St. Louis City has settled a lawsuit brought by the owners of Bar:PM after police crashed into the front of their building, arresting and allegedly assaulting the owner for $4.2 million.
"We can finally," said owner James Pence with a pause, through tears, "we can finally put it behind us and move forward,"
The settlement comes in the middle of the second day of testimony, after day one was taken up by testimony from the officers who were in the SUV that crashed into their bar. Now former SLMPD officer Ramelle Wallace, whose testimony is believed to be why the City finally came to the table according to Javad Khazali with KW Law, who represented Pence and his husband Chad Morris.
"Officer Wallace falsely claimed on the stand that he's not the type of officer to go around assaulting people for no reason. He is, and we were allowed to put that into court."
Ramelle Wallace on the witness stand
Christian Gooden, Post-Dispatch
Wallace was accused in the suit of assaulting and arresting Morris, and testified that he does not go around "assaulting people for nothing." Morris was then charged with felony assault before the criminal case was dismissed nearly a year ago. Khazali said Wallace opened the door to testimony about Wallace's past instances of violence that resulted in him being disciplined.
Khazali pointed to an instance where Wallace threw the first punch in a physical altercation at the City Justice Center, and another where he allegedly assaulted a woman who called 911 about a car accident.
"We file a lot of these suits," said Khazali, "this was about the worst police record I've seen in my life."
Khazali took aim at the city for waiting until right before Pence was about to testify before finally deciding to settle. Mayor Cara Spencer in particular.
"The mayor used my client's bar as a campaign stop... campaigning and saying 'these were bad officers,' and they still made my clients go up until the moments before Mr. Pence was about to testify and tell the public about about everything [the officers] did wrong."
Khazali adds the city/state dynamic overseeing the department's legal defense made things more difficult, adding his gut feeling was the state seemed more inclined to settle than the City before Wallace's testimony.
