Last night around 12:30 a.m. a St. Louis police cruiser smashed into the front window of an LGBTQ bar in Carondelet. But it was Bar:PM’s co-owner who wound up getting arrested and is currently being held in central booking.
"There were several police officers that jumped him,” says James Pence, who co-owns Bar:PM with Chad Wick, who is currently in police custody.
Pence says the police officer who ran into the bar told him that he had swerved to miss a dog in the middle of South Broadway. Pence says he does have security camera footage of the crash, though he is not making it public at this time.
The St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department did not immediately respond to a message seeking comment this morning. We'll update this post if we hear back.
Pence, who lives above the bar, says that he was getting ready to head to bed as two other people closed up for the night. Suddenly, he felt the whole building shake and ran downstairs.
He came down to find the police SUV in his building and an officer demanding to see his identification.
Pence says he replied: "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."
Pence says he was spun around and placed in handcuffs.
Pence’s co-owner, Wick, was taking videos and photos of the police vehicle when, according to Pence, "Three of them (officers) went for him. He raised his arm and they said he hit them."
Pence was eventually taken out of cuffs, but Wick was taken away by police.
In addition to cleaning up the damage, Pence spent much of this morning trying to locate Wick. He later found out that Wick had been taken to the South Patrol police station, then SLU Hospital for medical attention. He was then taken to the North Patrol and finally, around 9 a.m., was at Central Booking.
Wick, whose legal name is Chad Morris, was later charged with felony assault. (See details here.)
Pence spoke to the RFT as a group of friends and regulars gathered at Bar:PM, which is located at 7109 South Broadway, to help clean up and show support for the owners.
Others who were there at the time of the incident say that no medical services or ambulances were ever called to the scene.
This is the second high-profile crash involving a St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department car in a week. Last Tuesday, a police SUV and another vehicle both ran a stop sign at North Sarah and St. Louis Avenue. The police cruiser ended up being flipped over outside a business located at the intersection.
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Editor's note: We updated this post after publication to include news of the charges that co-owner Chad Wick is now facing.
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