He and his partner, who live above the bar, went outside to talk with the officers. But within about half an hour, Morris was arrested on charges of assault and resisting arrest, according to his attorney. His partner, James Pence, also a co-owner of the bar, was handcuffed during the confrontation, but was not arrested. An officer who arrived after the crash wrote that the co-owners had started to “yell and scream obscenities, causing a disturbance,” according to a probable cause statement provided by Morris’s attorney.
The St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department did not respond to requests for comment Wednesday. The officer accused Morris of striking him “hard in the chest with an open hand,” causing the officer to lose his balance, according to the probable cause statement.
Morris was arrested and jailed for about 30 hours before he was released, said Javad Khazaeli, his attorney, who has disputed the police officer’s claims.
“The idea that the police are supposed to protect and serve, I think, is shattered for them,” Khazaeli said of Morris and Pence, adding: “It doesn’t matter if you’re the victim — the police see you as others.”
The assault charge against Morris was reduced from a felony to a misdemeanor after prosecutors reviewed evidence, said Christine Bertelson, a spokesperson for the St. Louis circuit attorney’s office. Bertelson did not specify what evidence led to the change and declined to comment further, citing pending litigation.
St. Louis Mayor Tishaura Jones said in a statement Tuesday that incidents like the one at Bar:PM “can break an already fragile trust with law enforcement.”
“Everybody deserves to feel safe in their homes, neighborhoods, and communities,” Jones said, adding that the incident remains under investigation and that the officers involved “will be held accountable for any and all misconduct.”
The police department has not publicly identified all of the officers involved in the incident.
The crash happened around 12:30 a.m. Monday, about an hour after Bar:PM closed, Khazaeli said.
The attorney posted security camera footage from a different building on X, formerly known as Twitter, of the moments leading up to the crash. A vehicle can be seen driving down the street and swerving to the left as it passes a parked car before crashing into the bar. The footage has been viewed more than 9 million times since Khazaeli shared it Tuesday morning.
In another video taken by a witness that was viewed by The Washington Post, one of the responding officers asks Pence, who had come outside after the crash, if he is the owner of the bar. The officer then asks him for proof of identification.
“You’re not IDing me,” Pence says in the video. “I’ve done nothing wrong.”
Shortly after, he yells that the officers cannot card him. The officer tells Pence not to yell, later adding: “You’re not going to cause a disturbance,” to which Pence responds “I’m not causing a disturbance.”
After Pence is handcuffed, Morris, who had been inside the bar, is seen outside in the video, trying to discern why his partner was in handcuffs.
In the probable cause statement, another officer who arrived at the bar after the crash wrote that Morris did not follow requests to “back-up so I could secure the scene.” The officer then alleges that Morris struck him in the chest, according to the document. After saying Morris was under arrest, the officer accused Morris of attempting to flee toward an alleyway near the bar and pushing a trash can toward another officer.
Morris was then arrested, Khazaeli said.
The witness video does not show Morris making physical contact with an officer before entering the alleyway near the bar. What happened in the alleyway itself was not visible in the video. When Morris walks back through the gate of the alleyway, he is in handcuffs, with an injury to his eye and ripped clothing, the footage shows.
St. Louis police have not released body-camera footage from the incident or disclosed the cause of the crash. Police spokesperson Lt. Col. Renee Kriesmann told reporters Wednesday that the officer driving the vehicle had been distracted by his radio and then lost control of the SUV, KSDK reported. The SUV was going less than 40 mph before the crash, and the officers involved were not given toxicology tests, Kriesmann added, according to the station.
Morris said he spent the hours he was in custody wondering whether Pence had been arrested and worrying about the bar they’ve owned for nearly a decade.
“I was terrified that I was going to lose something that I put my heart and soul into for the last nine years,” he said.
Within hours of the crash, community members showed up at Bar:PM to help clean and board up the open spaces where the door and window had been damaged, Khazaeli said. On Tuesday night, Morris said the bar was packed with customers, including newcomers who wanted to show their support.
“They’ve never been here, but they’ve seen the story and they just wanted to come,” he said.
