The Carondelet bar owner arrested and charged with assault after a St. Louis Police SUV smashed through the front of his business has now been released from jail — sporting a black eye and what his attorney says are bruises “all across” his body.
Police originally filed felony assault charges against Chad Morris, but prosecutors with the St. Louis Circuit Attorney’s Office have reduced those to misdemeanor assault.
Morris was scheduled to have a bond hearing this afternoon, but his attorney Javad Khazaeli was able to go in front of a judge this morning and, with the help of video evidence that seems to contradict what police said in a probable cause statement, get Morris released on his own recognizance.
Morris had been in the city jail for approximately 36 hours. Around 12:30 a.m. Monday a police SUV traveling north on South Broadway crashed into the front of Bar:PM, the LGTBQ bar owned by Morris and his husband James Pence, just as it was closing up. RFT has obtained video of the crash.
"Very quickly it became obvious in the videos that instead of being apologetic for what happened, the police became aggressors and tried to cover up for what happened," Khazaeli says, adding that he thinks an outside entity needs to investigate the matter. "Internal affairs in this police department is not going to do what it needs to do.”
"There is a history of St. Louis police officers driving around drunk," he adds.
Bystander video shows officers at the scene — separate from the two who smashed into Bar:PM — handcuff Morris' husband and the bar's co-owner, James Pence. Morris then begins to ask why his husband, whose bar has just been rammed by a police vehicle, is being arrested. A bystander shooting the video also puts the same question to officers.
At one point, an officer says that Pence is being arrested because he was causing a disturbance.
"He's not going to yell at me, that's causing a disturbance," the officer says.
At another point in the video, Morris asks, “Who was sucking whose dick?” when the police car crashed.
The original probable cause statement that led to the felony charge against Morris alleges that he "struck" an officer with an open hand and then fled into a gangway.
However, the bystander video seems to show the entire duration of the incident between when Morris begins interacting with police up until he went into the gangway. At no point does he shove or strike an officer.
The video does show the aftermath of Morris going in the gangway, followed by police.
Morris is pulled from the gangway and placed under arrest. “You’re the one who fucking hit me in the face,” he yells.
When Morris was released from jail this morning, he had a visibly black eye and scratches on his face. “As you can see, they beat him pretty terribly,” Khazaeli said. “He’s got bruises all across his body. This is for the offense of asking why they handcuffed his husband.”
In a brief statement to the media, Morris said that he was very glad to be out of jail, especially since it is his husband’s birthday.
"It's been an emotional time," he said. "I'm happy for the support and to be out….I want to go home."
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