Police Seize AR-15 Rifle At Home Of St. Louis Couple
July 11, 2020

Portland Place couple who confronted protesters have a long history of not backing down

Jeremy Kohler 5 hrs ago

ST. LOUIS — When Black Lives Matter protesters marched up Kingshighway on June 28 and turned through an iron gate into the magnificent private street of Portland Place, they encountered a couple who have for years, nearly constantly, sued other people and ordered people off their property.

Personal-injury attorneys Mark and Patricia McCloskey became instant national figures when they intercepted protesters marching past their marble-faced palazzo at One Portland Place, aimed guns at them and demanded they get out.

Americans saw the story they wanted to see. Some saw respected professionals fearing for their safety, reasonably exercising their Second Amendment rights to defend their home from violent trespassers. Others saw an overwrought, older affluent couple, recklessly pointing their weapons and asserting their white privilege.

But public records and interviews reveal a fuller picture than emerged two weeks ago. They show the McCloskeys are almost always in conflict with others, typically over control of private property, what people can do on that property, and whose job it is to make sure they do it.

They filed a lawsuit in 1988 to obtain their house, a castle built for Adolphus Busch’s daughter and her husband during St. Louis’ brief run as a world-class city in the early 20th century. At the McCloskeys’ property in Franklin County, they have sued neighbors for making changes to a gravel road and twice in just over two years evicted tenants from a modular home on their property.

Mark McCloskey sued a former employer for wrongful termination and his sister, father and his father’s caretaker for defamation.

The McCloskeys have filed at least two “quiet title” suits asserting squatter’s rights on land they’ve occupied openly and hostilely — their terms — and claimed as their own. In an ongoing suit against Portland Place trustees in 2017, the McCloskeys say they are entitled to a 1,143-square-foot triangle of lawn in front of property that is set aside as common ground in the neighborhood’s indenture.

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Jeremy Kohler
Jeremy Kohler is an investigative reporter for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

https://twitter.com/jeremykohler