according to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Krewson read the names and listed the addresses of protesters who demanded that the city defund its police department, NBC-affiliate WAND-TV reported.
Protests have been occurring in the wake of the death of George Floyd, who died in Minneapolis police custody after an officer knelt on his neck, video of the incident showed.
Protesters in St. Louis have directed their attention toward a statue of King Louis IX, who the city is named after. They argue that Louis, who is a canonized saint in the Roman Catholic Church, took part in two crusades, according to the AP.
The McCloskeys’ mansion was featured in St. Louis Magazine in 2018.
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