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The McCloskey Frameup
Falsified evidence? It’s only a problem if you get caught!
The latest on the St. Louis couple facing weapons charges for defending their home after protestors charged through their gates, from KSDK Channel 5:
The gun Patricia McCloskey waved at protesters was inoperable when it arrived at the St. Louis police crime lab, but a member of Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner’s staff ordered crime lab experts to disassemble and reassemble it and wrote that it was “readily capable of lethal use” in charging documents filed Monday, 5 On Your Side has learned.
I’m glad to hear someone is on our side. Also, the Missouri Governor has condemned the prosecution and said he would pardon the McCloskeys if needed.
Published in Law
I’ve field stripped my share of firearms, and I’ve yet to see one where you could reverse the firing pin during a simple field stripping. Getting the firing pin out requires detail stripping on practically every gun I’m familiar with.
What model pistol are we talking about that can have its firing pin and spring reversed during a field-strip?
Ok.
I’m saying that is one obvious way to interpret the public facts. I’m also saying that I find that interpretation more compelling than the idea that they met a mob with non-functional weapons.
I’m also saying that when you break out a gun, you are responsible for that act. Not having bullets or having put it together wrong is absolutely zero excuse for anything, and merely indicates such a person is morally and intellectually deficient. I do not judge that to be true of the McCloskeys.
But the standard is beyond a reasonable doubt.
Irrelevant – that’s for the eventual jury. It’s not the guideline that we expect an investigator, or even prosecutor, to follow.
I’ve also heard “Go to the nearest bar and have a drink.”
Even if your judgement of their moral and intellectual deficiency is accurate, does that violate the statute under which they’ve been charged?
I would not wish to confront a mob with a non-functional weapon, myself. What if someone calls my bluff? But the fact that I find that to be a foolish choice doesn’t mean it’s illegal to do so, nor that it should be illegal.
Besides, it appears to have worked out for them in the short-term. Their house wasn’t vandalized by the “protesters” and no one called their bluff.
You don’t think that screwing around with evidence is normal? I suspect it happens quite a bit.
I knew a lawyer that kept a bottle of mouth wash hanging from his mirror. If he got pulled over he said to wash your mouth out with it before the cop gets there, but where the cop can see you do it. Then any alcohol in your system can be blamed on the mouthwash.
Actually, isn’t just “brandishing” a firearm itself a crime? It doesn’t have to be loaded, it doesn’t have to be functional, and I think it doesn’t even have to be real:
N0t in the context of the McCloskey case with a rioting mob brandishing weapons and threatening life and property in front of their home.
Field stripping a pistol usually does not include removal of the firing pin, which almost always requires tools.
I was going to make the point that removing a firing pin usually requires drifting out at least one retaining pin, something you would not do routinely, when I remembered that I have an antique Beretta 410 (a pocket pistol chambered in .25 ACP) where the firing pin and spring can be easily removed. I don’t know what kind of pistol Mrs. McCloskey is using, but it looks like a Walther or a Bersa to me. Has anyone seen a news report that has the make of the handgun?
I hope the Civil Rights Division of DOJ will be filing a suit against Gardner and others in her office for violating the McCloskey’s civil rights.
I’ve wondered too, and all I came up with was Walther-like. At any rate, it’s not a modern semiauto. I’m sure you could be more precise, Doug.
But to me, whether the pistol she carried was functional or not seems remote from the civic interest and the law. In other words, I don’t think it should matter one bit to the law whether her pistol was operational or his rifle was loaded. Further, in the absence of advice from a legal scholar of Ricochet standing, I’m of the opinion that the courts will agree.
The McCloskeys defended their property with their firearms. There’s really nothing else here.
It makes a difference based on how the crime they are charged with reads in the statute. I understood this a day ago.
That absolute conjecture. Unprovable.
The burden of proof is on the prosecution.
At least it is in America. I don’t know where you live.
Colorado, under the suede boot of Jared the Red.
That broke the gate marked “No trespass” and were on private property.
I thought “brandishing” was the first half-second of aiming to defend yourself and property against trespassers.
Firing pin? There was no firing pin. I threw that away years ago. Made the gun heavy.
I think the above is a great case for a 1st Annual Ricochet Games! Quick, we need more events!
That would make it even worse on them. Being involved in a federal case can financially break you.
I don’t believe the McCloskeys committed any crime. They were entitled to defend themselves and their property.
I don’t get this obsession with the readiness condition of the pistol. Where I live brandishing a fake gun while committing a crime is essentially the same crime as brandishing a real one. I find it hard to believe it’s much different in Missouri. Either the threat of force on their part was justified or it wasn’t.
In what kind of world are these words said in such a matter of fact fashion ?
May I suggest we call them the 1st Annual John Cleese Memorial Ricochet Games?
Ditto.
This is just how the system works. Government will do all sort of tests, even on stuff not in contention. To defend yourself you have to do equal test or give up the point. Those points may be used in a trial so need investigation. Those test and investigations cost serious money. Money most people do not want to spend. Even if you get a pro bono attorney they do not cover these expenses. The point is to drain your funds to apply leverage. They will do similar stuff to friends, family, witnesses. Anything to isolate you and get leverage to force a plea. Most people take a plea, even if innocent, just to make it stop. Once you plea there are no appeals.
Someday I may explain why I know this stuff. It might answer some people’s question on why I am cynical.
Yeah, that works every time, I guarantee it.
Yea, that works every time. I guarantee it.
If the charges were indeed valid, the condition of the weapon doesn’t matter. Pointing an unloaded, inoperative, simulated or even realistic toy at someone in a way that makes them in fear of their life is an assault, if done unlawfully. Altering the weapon after it has been seized just shows bad faith on the part of the prosecutor.