This article is more than 1 month old

Police crash SUV into St Louis gay bar and arrest owner for assault

This article is more than 1 month old

Driver reportedly said he was trying to avoid hitting a dog at first, then trying to avoid a parked car, before crashing into bar

An LGBTQ+ bar owner in Missouri who was jailed after police accidentally crashed a cruiser into his establishment is facing charges filed against him by prosecutors – albeit ones that were quickly reduced amid a public outcry over the case’s circumstances.

“Nobody should have to go through this – going from being a victim to going to have to defend yourself, your family and your business,” James Pence, whose husband, Chad Morris, was arrested and charged, told reporters at a news conference on Tuesday in their home town of St Louis. “That’s not what the police are here to do.”

Morris, 37, was closing up Bar:PM, his and Pence’s drinking establishment, with one of their employees early on Monday when a police sport-utility vehicle plowed into the front of the business.

Two St Louis metro police department officers in the middle of completing their rookie probationary period were in the cruiser at the time of the wreck. In a subsequent report cited by local news station KTVI, the cruiser’s driver claimed he feared “he was traveling too close to a parked car” and overcorrected, leading to an accident.

The station reported a nearby resident describing a conversation with the driver in which the officer said he hit the bar after swerving to avoid running over a dog in the roadway. Pence – who lives above Bar:PM with Morris – said that officer told him the same thing and apologized.

However, in an interview with the local weekly Riverfront Times, Pence said the tone of the encounter changed when he wouldn’t show an officer his identification, leading him to be temporarily handcuffed.

Police then accused Morris of confronting an officer who arrived shortly after the crash, hurling obscenities at him and shoving him in the chest. Police allege that they told Morris he was under arrest, prompting him to run through a gate and push a trash can back as officers ultimately arrested him.

An attorney for Morris, Javad Khazaeli, vehemently denied the police’s version of events, saying it was officers who did the attacking.

Khazaeli challenged them to release all video of the confrontation that was captured by the officers’ body-worn cameras. The St Louis Post-Dispatch Khazaeli lso showed reporters parts of a bystander video that did not capture any confrontation like the one described by police.

“The police were clearly the aggressors here,” Khazaeli said at Tuesday’s news conference, before releasing surveillance camera footage showing the crash. “When he was arrested by police, they had beaten him and ripped his shirt off.”

Khazaeli told NBC News: “You can’t have police officers terrorizing people because they’re victims of a crime – and when they asked what happened, to be treated this way.”

Police did not immediately address the wreck in public, including discussing whether the officers were tested for the presence of drugs or alcohol in their blood and what the agency’s policy is for investigating car wrecks involving its own members.

Khazaeli later said on X, formerly Twitter, that police confirmed the officer driving the crashed cruiser was not given an alcohol test colloquially known as the Breathalyzer because his colleagues determined he was not impaired.

The attorney then posted a video showing the cruiser running a red light shortly before he crashed into Bar:PM.

“Oh boy,” Khazaeli said.

A spokesperson for St Louis mayor Tishaura Jones only expressed confidence in the department’s “ability to investigate and hold … officers accountable when there is wrongdoing found”.

Khazaeli, meanwhile, called for an outside agency to investigate the case that ensnared Morris.

As news about Morris’s arrest spread, locals have met it with an outpouring of support. Patrons packed Bar:PM on Tuesday night to show support for Morris, the St Louis Post-Dispatch reported. Among them was the alderwoman who represents the municipal ward which includes the bar.

Initially, Morris was charged with third-degree assault on a special victim, which is a felony. Prosecutors amended the charges against Morris on Tuesday to fourth-degree assault and resisting arrest, each of which are misdemeanors.

He spent Monday in jail but was released on Tuesday – Pence’s birthday – without having to pay a bond.

“I’m happy for the support and to be out on my husband’s birthday,” Morris said to reporters shortly after his release. “So I just want to go home.”

Though the case against Morris remained unresolved, his arrest occurred about eight years after a report by the UCLA law school’s Williams Institute identified law enforcement discrimination and harassment as a historically “ongoing and pervasive problem” for LGBTQ+ people that made it difficult for officers to effectively police in their communities.