The recent Post-Dispatch article “Couple points guns at protesters marching to Ƶ mayor’s home to demand resignation” begs us to rethink justice in Ƶ. Should Mark T. and Patricia N. McCloskey be charged? Can the same people calling for criminal justice reform also call for the McCloskeys to be arrested and prosecuted? If there are no consequences for a white couple pointing guns at people marching for racial justice, hasn’t white privilege won again?
The McCloskeys don’t appear to be victims, as the police suggest. Videos of the incident show protesters calmly walking through an open, intact gate to find Mark McCloskey armed and yelling. Neither Post-Dispatch journalists nor videos captured any threats from the protesters. The police, unsurprisingly, just regurgitated what the wealthy white people said, despite evidence to the contrary. That isn’t justice.
Undoubtedly, the law here is complicated. But Anders Walker, a Ƶ University professor quoted in the article, got it dangerously wrong. Homeowners cannot “pull the trigger” to get someone “off their lawn.” The Castle Doctrine modifies Missouri’s self-defense statute, Section 563.031. In order for someone to use deadly force on their property, the trespasser must be threatening a person with unlawful force. Mere trespass never justifies the use of deadly force. Such a blatantly incorrect misstatement of the law will certainly not lead to justice.
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Without question, the state could make a case against at least Patricia McCloskey for unlawful use of a weapon. State law makes it illegal to knowingly exhibit or aim “any weapon readily capable of lethal use in an angry or threatening manner” at someone. Maybe she has a defense, but I’m tempted to say what prosecutors always tell me when my clients have a good defense: Let a jury decide.
Could the court system get justice? If the McCloskeys were poor and black, they would be charged. Part of me wants the McCloskeys to go through the indignity of being arrested, jailed and convicted of felonies, like so many of my clients experience on shakier evidence. But I guarantee that if they’re charged, the very worst consequence they’d face would be probation.
The same inequity that ensures that poor people can never escape the heavy hand of the criminal justice system ensures that wealthy people will never be touched by it. The McCloskeys have already hired a private attorney who proudly proclaims he “does not hold hands well and admits to being incapable of singing ‘Kumbaya.’” There’s no bond they can’t make. They’ll never see the inside of a cell. Even if they were charged — is that justice?
One outrage after another emerges from this incident. Our mayor inexplicably doxxes her critics. This prompts protests in her gated neighborhood (where, unsurprisingly, Patricia McCloskey generated controversy in the 1990s over reported efforts to stop unmarried or gay couples from moving to Portland Place). The McCloskeys grossly overreact, putting peoples’ lives at risk. The police blindly accept the rich, white McCloskeys’ victim narrative despite credible evidence that they’re lying.
All of the institutions involved — the politicians, police, the press, the courts — are supposed to be part of an accountability system in Ƶ. It’s not working. We need to ask what a justice system looks like that truly rehabilitates people. The answer starts with not allowing people to hide behind their privilege.
What if, in exchange for deferred prosecution, the McCloskeys were to perform 100 hours of community service, say, in a community center in Wells Goodfellow or Walnut Park? Mark McCloskey portrays himself and his wife as “urban pioneers” because they renovated a mansion in the city in the 1980s.
Maybe they should learn about the real urban pioneers — people of color who ride a bus to work every day to support their families, knowing others are ready to point a gun at them should they cross the wrong boundary; people in drug court and diversion programs, going through the work and pain to get past the violence and despair that surrounds them; and the protesters who are marching in the streets because systems of education, health care, policing, housing and justice in this city have failed a major portion of the population over and over again. Let the McCloskeys learn those truths and see if they still feel like urban pioneers in their mansion.
If that was what justice looked like in Ƶ, perhaps the McCloskeys would find themselves standing with the protesters as allies instead of trying to intimidate them. Maybe then we could say that justice in Ƶ finally worked.
Erika Wurst is the deputy district defender at the Ƶ city Public Defender’s Office.