Authorities in St. Louis, Missouri still haven’t charged Mark and Patricia McCloskey with a crime after the pair grabbed their guns and warned Black Lives Matters protesters not to set foot on their private property a couple of weeks ago, but on Friday evening officers with the St. Louis Police Department served a search warrant at the pair’s palatial home in a private, gated neighborhood, seizing the rifle carried by Mark McCloskey in the widely publicized incident.
Sources told 5 On Your Side that police seized one of the weapons, the rifle, from the couple and they told police their attorney has the pistol seen in photos.
5 On Your Side is not aware of any charges against the McCloskeys at this time, and the warrant served Friday evening was just for the guns.
Late Friday evening 5 On Your Side confirmed attorney Al Watkins was no longer representing the McCloskeys, and that attorney Joel Schwartz had taken over. Schwartz confirmed a search warrant was issued at 8 p.m. Friday night, but would not say what was taken from the home. Schwartz also said he does not know where the handgun is.
Meanwhile, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch is out with a “shocking” new story detailing the many lawsuits that the couple, who are both personal injury attorneys, have been involved in over the past few decades. Is anybody really surprised that a pair of attorneys are litigious by nature?
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.It was that patch of green protesters saw when they filed through the gate. Mark McCloskey said in an affidavit that he has defended the patch before by pointing a gun at a neighbor who had tried to cut through it.
There’s a lot more at the link, including details of family feuds between Mark McCloskey and his father, tenants, and the Portland Place Association, none of which have anything to do with what happened on the night of June 28th. Let’s be clear: Mark and Patricia McCloskey could very well be litigious jerks who file lawsuits at the drop of a hat rather than trying to work out any disagreements they have with family, friends, neighbors, or tenants. They could be awful boors who are no fun to be around and make far more enemies than friends. None of that makes any difference as far as their right to bear arms and their right to protect their property is concerned.
It’s pretty clear to me that the St. Louis Circuit Attorney is desperately searching for a charge that she thinks will stick, but it isn’t having much luck. If there was a slam-dunk case to be made that the McCloskeys had violated the law, they’d already be facing charges. Instead, the local prosecutor seems to be poking around for anything that she might be able to use against the McCloskeys while the local press engages in an effort to portray the McCloskeys as awful people who deserve whatever might be coming; a message amplified by the instantly outraged blue checks on Twitter.
Read this entire thing. The McCloskey’s are diamond level psychos. Suing his own dying father. Evicting a tenant during covid. Making children cry. Costing neighbors thousands in legal fees for NOTHING. Suing people for fun (their words!). It’s endless. https://t.co/SyH3qr5yHs
— Sara Schaefer (@saraschaefer1) July 11, 2020
The McCloskeys may very well be unlikeable people, but our constitutional rights don’t depend on how popular we are. Either the couple broke the law or they didn’t when they warned protesters away from their property. That’s all that really matters here, but the media seems intent on making the McCloskeys pay, even if no crime was committed.
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