A white couple that was captured on viral footage over the weekend pointing guns at protesters outside their home in St. Louis said on Monday that they were “terrified” they would be killed and their house burned when protesters walked by their home.
During an interview with local CBS affiliate KMOV on Monday, Mark and Patricia McCloskey claimed they pointed their guns at protesters outside their residence on Sunday because they were “in fear for our lives.”
Video shows protesters walking peacefully by their home in Portland Place on Sunday night while on the way to the home of Mayor Lyda Krewson. The group of several hundred protesters had reportedly been calling on Krewson to resign after she recently read aloud activists’ personal information on a livestream.
But the McCloskey paint a different picture of the event: “It was like the storming of the Bastille, the gate came down and a large crowd of angry, aggressive people poured through. I was terrified that we’d be murdered within seconds. Our house would be burned down, our pets would be killed,” Mark McCloskey told the station.
“A mob of at least 100 smashed through the historic wrought iron gates of Portland Place, destroying them, rushed towards my home where my family was having dinner outside and put us in fear for our lives,” he told the station while claiming to have received a death threat from one protester.
Despite his claims, video circulating on social media shows protesters opening and walking peacefully through the unbroken gate. It is unclear when the gate was actually damaged or who destroyed it.
Rasheen Aldridge, who had reportedly been one of the leaders of the protest, disputed the couple’s claims and said the protest remained peaceful in nature despite the McCloskeys drawing guns on the demonstrators.
