ST. LOUIS — The lawyer representing two bar owners on Wednesday night posted a video that he says shows a police SUV blowing through a red light just seconds before it crashes into the couple’s south St. Louis bar.
The footage is taken at a stoplight about three seconds before the SUV crashes into Bar:PM on South Broadway. It was given to attorney Javad Khazaeli on Wednesday evening by the same person who provided earlier footage of the crash, Khazaeli said.
“I just don’t understand how today the police department could act like nothing really happened,” Javad Khazaeli said in an interview Wednesday evening. “If any other citizen were to go through a red light, lose control and crash into a building, they would be investigated.”
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Chad Morris, the 37-year-old co-owner of Bar:PM, a popular gay bar in the city’s Carondelet neighborhood, was arrested and charged with assault and resisting arrest after a confrontation that followed the crash.
St. Louis police Lt. Col. Renee Kriesmann said Wednesday the officers who crashed into the bar were not tested for drugs or alcohol because other officers who were investigating the crash did not have reasonable suspicion of impairment, which department policy requires for toxicology tests.
The two officers in the car, both with less than a year on the force, remain on active duty, Kriesmann said.
“We would like to ensure to the owners of the bar and the community that every aspect of this incident is being thoroughly investigated,” Kriesmann said in a weekly media briefing on Wednesday afternoon.
In a string of social media posts on Wednesday evening, Khazaeli laid out new footage that shows what appears to be a police SUV running a red light at East Nagle Avenue and South Broadway, which is about 250 feet from Bar:PM. The timestamp on the video is just seconds before the timestamp on a video that showed a police SUV slamming into the bar.
Morris’ husband, another of the bar’s co-owners, was briefly handcuffed after coming outside to confront officers after the crash, and the situation escalated when Morris arrived and demanded to know why his partner was in cuffs. Police said Morris pushed an officer and ran from them.
But Khazaeli said police were the aggressors in that interaction, and on Wednesday he said they failed to properly investigate the crash because they did not do things like measure the length of skid marks.
Javad Khazaeli, an attorney for the bar owners, used Twitter to release a surveillance video showing the police vehicle crashing into a bar. Used with permission.
He also said the officers’ story about how the crash happened changed three times.
The attorney said police at first told Morris’ husband, James Pence, that they swerved to avoid hitting a dog in the road. Shortly after that, Pence said they changed the story and said they swerved to miss a parked car. Then, police said Wednesday the driver was distracted by the in-car radio and when he looked up he overcorrected and hit the building.
Khazaeli has claimed the SUV was “flying” before the crash, but Kriesmann said Wednesday the SUV was traveling 40 mph before the crash and 20 mph when it hit the building, according to the car’s black box that records key data points related to crashes.
“I just know that no other group of people would be able to avoid a breathalyzer,” Khazaeli said Wednesday night.
The officers were wearing body cameras, Kriesmann said, but police will not release that footage because of the bar owner’s pending criminal case. The SUV did not have a board camera.
“Our current concern is fighting these criminal charges,” Khazaeli said. “If they decide to dismiss the criminal charges, then we can focus on their internal investigation.”
Police did not immediately respond to a request for a comment on Khazaeli’s latest accusations.
Attorney Javad Khazaeli talks about a police SUV that crashed through the front of a gay bar in south St. Louis early Monday, after which a co-owner of the bar was charged with assault after a brief scuffle with officers. Video by David Carson, Post-Dispatch
Chad Morris speaks to the media after he was released from jail on Dec. 19, 2023. He was arrested after a police SUV hit the bar he and his husband own.
Attorney Javad Khazaeli talks about a police SUV that crashed through the front of a gay bar in south St. Louis early Monday, after which a co-owner of the bar was charged with assault after a brief scuffle with officers. Video by David Carson, Post-Dispatch
Chad Morris speaks to the media after he was released from jail on Dec. 19, 2023. He was arrested after a police SUV hit the bar he and his husband own.