A white St. Louis lawyer who quickly rose to internet fame this week after he pulled an AR-15 on Black Lives Matter protesters marching near his house told Fox News’ Tucker Carlson on Tuesday night he couldn’t possibly be racist because his Black clients love him.
Earlier this week, images and video of McCloskey and his wife brandishing weapons at demonstrators from the porch of their mansion went viral. McCloskey has since told several local outlets that he pointed his firearm at the protesters—who were marching to the St. Louis mayor’s house—because he was worried they’d immediately set fire to his house, murder them, and “kill his dog.”
Appearing on Tucker Carlson Tonight alongside his lawyer Albert Watkins—whose bio is jaw-dropping—McCloskey was asked by Carlson to tell his “own story rather than have it told for you by ideologues.”
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According to the personal injury attorney, he saw a “flood of people” smash through the iron gate of their private street, claiming they were “angry and screaming—they have spittle coming out of their mouth” and were advancing on his house.
Noting that he immediately thought of the violent St. Louis protest on June 2 that resulted in the murder of a retired St. Louis police captain, McCloskey reiterated that he felt they would be “overrun in a second” by the “mob” and decided to get his gun at that point.
“I have a low wall that separates the house from my front yard,” he added. “And so I was literally afraid that within seconds they would surmount the wall and come into the house, kill us, burn the house down and everything that I had worked for and struggled for for the last 32 years.”
After McCloskey called himself an “urban pioneer” for moving into the city years ago, Carlson asked the homeowner what he thought about those criticizing him for being a racist.
“I don’t understand. Here’s the interesting thing, I spent my career defending people that are defenseless, for people having a hard time making their miracle happen, for people who don’t have a voice,” he declared. “My Black clients love us! And the night that this happened, I had some of our Black clients calling us up at 2:30 a.m. telling us how wrong this was the way the press was writing this up.”
“I help people that are down or that need a hand and people that need a voice,” McCloskey continued. “To call us racist is ridiculous and it had nothing to do with race. I wasn’t worried what the race was for the mob that came through my gate, I was worried that I was going to be killed. I didn’t care what race they were.”
Carlson concluded the interview by asking Watkins whether he was worried that his client would be prosecuted by St. Louis Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner, who has launched a probe into the couple.
“Given the fact that we have a political animal in the attorney’s office, there is a risk,” Watkins stated. “If the law prevails, long-standing Missouri law prevails, they are fine.”
