McCloskey gun inoperable when turned in.
I have covered this story before here, but to recap, Mark and Patricia McCloskey defended their home against a mob of BLM supporters that had broken down a gate and charged their home. St. Louis Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner, who has a backlog of 134 murder cases, decided to press charges against the couple. The McCloskeys have been charged with a felony and misdemeanor charge of unlawful use of a weapon each.
Now to today’s update on this mess.
It turns out that the pistol wielded by Patricia was inoperable at the time she turned it in. Why is that an issue? KDSK explains:
In Missouri, police and prosecutors must prove that a weapon is “readily” capable of lethal use when it used in the type of crime with which the McCloskeys have been charged. At the request of Assistant Circuit Attorney Chris Hinckley, crime lab staff members field stripped the handgun and found it had been assembled incorrectly. Specifically, the firing pin spring was put in front of the firing pin, which was backward, and made the gun incapable of firing, according to the documents. Firearms experts then put the gun back together, per Hinckley’s request, in the correct order and test-fired it, finding that it worked, according to the documents. Crime lab workers photographed the disassembly and reassembly of the gun, according to the documents.
The crime lab was ordered to make the gun operable. Hinckley swore in the complaint filed that it was “readily capable of lethal use” when it was used in the incident. Seems like a pretty clear cut case of prosecutorial misconduct from where I’m sitting.
See also: Oh No she dident. . .
According to the McCloskey’s attorney, Joel Schwartz, the gun was inoperable during the incident in question with the protesters and couldn’t have hurt anyone. The McCloskeys, who are both attorneys, had used the gun as a prop during a trial. Schwartz went on, “disheartening to learn that a law enforcement agency altered evidence in order to prosecute an innocent member of the community.”