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FIRST ON FOX: U.S. Senate candidate Mark McCloskey, who defended his St. Louis home with an AR-15 during a BLM protest, says “we can not be intimidated” after an alleged burglar infiltrated his campaign event in New York City.
On Thursday, April 21, a man dressed in a maintenance uniform stole a pile of cash and checks from the lobby of the Metropolitan Republican Club while Manhattan politicians rubbed their elbows during a speech McCloskey gave in another room.
Patricia and Mark McCloskey draw their firearms at protesters as they enter their neighborhood during a protest against St. St. Louis Mayor Lyda Krewson of St. Louis Louis, Missouri, USA June 28, 2020. Photo taken June 28, 2020. REUTERS / Lawrence Bryant | The man, members of the Metropolitan Republican Club, claims they were trying to break into their headquarters.
(REUTERS / Lawrence Bryant | Ian Walsh Reilly)
The club’s president, Ian Walsh Reilly, called police and reported the alleged theft before he and two other club members ran after the man and managed to hold him on a street corner in the exclusive Upper Easter Side neighborhood until police arrived moments later and arrested him. .
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While McCloskey at the time was unaware that a possible crime was unfolding a few steps away from the place where he addressed a captive audience of about 150 political influencers, he learned about it later and blamed the democratic leadership for leading a “war against the police” and create a “lawless environment” to intimidate the public into giving their personal autonomy to officials.
Police on the scene after the arrest of a man accused of attempting to break into the Metropolitan Republican Club.
(Ian Walsh Reilly)
“The left likes to have lawlessness in cities because scared people are willing to give up their rights,” McCloskey said.
However, the personal injury lawyer will not be deterred from holding similar events in the future.
“If the goal of the left is to scare people into staying home and not going out or living their daily lives, that’s all the more reason for us to do so,” McCloskey told Fox News Digital. “Because we can not be intimidated. We must constantly stand up for our rights.”
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McCloskey and his wife Patricia garnered national media attention in the summer of 2020, when videos emerged of the couple standing outside their home in St. Louis. Louis, Missouri, with an AR-15 and a handgun, respectively, while Black Lives Matter protesters marched through their suburban neighborhood.
McCloskey says the rot in the Big Apple is no worse than problems he faces at home.
“[The murder rate in St. Louis] is 20 times the number of murders in New York City, “McCloskey claimed, insisting the stunning statistics are at the heart of his bid for the U.S. Senate.
McCloskey owes much of his beloved city’s crime problems to prosecutors “failing to prosecute much of the law.”
McCoskey also criticized St. Louis Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner for placing select police officers on an “exclusion list.”
“There is a group of police officers whose arrests she does not want to prosecute because she believes they have said racist things on Facebook in the past,” McCloskey said.
The candidate for the federal office sees a way to make cities across the country safer if elected in November.
“Obviously, the big cities are running on federal dollars, and so there are ways you can control their behavior either directly or indirectly,” McCloskey said.
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McCloskey faces a crowded Republican primary on Aug. 2, with his opponents including several federal and state officials, as well as former Missouri Gov. Eric Greitens, who withdrew in 2018 amid a scandal over sexual abuse and allegations of abuse of a donor list for charity.
About 10 people claiming affiliation with Black Lives Matter demonstrated outside the Metropolitan Republican Club on Thursday night in protest of McCloskey’s performance at the club, but neither he nor Reilly believe the alleged burglary is in any way connected to these activists.