this post was submitted on 21 Dec 2023

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Bar owner is arrested after St. Louis police officer crashes into his business (www.seattletimes.com)

submitted 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) by [email protected] to c/nottheonion

54 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Sorry folks, this didn't look paywalled for me when I posted it.

Links others have provided:

https://archive.md/EwTss

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2023/12/20/gay-bar-pm-st-louis-police-crash-owner-arrest/71986781007/

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[–] fpslem 116 points 11 months ago (3 children)

Non-paywalled article here:

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2023/12/20/gay-bar-pm-st-louis-police-crash-owner-arrest/71986781007/

Officers arrested one of the bar's owners because he refused to show them ID? The officers just crashed into his bar in the middle of the night, he gets out of bed to see what that loud noise was, and they arrest him because he won't show them ID? In Missouri police can only ask to see ID if there is a reasonable suspicion of some wrongdoing, and I can't see that a building owner is doing anything wrong when he checks on the probationary cops that just plowed into his building because they suck at driving or were driving too fast.

[–] [email protected] 69 points 11 months ago (1 children)

because they suck at driving or were driving too fast.

They ran a red light just before the crash, and other officers refused to use a breathalyzer on them. No blood samples were taken either.

[–] Kbobabob 24 points 11 months ago

ACAB

[–] [email protected] 41 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Owning a building/business while gay is a felony in Missouri...

[–] Zahille7 4 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Oh shit, is the bar owner gay? I live in Missouri, on the opposite end of the state, and there's a gay couple that own a really popular bar in town.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 11 months ago (1 children)

The business they smashed into is an LGBT bar

[–] [email protected] 13 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (2 children)

I’ve been seriously thinking of building an LGBT bar. Does anyone know where I can purchase gay bricks?

[–] [email protected] 7 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (1 children)

https://www.point2homes.com/US/Home-For-Sale/WV/Fort-Gay/125-Yellow-Brick-Road/156219849.html

Some demolition and reassembly required.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago

Man it’s so cheap to live in WV. Too bad it’s in WV.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Gay bricks are made from gay clay, so they say

[–] Zahille7 1 points 11 months ago

Wanna sit by the bay and eat some hay? I just may. What do ya say?

[–] SocialMediaRefugee 1 points 11 months ago (1 children)

“I was in bed. I heard a loud bang. I felt the building shake. I ran down from upstairs. He actually apologized to me.," Pence told Fox 2. "He said ‘I literally swerved to miss a dog.’ He was very–he was actually extremely nice. He was the nicest officer out there.”

[–] [email protected] 3 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

The cops keep changing their story. It's been at least a dog and a parked car that I know of. Then there's the bodycam footage they won't release. Then there's the security cam footage showing them run a redlight (dramatically) seconds before the collision. They also didn't breathalyze the office or otherwise test him for DWI.

Each of the above points is supported by one or more of the links below.

https://www.stltoday.com/news/local/crime-courts/st-louis-police-ran-red-light-seconds-before-crashing-into-bar-lawyer-says/article_0f83a914-9fa7-11ee-82b6-e79f499ffa19.html (includes video)

https://www.stltoday.com/news/local/crime-courts/police-wont-release-body-camera-footage-in-suvs-crash-into-st-louis-bar/article_c9a5b148-a10a-11ee-a8b2-2f4609f45b8c.html

https://www.vice.com/en/article/qjvme3/st-louis-gay-bar-police-crash

https://www.riverfronttimes.com/news/st-louis-police-suv-that-hit-bar-pm-ran-a-red-light-moments-earlier-41489947

[–] owatnext 74 points 11 months ago (1 children)

My experience with Missouri police was not a good one. They lied and said my taillights (yes, both) were out and "that" was why they pulled me over apparently. So he took me to his car, where I could see my taillights functioning, and accused me of smuggling drugs from México. Apparently, because I had taken a road trip to New Mexico (which he interrogated out of me), that means that I had drugs from the country México. Tell me how a police officer doesn't know New Mexico is a state...

To top it all off, he told me to stop breaking the law and let me on my way without so much as a clue to what law I was breaking.

[–] CosmicTurtle 68 points 11 months ago (2 children)

Don't talk to police officers.

Memorize this script:

“Why did you pull me over?”
(When they ask questions like where are you going? Where are you coming from? What is that smell?) “I’m not discussing my day.
“Am I being detained or am I free to go?” (If you are being detained, invoke the 5th amendment.)

[–] [email protected] 41 points 11 months ago (1 children)

This works significantly better if you are of the less melanated complexion.

[–] Potatos_are_not_friends 6 points 11 months ago (1 children)

We'll see that's your first problem right there.

Gotta figure out how to not be dark skinned.

[–] Plopp 5 points 11 months ago (5 children)

Just wear a white pointy bed sheet with holes for the eyes and they'll think you're one of them.

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[–] BeardedBaker 10 points 11 months ago

And then, you shut the fuck up.

[–] HeyThisIsntTheYMCA 38 points 11 months ago

That's one count of parking your bar in the way of a police cruiser and one count of being gay in st. louis. Bake 'em away, toys.

[–] [email protected] 32 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (4 children)

This article is utterly devoid of details. I hope to hear more about this soon.

Edit: apparently I did not read the whole thing. I stopped when I got to this:

"To continue reading, log in or subscribe.”

[–] TheDoctorDonna 35 points 11 months ago (5 children)

Cop ran red light, swerved across two lane and hit the gay bar. Then they went after the owner and trumped up an assault charge when witnesses say there was no assault. Oh and first they tried to say they were swerving to miss a dog, then to miss a parked car.

I think that's about the jist of it.

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[–] Son_of_dad 24 points 11 months ago (2 children)

I read another article with more detail, unfortunately it was a police statement, so you know for a fact it's mostly lies.

They claim he attacked the cops when they crashed through his business, which I don't buy for a second. More likely he got rightly pissed, bitched out the cops and they didn't like being yelled at and arrested him.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

All of that is in the original article, I'm not sure what you guys are seeing.

Edit: Apparently it's paywalled for some people? No idea why it's not for me.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 11 months ago

Article says video shows the owner didn't strike the officer.

[–] beerclue 8 points 11 months ago

There's a lot of detail there... Did you go all the way down? Anyway, that's messed up!

[–] [email protected] 3 points 11 months ago (2 children)

... Did you just stop at the title?

There's like 25 paragraphs detailing the whole situation. Only thing really missing is the footage NYT supposedly saw.

[–] grue 11 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (1 children)

There’s like 25 paragraphs detailing the whole situation.

No there isn't. There is only a whiny message bitching at me to turn off private browsing mode and subscribe. An article that refuses to display doesn't count as an article.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

Wasn't for me, but:

Https://12ft.io

[–] [email protected] 3 points 11 months ago (3 children)

The article is paywalled.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

Huh, wasn't for me, but ~~NYT~~ Seattle Times (fooled by the damn font) so...

Https://12ft.io

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[–] [email protected] 25 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (2 children)

Cops who break the law should lose qualified community and have harsher penalties. Arrest these cops for assault, fabricating police reports, and making false witness statements.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Abuses of a position of public trust should be a capital crime.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 11 months ago (2 children)

There shouldn't be capital crimes at all, because the people deciding who committed a capital crime and should die are the ones who shoot people in the wrong house or speed drunk through red lights and blame the victims.

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 11 months ago

Qualified Immunity already doesn't protect police from breaking the law. Police don't get in trouble for breaking the law because their buddies protect them, not because of Qualified Immunity. That's to protect officers from being sued for rights violations. As in, they can violate your rights to privacy, free speech, freedom of association, etc, and not get in trouble for it. You have to sue the city/state instead.