Protect, serve and swerve your car into a local business — that’s the cop promise!


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In St. Louis late Sunday night, a “32-year-old probationary officer who had been with the department for less than a year” was driving along when he approached a parked car. Rather than simply avoid this parked car, the officer freaked out and lost control of the vehicle.



According to a video of the event reviewed by the Riverfront Times, the cop’s SUV “careen[ed] across the turning lane, the lane going in the opposite direction and the sidewalk and then into BAR:PM,” a local bar.


At this point, the stories about what happened diverge. Per the cops, one of the bar’s co-owners, Chad Morris, exited the bar and began to get aggressive with the officers (geez, you’d think they’d hit his bar with their car or something!).



From here, the cops say Morris began to “scream obscenities.” To hear one officer tell it, Morris “struck me hard in the chest with an open hand, causing me to temporarily lose my balance,” then attempted to flee the scene. Morris was subsequently charged with felony assault on an officer and misdemeanor resisting arrest.


That’s right, folks. The police smashed their car into his bar, then arrested him. USA! USA!



Unfortunately for the cops, other people at the event and video taken at the time conflict with the official police line. James Pence, co-owner of BAR:PM, says that Morris was arrested while filming the police. “He raised his arm, and they said he hit them,” Pence stated. Furthermore, Javad Khazaeli, Morris’ attorney, claims that there are several videos from the incident that go directly against what the cops are saying.


“They falsely claim that speaking loudly is against the law. And they use that as a predicate to arrest Mr. Morris,” the lawyer said. Instead of documenting crimes, Khazaeli says, the video shows police officers crashing a car, then “being aggressive with everybody in the area to cover up what they did.”


Hey, at least nobody died this time around.