One of the charges pending against Bar:PM co-owner Chad Morris was dismissed today, but not before it revealed a lot about the often opaque internal workings of the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department and how it deals with accusations of officer misconduct—or at least how it dealt with one officer who seemed to draw more than his fair share.
The St. Louis Circuit Attorney elected today not to proceed with a charge of resisting arrest against Morris (he still faces a misdemeanor charge of assault).
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Both charges had stemmed from what happened in the hours after a pair of rookie cops accidentally crashed a police SUV into Morris’ bar in South City last December. Another officer responded to the scene and put Morris’ husband and business partner in handcuffs before placing Morris himself under arrest. The high-profile arrest drew national attention—and local outrage.
The past nine months have seen Morris’ lawyer, Javad Khazaeli, pushing the city to disclose information about the disciplinary history of officer Ramelle Wallace, who responded to the scene and quickly escalated the situation with both co-owners. Morris also alleges Wallace beat him up while conducting his arrest.
At a hearing on Friday, Khazaeli argued that Wallace’s history of misconduct was robust, and that the department needed to share more than a 17-page summary of incidents from Wallace’s career.
“The police department has known that Ramelle Wallace has been terrorizing and beating citizens for over for almost a decade, yet they swept most of his violations under the rug or minimized them with minor discipline,” Khazaeli told SLM on Friday.
In court, Khazaeli rattled off several times in which Wallace drew civilian complaints. In September 2014, Wallace pulled up alongside a motorist and challenged him to a fight. That citizen complaint was deemed “sustained,” with Wallace hit with a single department policy violation of conduct unbecoming of an officer.
Then, in December 2017, Wallace was one of two officers involved in an incident in which a man being issued a parking ticket asked why he was getting ticketed. Either Wallace or the other officer pulled out his gun, pointed it at the man, handcuffed him, and put him in the back of a squad car. With the man handcuffed in the backseat of the squad car, the other officer slammed on the brakes, sending the handcuffed man into the metal cage. After the man was discharged from the city jail, he was found to have two neck fractures. When that allegation was sustained, both officers were given a single violation of the department’s use-of-force policy.
Khazaeli also brought up in court, as little more than an aside, a 2019 incident that occurred just down the road from Bar:PM, in which Wallace allegedly roughed up a bystander, handcuffing him, throwing him to the ground, and breaking his leg. (A civil suit stemming from that incident settled earlier this year for $125,000.)
In court, Khazaeli argued that the SLMPD started treating Wallace differently after the Bar:PM incident. “It wasn’t until the world saw him on video acting the way he normally does, did [the department] finally take it seriously and begin to hold him accountable,” Khazaeli tells SLM.
Eight days after the Bar:PM incident, Wallace allegedly got into an argument with a woman who had called police and then complained about how slow they were to arrive on the scene. Khazaeli said that Wallace told the woman, “You better run,” before handcuffing her and tackling her. That incident yielded seven violations.
Most unusually, after the Bar:PM arrests, the department followed up on a two-year-old incident concerning Wallace. Back in January 2022, he allegedly used foul language against a prisoner he was transporting to the city jail. Police conducted an internal investigation this year. In August, despite no physical violence being alleged, the department issued 17 violations against Wallace, including several counts each of conduct unbecoming an officer and harassment.
As SLM previously reported, Wallace left the force last month after 16 years—what now appears to be right around the time he was hit with those 17 violations.
The City Counselor’s Office, which represents Wallace in the civil suit filed by Khazaeli, didn’t respond to a request Friday seeking further comment. The SLMPD declined to comment Friday, citing that pending civil matter.
Khazaeli initially believed all charges against his client had been dropped, only to learn that one remains pending.
“After nine months the Circuit Attorney’s office now admits it doesn’t have enough evidence to charge Chad Morris with resisting arrest,” he tells SLM. “But they’re still pursuing the bogus assault charges. Former officer Wallace was the instigator and we now know he’s been abusing and threatening citizens for at least a decade. We’re still confident we’re going to win this case. But it’s not my job to tell the Circuit Attorney how to spend taxpayer resources.”
Editor’s note: This story was edited soon after publication to make clear that the second charge against Morris remains pending. We regret the error.
