St. Louis lawyer Mark McCloskey decried a grand jury's decision to indict him and his wife after the city declined to prosecute members of a Black Lives Matter crowd accused of trespassing on the couple's property.
On Tuesday, McCloskey and his wife were indicted on charges of exhibiting guns and tampering with evidence in connection to a June protest in which the couple confronted Black Lives Matter protesters on their property.
"What you're witnessing here, in this case, is just an opportunity for the government—the leftist, Democrat government—of the city of St. Louis to persecute us for doing no more than exercising our Second Amendment rights," McCloskey said in a press conference after the indictment.
St. Louis cited nine of the protesters for trespassing in September before dropping the charges. McCloskey accused the city of employing different standards for the couple and the crowd.
"Every single human being who was in front of my house was a criminal trespasser," McCloskey said. "They broke down our gate. They trespassed on our property. Not a single one of those people is now charged with anything."
City Counselor Michael Garvin did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Joel Schwartz, who represents the McCloskeys, did not immediately return a request for comment. He previously told the Washington Free Beacon he believed the prosecution was "playing with a political football" and claimed his clients committed no crime under Missouri law.
McCloskey said he and his wife could now face serious consequences for the altercation while those on the other side will not be charged.
"We’re charged with felonies that could cost us four years of our lives and our law license," he said.
Videos of the June encounter—which included shouted threats by some protesters and ultimately ended without violence—went viral. It has since attracted national political attention. President Donald Trump's reelection campaign hosted the McCloskeys at a virtual campaign event in July.