Law Enforcement Officers Crash SUV Into Local Bar, Arrest Bar Owner For Being Angry About It

Legal Issues

from the always-right-even-where-they're-clearly-in-the-wrong dept

When law enforcement officers screw up, it’s always someone else’s fault. It’s the lack of trust or support for police officers, something that has steadily declined in the last half-decade. It’s a lack of funding, even though law enforcement agencies have rarely seen their budgets cut. It’s people emboldened by accountability efforts. It’s the hundreds of people willing to document police activity at all times everywhere with smartphones.

The laws are too confusing. There was no way to know these obvious rights violations are rights violations. People are too loud or too close or there’s too many of them. Everyone’s a Monday morning quarterback. Safety had to be feared for. Law enforcement work is dangerous. There was no time to consider all the facts. And so on.

When cops fuck up, they can charge people with crimes for responding normally, like they would respond to anyone else who damaged their property, injured or killed their loved ones, shot their pets, or otherwise behaved like inveterate assholes.

Why do they behave this way? Well, it’s because they’ve observed, over their years of service, that very few public agencies or public interest groups are capable of actually holding them accountable for their actions.

So, when officers employed by the city of St. Louis lost control of their SUV and crashed it into the entrance of a local bar, the immediate reaction was to arrest the bar’s owner for being upset about this senseless destruction of his personal property.

A south St. Louis bar owner is now facing charges stemming from an incident that began when police crashed an SUV through the front wall of his business.

The incident happened in the city’s Carondelet neighborhood around 12:30 a.m. today, when a police SUV traveling northbound on South Broadway swerved across multiple lanes of traffic and into Bar:PM just as the LGBTQ bar was closing up. 

The police probable cause statement associated with the charges against Bar:PM co-owner Chad Morris (who also goes by Chad Wick) alleges that Morris began to “scream obscenities” in the wake of the collision. The officer writes that Morris “struck me hard in the chest with an open hand, causing me to temporarily lose my balance.” Morris then allegedly tried to flee into a gangway between the bar and another building, closing a gate on an officer as he did, according to the statement. 

Morris is now facing a charge of felony assault on an officer and misdemeanor resisting arrest. 

That’s how this sort of thing goes. Two probation officers lost control of the car they were driving at what appeared to be an excessive speed and yet it’s the owner of the bar facing felony charges for not keeping his emotions in check when confronted by officers seeking to find anyone or anything else to blame for their recklessness.

That’s the story the cops are telling. The bar’s co-owner, James Pence, says it was the officers who were the aggressors. They plowed their way into the bar and demanded to see Pence’s identification. When he refused, he was spun around and handcuffed. Then they went after Chad Morris, who was outside documenting the damage to his bar with his cell phone. All of this ended with Morris’s arrest and the final insult: the denial of bail by Judge Rochelle Woodiest.

The video released to the bar owner’s lawyer by a nearby business immediately undercuts the consecutive narratives offered by the police.

James Pence, Morris’ husband and another co-owner of the bar, said police initially told him they had swerved to miss a dog. Officers later recanted and said they swerved to miss a parked car — the same explanation that police gave reporters.

The video clearly shows no animal was present. And it shows the officers did not need to “swerve” to miss the parked car. From all appearances, the officers were overreacting to the presence of a parked car — an overreaction provoked by their excessive speed.

Somehow, this singular criminal act — the destruction of personal property following an apparent moving violation — resulted in cops swarming Chad Morris’s bar. A bystander recording of the aftermath of the crash — including Morris’s arrest — has yet to be released by his lawyer. The city is also playing its cards close to its vest, refusing to release dash cam video recording by the officers who crashed the SUV, as well as anything captured by officers who responded to the scene of the crash.

Not only is the chain of events an indictment on law enforcement culture, it’s also more anecdotal evidence that St. Louis law enforcement officers simply aren’t capable of competently driving the force’s large SUVs. Here’s another extremely stupid accident, as recorded by a St. Louis business and uploaded to X by St. Louis Followers.

That’s the kind of driving you do when you don’t have to pay for the car or the repairs. That’s the sort of impulsive carelessness you’d expect to see displayed by a teen with more horsepower than good judgment. Now, imagine giving a teen a uniform, a badge, a gun, the power to arrest people, and the amount of personal accountability you’d expect from a toddler.

Fortunately for Chad Morris, his felony charge was reduced to a misdemeanor the day after his arrest and he was released on his own recognizance. But that’s about the only upside. He’s still got a damaged bar, two misdemeanor criminal charges, and — for some stupid reason — an increased police presence in his neighborhood. At some point, weeks or months or years from now, someone employed by the city of St. Louis might have to endure paid leave or, at worst, a brief suspension. But the owners of the bar have to deal with their problems immediately and without the guaranteed contribution of tax dollars to their cause until they’re made whole.

I get it. Accidents happen. But when you screw up, you’re supposed to apologize and take responsibility for your actions. What you’re not supposed to do is attack and punish the people you’ve wronged.

Filed Under: bar, chad morris, chad wick, felony assault, james pence, police, property destruction, st. louis, st. louis police
Companies: bar:pm