St. Ann Cop Smashes Car Window To Drag Out Passenger After Pursuit

St. Ann's police department is notorious for what some say is a reckless policy of pursuing dangerous car chases. This afternoon, the latest pursuit ended with a cop repeatedly bashing a car window with his elbow/forearm and dragging the passenger through the opening and onto the street.

The department says the video of the incident does not show abuse.

The video, published by a motorist driving past the scene, shows a St. Ann cop in a dark red polo approaching the passenger-side window of a sedan, and then slamming his arm into the glass three times, shattering it.

The passenger is then dragged out of the broken window, over the shattered glass and dropped onto the ground and handcuffed, all while the video records someone shouting, "That's abuse!"


In a statement posted to Facebook earlier this afternoon, the St. Ann Police Department claimed that the takedown resulted in no injuries to the suspects or to the officer featured in the video.

The department also released additional details about the circumstances of the incident, which began with a vehicle pursuit that had started in St. Peters "and went through multiple jurisdictions before coming through St. Ann."

The statement continues: "Once the vehicle came to a stop, one of the passengers of the car refused to put his hands up, unlock the door, or open the window. Because it was a dangerous situation, with numerous officers involved and people driving by, our officers had to protect themselves and the public by ensuring that no weapons were going to be used."

In the video, the passenger can be seen with both hands up in the seconds before the window-breaking officer — identified in the Facebook post as a detective — comes into frame.

"The passenger’s refusal to cooperate caused a St. Ann detective to break the window," the statement asserts. "At no point was the passenger kicked, punched, or mistreated in any way. At no point was there any abuse on the part of police regardless of what the person driving by, videotaping the incident and screaming that it was 'abuse.'"


Editor's note: The story was corrected and updated after publication to cite the original source of the video.

Follow Danny Wicentowski on Twitter at @D_Towski. E-mail the author at [email protected]

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