The police officer who smashed his vehicle into a St. Louis bar and arrested its co-owner on Sunday morning ran a red light moments before the crash, according to footage shared by an attorney for the bar’s owners.
Javad Khazaeli posted surveillance video from an intersection located just “a 15 second walk from the bar” that appeared to show a white SUV streaking down the road, he wrote on X. The angle of the camera does not show the color of the traffic lights in the intersection, but the timestamp on the video is seconds before the impact, which was captured in a second video shared by Khazaeli earlier this week.
Chad Morris, Khazaeli’s client, was arrested and charged with assault of an officer and resisting arrest connected to a confrontation following the crash. The felony charge of assault was subsequently reduced by prosecutors to a misdemeanor. He was jailed for more than 24 hours before being released, Khazaeli told The Washington Post.
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A spokesperson for the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department said Wednesday that the two officers in the patrol car—both of whom had less than a year’s experience on the job—remained on active duty, according to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Lt. Col. Renee Kriesmann added that the officer behind the wheel had been distracted by his police radio before realizing he was driving too close to a parked car and overcorrected, slamming into the front wall of Bar:PM.
Kriesmann explained that the cruiser was an older model not equipped with a dashboard camera, but that the episode was “being thoroughly investigated.” She also said that neither officer in the vehicle had been tested for drugs or alcohol after the incident because other investigating officers did not suspect impairment had been a factor.
“We didn’t do a toxicology report,” she said, according to local station First Alert 4. “There’s no indication that there was any reason to do it. It didn’t fit within the administrative rug, which includes critical incidents.”
“If I crashed into a building, while speeding, after midnight, after running a stop light, there is no way that I could have a co-worker decide that I should not get a breathalyzer,” Khazaeli tweeted. (A vehicle inspection indicated the cruiser was traveling below 40 miles per hour before the crash, and hit Bar:PM at just over 20 miles per hour, KTVI reported.)
“If this was an hour earlier, bar patrons could have been killed. It is unacceptable to pretend like this was just a harmless accident.”
The department also has no plans to release body camera video of the confrontation with Morris, Kriesmann said, given the ongoing investigation. Among those calling for the release’s footage, however, is Missouri’s Republican Gov. Mike Parson, who said that St. Louis police may as well “be transparent and get it over with.”
“If you’ve got body cam footage, I don’t know why you wouldn’t release it,” Parson said, according to KMOX.
The police claim that Morris “[screamed] obscenities” at them and physically attacked an officer after the crash, striking the man “hard in the chest with an open hand,” according to a probable cause statement. After being told he was under arrest, police said, Morris fled into a nearby alleyway, pushing a trash can at them.
But Khazaeli alleged that it was the police who “beat” his client, sharing with Vice an image of Morris with a black eye.
It remains unclear what occurred in the alleyway, but cell phone footage shot by a witness outside the bar shows Morris yelling, calling one of the officers “a motherfucker” for crashing into his building. It also shows the police pushing Morris roughly onto the hood of their vehicle before bundling him inside.
The 22-minute video also shows an interaction with Morris’ husband, James Pence, before Morris comes out of the bar. Pence, who previously said he was told by the driving officer that he’d swerved to miss a dog in the road, can be seen refusing to give the police proof of identification.
“You’re not IDing me,” he says. “I’ve done nothing wrong.”
After Pence yells that he won’t be carded by the officers, one of them tells him that he can’t cause a disturbance. “I’m not causing a disturbance,” Pence replies.
Pence is eventually handcuffed. (He was not arrested or charged.) Morris then comes out, wanting to know why his partner has been handcuffed and not the driving officer, after which tensions flare and the situation escalates.
Bar:PM reopened on Tuesday evening, swarmed by regulars, friends, and new supporters, with Morris making a speech to the patrons. “It’s been an emotional rollercoaster mentally and physically and a rather humbling experience,” he said, according to First Alert 4.
