St. Louis prosecutors have turned over their first batch of evidence in their case against the co-owner of an LGBTQ bar charged with assault last month after a police SUV smashed into his business. That evidence, however, doesn’t include any video, body cam or otherwise.
On December 18, a St. Louis Metropolitan Police SUV crashed into Bar:PM on South Broadway in the Carondelet neighborhood, an incident that made national news when police then arrested the bar’s co-owner Chad Morris and charged him with felony assault. (Prosecutors in the St. Louis Circuit Attorney’s Office swifly downgraded the charge to a misdemeanor.)
In the month since, the public has seen surveillance video taken by a nearby business showing the police cruiser run a red light moments before the crash as well as bystander video showing the immediate aftermath of the crash. The latter video showed an officer not initially involved in the incident arriving on the scene and handcuffing the bar’s other co-owner, James Pence, in less than half a minute.