A police officer slammed his patrol car into a popular gay bar in St. Louis, Missouri early Monday morning — eventually leading to the arrest of one of its co-owners after he confronted the cops about the crash.
Chad Morris, 37, stands accused of shoving an officer following the crash at Bar: PM, which he co-owns with his husband, James Pence.
Morris was taken into custody and charged with felony assault, but prosecutors later reduced the charge to misdemeanor assault and resisting arrest.
He was released from prison on his own recognizance Tuesday, after which his defense attorney Javad Khazaeli posted on X to dispute the allegations against his client.
Khazaeli, known for taking on police misconduct cases, even released footage of the crash.
“You all heard about the cop car that slammed into Bar: PM Sunday night. And they arrested the owner for having the audacity to question him,” Khazaeli posted on X. “Well here’s the video.”
An accompanying 15-second clip showed a patrol car speeding down a dimly-lit road without its sirens on and nearing a vehicle parked on the shoulder.
In an apparent attempt to avoid hitting the vehicle — which it does not seem the patrol car was in danger of — the officer quickly swerves left and crashes into the establishment.
Morris and Pence live in an apartment above the bar, and Pence said he was in bed Sunday night when he heard a “loud boom” at around 12:30 a.m., he recounted to KSDK.
“I jumped up thinking it was an accident with a vehicle, and then I saw it, and it was a St. Louis city police department vehicle in front of our building.”
The St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department claims an officer was driving too close to a parked car and overcorrected before losing control of the vehicle, according to an incident report obtained by NBC News.
What happened next is unclear, with both the St. Louis Police Department and the bar owners offering different accounts.
Police say an “offender” came outside and “began shouting obscenities,” the incident report says.
Then, when other officers arrived at the scene and “attempted to calm the situation,” the unidentified “offender” shoved one of the officers.
Officer John Pierce also allegedly wrote Morris “struck me hard in the chest with an open hand, causing me to temporarily lose my balance,” the Riverfront Times reports.
He went on to claim that Morris tried to flee after he was under arrest “going through a gate and attempting to strike me with the gate.”
But Khazaeli and Pence have have disputed that version of events, with their attorney claiming to have bystander video from the scene showing Pence approaching the crash site and an officer asking him if he’s the owner.
When Pence replied that he is, the officer asked to see his ID, Khazaeli claimed, and when he questioned the orders, the cop put him in handcuffs.
“I was told I had to ID or shut up,” Pence told KSDK.
The video — which Khazaeli said he is not releasing publicly because he plans to use it in Morris’ defense, but showed to some local outlets — also reportedly captures a person filming the situation and asking the cop what crime had been committed.
An unidentified officer simply responds, “a disturbance,” according to the Riverfront Times, which said it had watched parts of the clip.
The officer then walks toward the bystander who was filming the incident and reportedly says, “He’s not going to yell at me, that’s causing a disturbance.”
Khazaeli also claimed one of the police officers told Pence, “You’re under arrest because you yelled at me” and referred to Pence’s questioning of his orders as a “public disturbance.”
Soon, Khazaeli claims, Morris arrived on the scene and asked why his husband was in handcuffs.
Upset with the situation, Morris allegedly began to use obscenities while officers stand accused of calling him and bystanders “clowns.”
Morris tried to leave down an alley, but was chased by cops and was beaten in an alley off-camera, according to Khazaeli.
When Morris appeared back in the bystander footage he was in handcuffs and had several bruises and a black eye, according to St. Louis Today.
“The police were clearly the aggressors here,” Khazaeli claimed at a news conference on Tuesday.
“They lost control of the vehicle. And immediately, the video shows the police officers being aggressive with everybody in the area to cover up what they did,” he claimed, saying at no point in the bystander’s video could Morris be seen pushing Officer Pierce.
He said the cops placed Pence in handcuffs for “having the audacity to ask why they crashed into his building.”
“They unlawfully handcuffed Mr. Pence,” Khazaeli continued. “They falsely claim that speaking loudly is against the law. And they use that as a predicate to arrest Mr. Morris.”
He further told NBC News: “Our goal is to have all of these charges dismissed because there’s no basis for them, and then to decide what kind of claims my clients have against these officers and to hold the officers accountable, because this just can’t stand.
It is unclear if any of the officers involved in the incident faced any discipline. The Post has reached out to the St. Louis Police Department for comment.
Meanwhile, St. Louis Mayor Tishaura Jones confirmed the incident is being investigated.
“Bar: PM has provided members of the LGBTQIA+ community with a gathering place and refuge from a society that continues to marginalize their very existence, and incidents like these can break an already fragile trust with law enforcement,” she said in a statement.
“This incident is currently under investigation and the officers will be held accountable for any and all misconduct committed while on duty.”