The Daily Beast reports…
Before they were photographed brandishing guns during a Black Lives Matter protest, Mark and Patricia McCloskey had made a name for themselves in their St. Louis neighborhood, suing and writing angry letters to community groups, and even accusing a neighborhood association of trespassing for taking a picture of their house.
The McCloskeys, a pair of lawyers, won internet fame this week after they were filmed pointing guns at racial justice protesters outside their mansion in a gated community. The McCloskeys said the protesters were trespassing on their private street, and that they feared for their lives. But the couple has, for decades, been wrapped up in conflict in the area, sometimes in cases that foreshadowed their now-infamous confrontation with Black Lives Matter activists.
Portland Place is a gated street full of large and historic homes, like the one the McCloskeys currently occupy. But the McCloskeys filed their first lawsuit against the community before they even lived there.
“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.”
McCloskey asked the court to give him the mansion or pay him damages. He won the suit and the couple bought the mansion in 1988.
They became involved with the Portland Place homeowners association, but soon were embroiled in group politics. According to a Post-Dispatch report from 1992, Patricia spearheaded an effort to enforce an obscure state law banning unmarried couples from living together. Fellow members of the homeowners association accused her of using the provision as an excuse to stop gay couples from moving in, which Patricia denied.
“This is insanity,” she told the paper. “It isn’t about gay-bashing. I want to enforce certain restrictions.” She cited a nearby doctor, whom she accused of running a business out of his home. (The McCloskeys had previously opened their home to a photoshoot of designer clothes, like a $300 paisley silk Neiman-Marcus robe, which ran in the Post-Dispatch.)
The doctor said her complaint was bogus. “I have not officially seen a patient since 1984,” he told the Post-Dispatch, adding critically that the McCloskeys “are trying to preserve the exclusivity of the neighborhood.”
Patricia was ousted from the homeowners association the following year over disagreements about the neighborhood rules.
