In Missouri,
police and prosecutors must prove that a weapon is “readily” capable of lethal use when it is used in the type of crime with which the McCloskeys have been charged.
[B]A
ssistant Circuit Attorney Chris Hinckley ordered crime lab staff members to field strip 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 documents obtained by 5 On Your Side.
Firearms
experts then put the gun back together in the correct order and test-fired it, finding that it worked, according to the documents
Patricia McCloskey and her husband, Mark McCloskey, have said the
handgun Patricia McCloskey waved at protesters was
inoperable because they had used it as a prop during a lawsuit they once filed against a gun manufacturer. In order to bring it into a courtroom, they made it inoperable.
Their attorney, Joel Schwartz, confirmed to 5 On Your Side that the
McCloskeys intentionally misplaced the firing pin on the gun and that it
was in that condition when Patricia McCloskey waved it at protesters and turned it into their former attorney Al Watkins.
“It’s disheartening to learn that a law enforcement agency altered evidence in order to prosecute an innocent member of the community,” Schwartz said.
A spokeswoman for Gardner wrote: "We can't comment on a pending case."
There is no reference to the operating condition of the gun in the probable cause statement police wrote on the case. The only reference to it is contained in the charging document with Hinckley’s name on it....
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