St. Louis Police SUV That Hit Bar:PM Ran a Red Light Moments Earlier

The incident led to criminal charges against the LGBTQ bar’s co-owner

Dec 21, 2023 at 5:00 am

This image of a St. Louis Police SUV was captured in Carondelet moments before the SUV crashed into an LGBTQ bar. SCREENSHOT

New video shows a St. Louis Police SUV running a red light moments before it smashed into Bar:PM early Sunday morning.

The video, posted to Twitter last night, shows the SUV on South Broadway headed north, past the intersection at Nagel, and blowing through a red light. The video was posted by Javad Khazaeli, the attorney for the bar’s co-owner, Chad Morris, whom police placed under arrest after crashing into his establishment.

Khazaeli says that it was only seconds after the video was taken that the SUV swerved across two lanes of traffic and hit the bar run by Morris and his husband James Pence.

Since hitting the LGBTQ bar, the St. Louis Police SUV has made headlines everywhere from the New York Times to NBC News to the Guardian. Criticism has rained down on the police department for arresting Morris and charging him with felony assault in the wake of the vehicle crashing into his bar. (Prosecutors have since reduced the charge to a misdemeanor.)

Police claim that Morris struck one of the officers who arrived on the scene, causing him to lose his balance. However, that narrative is undercut by a 22-minute video taken at the scene by a bystander that seems to document the time police said an assault took place, but shows no such assault.

The department's explanation of the cause of the crash has changed multiple times since it occurred — and, Khazeali says “none explain running the red light.”

Initially, the officer at the scene told Pence and Morris that he’d been avoiding a dog in the middle of the street. Then the dog turned into a parked car thatthe officer said he had to swerve to avoid.

At a briefing yesterday, Lieutenant Colonel Renee Kriesmann said that the officer driving the cruiser "admits to getting distracted while attempting to change his in-car radio."

Kriesmann said at the same briefing that, in the wake of the crash, the department didn’t do a Breathalyzer or blood draw of the driver.

“I'm not an ‘Internationally Accredited' police department but I was able to get this video in less than 24 hours,” Khazeali wrote on Twitter. “Interested in the ‘investigation’ police are doing of their own.”

Oh boy. Today, police announced that they did not give a breathalyzer exam to the St. Louis police officer who crashed into my clients bar bc other officers determined he was not impaired. Well here video of him running a red light seconds before he crashed into Bar:PM 1 pic.twitter.com/Xu79LIWlPO
— Javad Khazaeli (@javadesq) December 21, 2023