Most Constitutionally minded Americans have viewed the case of the McCloskey couple for what it really is.
A politically driven persecution of Law Abiding Citizens and an affront on the 2nd Amendment.
Now it is being reported that the handgun that was seized by local authorities may have been tampered with by the Prosecutor.
FromKMOV4 in St. Louis:
The handgun held by Patricia McCloskey at her home in the Central West End was not capable of firing when seized by police, according to a document obtained by News 4.
It’s a new development in the case against the local couple seen pointing guns outside their Central West End home last month. And it’s one that legal experts say raises very serious questions about whether the entire case can proceed.
The document was sent to News 4 anonymously, but it appears to be the lab report from the firearms analysis in the case.
According to the lab, it fired when tested.
But the gun Patricia McCloskey had, a small handgun, examiners say, could not be test-fired as submitted.
At the request of prosecutor Chris Hinkley, the report says, the firearm was stripped and found to have been assembled incorrectly. It was then re-assembled properly, test fired and functioned as designed. Charging documents said the gun was capable of lethal use.
“It would be disheartening to learn, if accurate, that the authorities tampered with evidence in order to bring charges against an innocent member of the community,” the McCloskey’s attorney Joel Schwartz said. He declined to comment further. A previous attorney for the McCloskey’s had indicated the gun had been rendered inoperable long before the incident because it had been used as an exhibit in previous lawsuits. That attorney, Al Watkins, had the gun in his possession for a short time, but turned it over to police.”
And fromThe Federalist:
The gun Patricia McCloskey waved at a mob surrounding her home last month was inoperable at the time, but the St. Louis prosecutor’s office ordered the city’s crime lab to re-assemble it into working order after confiscating the firearm, according to a local Missouri TV station reporting Wednesday.
Missouri law requires the government to prove firearms be “readily” capable of fatal harm in order to score a conviction based on the charges filed against McCloskey and her husband this week for their attempt to use legal weapons to deter rioters from their home. Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner charged Patricia and her husband Mark McCloskey each with unlawful use of a weapon, a felony that can carry up to four years in prison, for defending their $1.15 million home.
According to 5 On Your Side, Assistant Circuit Attorney Chris Hinckley directed crime lab staff to take apart Patricia’s firearm. They then discovered it was put together incorrectly, making it incapable of operation. In other words, Patricia might as well have been waving around a Super Soaker. Gun experts at the lab, according to the local NBC affiliate based on charging documents in the case, reconstructed the weapon correctly and successfully test-fired it.
Attorney Joel Schwartz, who is representing the McCloskeys, who are personal injury lawyers, told 5 On Your Side the McCloskeys purposefully misplaced the weapon’s firing pin to make it incapable of shooting.
“It’s disheartening to learn that a law enforcement agency altered evidence in order to prosecute an innocent member of the community,” Schwartz told the local news."
While leftist radical politicians accuse President Trump of bringing about a Banana-Republic in places like Portland, actual crimes against American citizens are being perpetrated in St. Louis.
If the gun was indeed tampered with and the case moves forward, it should be the clarion call for all Americans that due process is dead anywhere a leftwing idealogue is allowed to practice law.
Kim Gardner and her prosecutors should be the ones put on trial.
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