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Cop in Bar:PM Arrest Was Accused of Breaking Arrestee’s Bones in 2019 | St. Louis

Published

10 months ago

December 22, 2023

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click to enlarge SCREENSHOT This still from a video shot by bystander Matt Pfaff shows St. Louis Police on the scene at Bar:PM. The officer facing the camera has been identified as the one who gave the bar’s co-owner a black eye.

The St. Louis Police officer accused of assaulting Bar:PM co-owner Chad Morris was accused of assaulting a bystander to a 2019 incident, causing serious injuries including multiple broken bones. That incident took place just a short distance from Bar:PM.

The same officer can be seen in bystander video taken early Monday morning after a police SUV slammed into the LGBTQ bar, says attorney Brian Stokes. (Police records identify the officer only as R.W.) Bar co-owner James Pence is placed in handcuffs when the person taking the video asks what crime Pence committed. The officer responds, “A disturbance.”

The officer then approaches the person shooting the video and says, “He’s not going to yell at me, that’s causing a disturbance.”

According to attorney Javad Khazeali, that same officer later roughed up the bar’s other co-owner, Chad Morris, in a gangway alongside the bar.

Morris was charged with felony assault for allegedly shoving an officer. He was taken into custody and held for a day and half before being released. (His charge has since been lowered to a misdemeanor.)Morris emerged from the jail on Tuesday sporting a black eye and bruises.

“As you can see, they beat him pretty terribly,” Khazaeli said at the time. “He’s got bruises all across his body. This is for the offense of asking why they handcuffed his husband.”

The St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department did not respond to multiple requests seeking comment this afternoon. However, KSDK reported this evening that police have shared some body cam footage with several city officials and that it “appears to corroborate the police version of the story,” though they acknowledge “pressing” unanswered questions. KSDK reports that the video shows Morris “shove” the officer in the gangway — but that the video is too dark to show much more. On the video, they say, Morris can be heard asking an officer why he hit him.

This is not the first time that the officer identified as R.W. has faced allegations of wrongdoing, court records show.

According to a lawsuit filed in 2021, the officer threw a 52-year-old man down to the ground while that man was handcuffed, causing multiple broken bones.

That man was Charles Singleton, and he alleges the incident took place around 2:30 a.m. on September 21, 2019, at an apartment complex on South Broadway, just a four minute drive from Bar:PM.

According to Singleton’s lawsuit, police officers — including R.W. — were at the apartment complex to respond to an alleged assault. A number of people were arrested and several police cars were on the scene. Singleton was not among those being taken into custody, at least not at first.

The suit says that Singleton was in a crowd of onlookers at the scene. According to the police reports, Singleton said, “Fuck the police.”

As a result of those comments, the officer placed Singleton under arrest for “disturbing the peace.”

According to the police report stemming from the incident, although Singleton had been put in handcuffs, he still had his cell phone in his hand. The officer attempted to take it from him. A struggle ensued and, according to Singleton’s lawsuit, “Without justification or legal cause, [R.W.] threw [Singleton] to the concrete ground face first while [his] hands were secured behind his body.”

The tripping maneuver shattered multiple bones, including in Singleton’s clavicle and left proximal tibia and fibula — bones in his knee as well as his collarbone.

Singleton’s attorney, Stokes, recognized the officer from deposing him for Singleton’s lawsuit. He says that, based on what he knows about what occurred at Bar:PM earlier this week, the officer seems to have an M.O. of responding with physical aggression when others challenge him with their words.

“Singleton gets picked up for telling the police to go away, and ends up with four days in the hospital,” Stokes says.

Khazaeli adds, “If this is the same officer, he needs to be retrained on what a public disturbance is and when he can seize and use force against a bystander.”

In the Bar:PM incident, videotape captured someone asking the police officers who crashed into the building “who was sucking whose dick” at the time of the crash. But attorney Dave Roland, who handles many First Amendment cases, says such coarse language would not give police grounds for an arrest, much less violence.

He says it’s been very well established in case law that there can be “clearly inflammatory language directed at officers and you still can’t punish somebody because they say something that you don’t like.” That sort of language comes with the territory of being an officer, says Roland.

Roland adds, “If that was said and there was nothing else to warrant arresting the bar owner, I think that’s a pretty clear cut First Amendment violation.”

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Fenton Man Charged in Sword Attack on Roommate

Published

4 months ago

May 22, 2024

Natural Bridge

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A warrant is out for a Fenton man’s arrest after he allegedly attacked his roommate with a sword.

Police say that on Sunday, Angelus Scott spoke openly about “slicing his roommate’s head” before he grabbed a sword, raised it up and then swung it down at the roommate.

The roommate grabbed Scott’s hand in time to prevent injury. When police arrived at the scene, they found the weapon used in the assault.

The sword in question was a katana, which is a Japanese sword recognizable for its curved blade.

This isn’t the first time a samurai-style sword has been used to violent effect in St. Louis. In 2018, a man hearing voices slaughtered his ex-boyfriend with a samurai sword. His mother said he suffered from schizoaffective disorder.

As for Scott, 35, the St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office was charged yesterday with two felonies, assault first degree and armed criminal action. The warrant for his arrest says he is to be held on $200,000 bond.

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Caught on Video, Sheriff Says He’s Ready to ‘Turn It All Over’ to Deputy

Published

4 months ago

May 22, 2024

Natural Bridge

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Video of St. Louis Sheriff Vernon Betts taken by a former deputy suggests that the sheriff has a successor in mind to hand the reins of the department over to, even as Betts is in an increasingly heated campaign for reelection.

“I ain’t here for all this rigmarole,” Betts says in the video while seated behind his desk at the Carnahan Courthouse. “The Lord sent me here to turn this department around and I’m doing the best I can and I think I’ve done a good job. I’ve got about eight months and I’m going to qualify for my fourth pension.”

He goes on, “Right now I can walk up out of here and live happily ever after and forget about all this…and live like a king.”

The sheriff then says his wife has been in Atlanta looking at houses and that the other deputy in the room, Donald Hawkins, is someone Betts has been training “to turn it all over to him.”

Asked about the video, Betts tells the RFT, “My future plans are to win reelection on August 6th by a wide margin and to continue my mission as the top elected law enforcement official to make St. Louis safer and stronger. Serving the people of St. Louis with integrity, honor and professional law enforcement qualifications is a sacred responsibility, and I intend to complete that mission.”

The video of Betts was taken by Barbara Chavers, who retired from the sheriff’s office in 2016 after 24 years of service. Chavers now works security at Schnucks at Grand and Gravois. Betts’ brother Howard works security there, too.

Chavers tells the RFT that she was summoned to Betts’ office last week after Betts’ brother made the sheriff aware that she was supporting Montgomery. It was no secret: Chavers had filmed a Facebook live video in which she said she was supporting Betts’ opponent Alfred Montgomery in the election this fall. “Make the judges safe,” she says in the video, standing in front of a large Montgomery sign on Gravois Avenue. “They need a sheriff who is going to make their courtrooms safe.”

In his office, even as Chavers made clear she was filming him, Betts told Chavers he was “flabbergasted” and “stunned” she was supporting Montgomery.

“I don’t know what I did that would make you go against the preacher man,” he says, referring to himself. He then refers to Montgomery as “ungodly.”

Betts goes on to say that not long ago, he was walking in his neighborhood on St. Louis Avenue near 20th Street when suddenly Montgomery pulled up in his car and, according to Betts, shouted, “You motherfucker, you this, you that. You’re taking my signs down.”

Montgomery tells the RFT that he’s never interacted with Betts outside of candidate forums and neighborhood meetings.

“I don’t think anyone with good sense would do something like that to a sitting sheriff,” Montgomery says.

Montgomery has had campaign signs missing and on at least two occasions has obtained video of people tearing them down. (Chavers notes that the sign that she filmed her original Facebook video in front of is itself now missing.)

One man who lives near Columbus Square says that he recently put out two Montgomery signs, which later went missing. “If they keep taking them, I’ll keep putting them up,” he said.

Betts says he has nothing to do with the missing signs. In the video Chavers filmed in Betts’ office, Betts says that his campaign isn’t in a spot where it needs to resort to tearing down opponents’ signs.

“If you sit here long enough, a man is getting ready to come across the street from City Hall bringing me $500, today,” Betts says. “I’m getting that kind of support. I don’t need to tear down signs.”

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St. Louis to Develop First Citywide Transportation Plan in Decades

Published

5 months ago

May 21, 2024

Natural Bridge

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The City of St. Louis is working to develop its first citywide mobility plan in decades, Mayor Tishaura Jones’ office announced Tuesday. This plan seeks to make it easier for everyone — drivers, pedestrians, bikers and public transit users — to safely commute within the city.

The plan will bring together other city projects like the Brickline Greenway, Future64, the MetroLink Green Line, and more, “while establishing new priorities for a safer, more efficient and better-maintained transportation network across the City,” according to the release.

The key elements in the plan will be public engagement, the development of a safety action plan, future infrastructure priorities and transportation network mapping, according to Jones’ office.

The overarching goals are to create a vision for citywide mobility, plan a mixture of short and long-term mobility projects and to develop improved communication tools with the public to receive transportation updates. In recent years, both people who use public transit and cyclists have been outspoken about the difficulties — and dangers — of navigating St. Louis streets, citing both cuts to public transit and traffic violence.

To garner public input and participation for the plan, Jones’ office said there will be community meetings, focus groups and a survey for residents to share their concerns. The city will also be establishing a Community Advisory Committee. Those interested in learning more should check out at tmp-stl.com/

“Everyone deserves to feel safe when getting around St. Louis, whether they’re driving, biking, walking or taking public transit,” Jones said in a news release. “Creating a comprehensive transportation and mobility plan allows us to make intentional and strategic investments so that moving around St. Louis for jobs, education, and entertainment becomes easier, safer and more enjoyable.”

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