Police crash car through window of gay bar, then arrest the owner
A police vehicle crashed into a gay bar in St. Louis (Javad Khazaeli on Twitter)
An owner of a gay bar is facing criminal charges after he allegedly confronted a police officer whose vehicle crashed through the front window of the business.
The police car smashed into the front of Bar:PM, in the Carondelet neighbourhood of south St. Louis, Missouri, in the early hours of Monday morning (18 December).
The 2020 Chevrolet Tahoe was being driven by a probationary officer who reportedly lost control of it as he tried to avoid a parked car. However, there has been conflicting testimony about what caused him to overcorrect and crash, with local press also reporting that officers said the incident was down to the driver avoiding hitting a dog in the road.
No one was injured in the incident.
After the car smashed into the front of the venue, Bar:PM’s co-owner James Pence, who had been in bed upstairs at the time of the crash, was handcuffed after he refused to hand over ID to one of the policemen.
Chad Morris, 37, also known as Chad Wick – the bar’s other owner and Pence’s husband – was arrested for allegedly assaulting an officer. He allegedly yelled obscenities, struck an officer in the chest and fled.
Morris’ attorney, Javad Khazaeli, claimed that video footage taken by bystanders does not match up with the police narrative and does not show his client assaulting an officer, further arguing the arrest was unwarranted.
Khazaeli said in a post on X, formerly Twitter, that prosecutors had agreed to reduce the felony assault charge to a misdemeanour.
Speaking to the Riverfront Times, Pence said the police need to “own it, tell me what happened and fix the building”.
According to the bar’s Google page, it is temporarily closed following the incident, with the owners writing on Facebook that they “can’t say thank you enough for all the love and support” they have received.
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