'Indifference to public safety': Gun-waving St. Louis pair face possible suspension of law licenses

Mark and Patricia McCloskey, the St. Louis couple who infamously waved guns at Black Lives Matter protesters in their gated subdivision last June, could soon have their law licenses suspended as a result of the incident.

The McCloskeys pleaded guilty to misdemeanors but were later pardoned by GOP Gov. Michael Parson, and an unrepentant Mark McCloskey is now running for U.S. Senate as a Republican.

However, in a petition asking the state Supreme Court to suspend the couple's law licenses, Missouri's chief disciplinary counsel, Alan D. Pratzel, argued that while a pardon erases a person's conviction, "the person's guilt remains," according to a report from NPR.

"Pratzel said both crimes showed 'indifference to public safety' and involved 'moral turpitude,' warranting discipline of the pair," NPR reported. "Pratzel cited a host of other Missouri cases in which lawyers were disciplined for crimes involving moral turpitude. He recommended that the Supreme Court indefinitely suspend the McCloskeys' licenses with no leave to reapply for reinstatement for six months. ... The couple practice together as the McCloskey Law Center and focus on personal injury, medical malpractice and defective products cases."

Pratzel's motion also notes that even after his guilty plea, Mark McCloskey defended the couple's actions. "The prosecutor dropped every charge except for alleging that I purposely placed other people in imminent risk of physical injury; right, and I sure as heck did," Mark McCloskey has said. "That's what the guns were there for and I'd do it again any time the mob approaches me, I'll do what I can to place them in imminent threat of physical injury because that's what kept them from destroying my house and my family."

In related news, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported last week that Patricia McCloskey is suing the state to recover the $2,122.50 in fines and court costs she paid after pleading guilty, arguing that Parson's pardon absolved her of "of all wrongdoing."

She is represented in the lawsuit by her husband.