Pensacola, fl
US President Donald Trump has republished a video of a white couple in St. Louis, Missouri, who have aimed weapons at protesters calling for police reform, according to the British newspaper, The Guardian.
The president’s move came a day after he reprinted a tweet of clips of protesters clashing in Florida where one of Trump’s supporters could be heard saying: “White Power! Power the eggs! ”
This tweet was deleted from the president’s account a few hours later, and a White House spokesman said Trump had not heard the inflammatory words before he reposted them.
The protesters in St. Louis were marching to the mayor’s home, Lida Croison, to demand her resignation.
In a direct Facebook briefing on Friday, Croison read the names and addresses of several residents who wrote letters calling for them to stop support for the police department, as part of the protests stemming from the killing of a black man named George Floyd in Minneapolis by the police.
The video was removed from Facebook and Croison apologized, saying it “does not intend to cause trouble.” A group of at least 500 people went to her house, chanting, “Hang Lida, take the police with you.
A video clip on social media showed the armed white couple standing outside their house in the central West End screaming in the face of the protesters. The man was holding an assault rifle, while the woman was carrying a pistol. People at the rally pushed the crowd forward, and urged participants to ignore them.
The BuzzFeed News website reported that a police report described in detail the couple’s claim that they were threatened with harm to them and “noticed several armed people.
The couple’s identity was not immediately identified, but multiple news reports identified the couple as attorneys Mark and Patricia McCluskey, the owners of the large “Midwestern Palace” home seen in video clips.
Mark McCluskey said that a crowd rushed home while the family was having dinner, which “put us in fear for our lives.”
He continued, “All this is private property … There are no public sidewalks or streets. We are told that we will be killed, our house will be burned and our dog killed. We were all alone facing an angry crowd.
The St. Louis Police Department said it was investigating the incident, and it now considers Mark and Patricia McCluskey, the white couple who carried weapons, to be victims.
A spokesman for the St. Louis Police Department said that “any changes regarding whether the victims will be charged will be determined by the Prosecutor’s Office.
The spokesman said that the police are investigating the incident as “an attack on the property of others” and “intimidation” against the McCluskey family.
