Missouri Bar Owner Arrested After Police Car Smashes Into Window

A bar owner claims he was handcuffed and his business partner husband was arrested after a police SUV crashed through their front window.

James Pence, who co-owns the LGBTQ+ bar Bar:PM in St. Louis, Missouri, alleges he and Chad Wick were both cuffed as they remonstrated with officers about the damage caused when the police car ploughed through the plate glass storefront in the early hours of Monday. He also alleged that one of the arresting officers used a homophobic slur.

The incident comes amid increased scrutiny about how U.S. police deal with witnesses and suspects, and follows a number of high-profile scandals. In September, Delaware State Trooper Dempsey R. Walters was charged with two felonies on suspicion of beating a 15-year-old boy who was crying out for his mother. The teenager in that incident was white, but cases of violence against Black suspects has fueled the rise of the Black Lives Matter movement that had a huge surge of support in 2020 after Minneapolis police officers killed George Floyd in a case that shook the country and triggered a national reckoning on race and policing.

Later on Monday, Pence spoke to local news website the Riverfront Times and said officers told him they had swerved to avoid a dog on South Broadway in the Carondelet neighborhood before slamming into the bar at around 12.30 a.m.

Pence, who co-owns the bar with Wick, told the publication he was preparing to go to bed in the apartment above the business while co-workers closed up downstairs when there was a crash that rocked the building. He ran down to the bar and saw that the police SUV had smashed through the front of the venue. A photo of the scene was shared by the Riverfront Times on X, formerly Twitter.

Pence told the Riverfront Times that an officer immediately demanded his ID, to which he refused, saying he told the cop: "No you don't. That's a police cruiser in my building. You don't need to see my ID. This is not how this works." He claims he was then spun around and handcuffed.

Meanwhile, co-owner Wick had been taking photos at the scene, Pence said, alleging: "Three of them went for him. He raised his arm and they said he hit them."

Wick, whose legal name is Chad Morris, was arrested on suspicion of felony assault on an officer and a misdemeanor for allegedly resisting arrest. Police documents said he began to "scream obscenities" at police following the crash, and then struck one of the officers.

Attorney Javad Khazaeli, who represents Wick and Morris, claims video evidence will refute the police's account of the incident and prove the arrest was unfounded. He told the Riverfront Times: "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."

Pence also spoke on camera to KSDK News, describing the aftermath of the crash: "I jumped up thinking it was an accident....I came out. My husband came out as well. There was one cop that made a very homophobic remark. My husband put his hand on a cop out of defense because they had already put me in handcuffs for coming out and wanting to know what was going on [after the crash]. I was told I had to [give] ID or shut up."

Newsweek has reached out to St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department by email for comment.

Local residents flocked to the bar to help clean up the smashed glass while volunteers worked to repair and reconstruct the storefront. Footage from KSDK showed the clean-up operation taking place as the community rallied around the popular bar.