California man accuses ‘bully’ neighbors of Trump sign theft, seeks restraining order
.jpg "AP FILE -- President Donald Trump, left, and President-elect Joe Biden. A Rocklin, California, man filed for restraining orders against neighbors days after the election, alleging they stole a Trump sign and harassed him, including by shouting “Biden” chants at his house Saturday, the day media organizations called the race.")
Days after a contentious presidential election, a Northern California man filed for restraining orders against neighbors whom he alleges stole a Trump sign from his front lawn, chanted outside his house, wrote chalk messages intended to mock him and otherwise harassed him and his family in a politically charged quarrel.
In civil petitions filed to the Placer Superior Court on Monday, Rocklin resident Michael Mason accused neighbors living on or near his street of various behavior he says constitutes harassment, with alleged exchanges spanning the past few months and intensifying during election week.
The court denied granting the temporary restraining order, pending a hearing that has been scheduled for late November.
Mason wrote in court documents that two neighbors in particular, named as the primary respondents in the filings, either harassed or “sent their children” to his house to harass him, his wife and their two children, ages 13 and 9.
Mason, 40, moved to Rocklin’s Whitney Ranch neighborhood in July from a different part of the city, where he has lived for 10 years, he told The Sacramento Bee in a phone interview Wednesday.
Since then, he claims a pattern of harassment and targeted bullying has “snowballed” after neighbors allegedly started calling his family racist on the basis of Mason being a Trump supporter soon after he moved in.
The conflict heated up to the point of police involvement Saturday, the day the Associated Press and other major media called Joe Biden the winner and president-elect over incumbent President Donald Trump. Mason alleges that his neighbors began “screaming and yelling up and down the street” and targeting their chants toward his house.
“They were chanting ‘Aw Biden, aw poor baby.’ Just dumb stuff, which I don’t care,” but he said it disturbed his wife and daughter.
That night, Mason wrote in his court petition, he drove to one of the neighbor’s houses to confront the adults about what he says amounts to their children bullying his family. Mason alleges that at this point, three of his neighbors got into his face “like they wanted to fight” him, his court petition reads.
Mason says he walked away and called the police, but that “8 to 10 men” started following him home from the neighbor’s house. An officer arrived and the dispute dissolved without any violence or arrests, Mason wrote.
“It’s a constant harassment thing with the kids,” Mason told The Bee, and he says the adults he’s petitioning against “are teaching their kids to bully.”
Mason wrote in the court filing of another incident from last week, alleging that the daughter of one of the petitioned neighbors stole his Trump sign from his front yard last Thursday evening. He alleges that the adult neighbor “was on the phone with her daughter telling her to take the sign and videotape taking it.”
Mason told The Bee he has video that he claims shows one of the girls hiding behind his SUV and waiting for the “refresh” period on his motion-activated Ring doorbell camera in order to steal a Trump campaign sign planted in his lawn. Mason said that in one scan the sign was there and in the next it was gone, though the alleged theft itself wasn’t caught by the camera.
“They know how my Ring cameras are set up,” Mason told The Bee.
There has been drama since his family moved into the neighborhood around July 4, but Mason said Saturday’s alleged incident was the first instance of theft.
The earliest encounter mentioned in the court documents and which Mason claims is harassment was a late July incident in which he says a group of neighbors “sent their kids down to my house with chalk, and (they) wrote Black Lives Matter, Gay pride, wear a mask, LGBQT” on the street in front of his house.
Mason said he told his neighbors that he doesn’t personally have a problem with gay people, but that he’s “not raising (his) kids that way” because his family is Christian.
Mason suggested the chalk messages were targeted harassment for his beliefs.
“I walked to their house and asked them to write this in front of their house not mine. They laughed at me and said ‘sorry for your beliefs,’” Mason wrote in his restraining order filing. “We called and made a police report for this.”
Police couldn’t do anything about it; the chalk was in the street and not on Mason’s property, he said.
So now, an exasperated Mason has taken his grievance to court.
Mason says he’s had enough of the neighborhood, which he described as “super cliquey,” and intends to move out regardless of how the restraining order court case ends up going, though he hopes for a ruling that’ll provide some relief until then.
He told The Bee he and his family are trying to get out of their lease early so they can move. He also mentioned that the same neighbors he’s accusing of harassment have verbally taunted him for being a renter rather than a homeowner.
The spat in Rocklin was first reported Tuesday by CBS 13. Video posted by CBS 13, which the local TV news outlet says Mason provided, shows children chanting about Biden on Saturday night in front of his home. It also includes photos of the chalk messages, reading “Black Lives Matter” and “We support LGBTQ.” The video did not include the stolen Trump sign incident.
Mason told The Bee that since the CBS 13 story was posted, he has been contacted by national news media including Fox News and the New York Post seeking interviews.
“I didn’t want to do a restraining order. Nobody wants to do that, or to put these people in the limelight. I’ve asked them multiple times (to stop) and they won’t listen,” he said.
The Bee is not identifying the respondents named in the restraining order petition unless they respond and agree to comment. Neither neighbor had responded as of Wednesday afternoon, and CBS 13 reported that both declined the station’s requests for comment.
The restraining order filing includes several other allegations by Mason not levied directly at the petition respondents or their children.
Mason wrote that in September, a car driven by a neighbor, described as a “kid” from a house near one of the named respondents, swerved and tried to hit Mason’s son while he was biking.
And he wrote that on Halloween, his truck was vandalized, scratched “at least 10 times” by “someone.” He told The Bee that he thinks the neighbor kids let the air out of his brother-in-law’s tires that night.
Mason’s restraining order seeks to keep the two specified neighbors 50 or 100 yards away from him, his family, his residence and his vehicles.
The request was declined Wednesday morning, without further comment from the court, but the civil matter is currently scheduled for a hearing on Nov. 23.
This story was originally published November 11, 2020 at 3:40 PM.
