ST. LOUIS — The officers who slammed into a locally-owned bar while driving a police SUV early Monday were not given toxicology tests.
They were wearing body cameras, but the department is not releasing the footage because it is part of a criminal investigation into whether one of the bar owners shoved an officer.
Those are some of the answers Lt. Col. Renee Kriesmann gave during a weekly meeting with reporters Wednesday in which police leaders typically give updates on major incidents.
Kriesmann went on to say the police SUV did not have a dash camera, said body camera footage revealed someone other than a police officer shouted a homophobic slur toward one of the bar owners. She said black box information from the police SUV revealed the car was traveling less than 40 mph before impact and at about 20 mph upon impact.
The officer who was driving said he was distracted by his police radio and overcorrected, causing him to lose control of the vehicle, Kriesmann said.
Internal investigations into the crash and the officers' use of force during the arrest of one of the bar owners are now underway.
The information came about 60 hours after a police SUV crashed into Bar:PM, and one of its owners, Chad Morris, got arrested and charged with felony assault of a police officer.
Community outrage has been growing since it happened.
On Tuesday, St. Louis Circuit Attorney Gabe Gore’s Office reduced that felony charge that kept Morris in jail without a bond to a misdemeanor, and Morris was allowed to walk out of jail after 36 hours on his own recognizance.
As for why it took police leaders so long to answer questions about the incident, Kriesmann said the department has been doing weekly crime updates for a while and believed it was the “appropriate” time to release the information.
She said the body camera footage would not be released, because it is evidence in the criminal case against Morris. Court documents allege Morris shoved one of the responding officers.
Morris and his husband, James Pence, admit they were not happy after they awoke to a police SUV inside the bar they live above. But they insist their anger never turned physical.
Gov. Mike Parson, who was in St. Louis County on Wednesday for an event at West County Center, said to reporters: “If you've got body cam footage I'm not sure why you wouldn't release it."
Parson, who is a former sheriff, went on to say, “One of the things we realized too with body cam footage, in the old days, it will help you as much as it will ever hurt you," adding that while police need time to investigate, they should also “be transparent and get it over with.”
More questions arose Wednesday evening when Morris’ attorney, Javad Khazaeli, released new security camera footage. The footage, timestamped just before 12:30 a.m. Monday, appeared to show a St. Louis police SUV running a red light at the intersection of S. Broadway and Nagel Avenue, which is about 225 feet away from Bar:PM.
Khazaeli claimed the SUV seen in the video is the same SUV that crashed into his client’s bar a short time later.
"Today we read in the Praiss that the officer who crashed into our clients building, was not given a breathalyzer," Khazeeli said in a statement. "A review of the video that we have also looks like no investigation was done into his reckless driving. On our own we were able to obtain this video, and it shows that this officer was putting lives in danger by running red lights and a high-speed, and then crashing into our clients business. This is not what we expect from St. Louis police."
St. Louis police did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the video.