Long before they were thrust into the national spotlight and inducted into the national douchebaggery hall of fame for brandishing guns on peaceful Black Lives Matter protesters last month, Mark and Patricia McCloskey had already made a name for themselves in their gated community. The couple constantly sued neighbors and had a long history of telling people to get off their property the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported.
The very litigious couple have been filing lawsuits against neighbors, various organizations and businesses since they moved into the neighborhood in 1988. In fact, they filed a lawsuit against the neighborhood before they even move there to obtain the home where they currently reside.
Excerpt from the Daily Beast:
“A lawyer in St. Louis has filed suit against a bank and a group of lawyers and real estate agents, accusing them of cheating him out of a chance to buy a unique mansion in the Central West End,” the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported in 1987. “Another party bought the mansion for less money than McCloskey had offered, the suit says.”
And they have been going ever since. They’ve filed lawsuits over small neighborhood issues like suing their neighbors for making changes to a gravel road. They also filed a lawsuit in the St. Louis Circuit court to force the trustees to enforce the neighborhood laws as written after the trustees allowed an unmarried gay couple to move into the neighborhood. One of the rules prohibited unmarried people from living together.
Making children cry
When a neighboring synagogue built a beehive just outside the McCloskeys’ northern wall in 2013, Mark McCloskey destroyed the beehives and left a note telling them he’s responsible and threatened legal actions if the mess was not cleaned up in a timely manner. According to the St Louis Post-Dispatch, the congregation planned to harvest the honey for Rosh Hashanah celebrations. Rabbi Susan Talve said the children were so heartbroken that they cried in school since the project was also a part of their curriculum.
The McCloskeys are so quick to settle trivial matters in court that Mark once filed two lawsuits at once (one against a dog breeder who sold him a German Shepherd without papers and against a local neighborhood organization for using a photo of their home in a brochure) because he wanted to “save on gas.”
The McCloskeys also say they are entitled to a 1,143-square-foot triangle of lawn in front of the property that is set aside as common ground in the neighborhood’s indenture, in an ongoing suit against Portland Place trustees in 2017. Mark McCloskey once defended this patch of land by pointing a gun at a neighbor who tried to cut through it, the St. Louis Post Dispatch reported. It is the same path of grass protesters saw when they entered the gated community.
Mark McCloskey was slapped with a $1,800 fine in a 2000 case for making frivolous filings. He paid the fine in dimes according to the Daily Beast.
UPDATE:
On Friday night, police executed a search warrant on the couple’s home and “seized as evidence from the residence was a Colt, semi-automatic, .223 caliber rifle,” according to a statement from the St Louis Metropolitan Police Department.
