ST. LOUIS _ Matt LaMarr was holding a beer at a downtown bar when he said a man suddenly slammed into his shoulder.
The blow sent LaMarr's beer flying. Then the man elbowed LaMarr as well. "Excuse me!" LaMarr yelled.
The man turned. He was in a police vest, carried a St. Louis police badge, and had a gun on his hip.
A moment later, LaMarr and his girlfriend were on the ground, tackled by St. Louis police Officer Brandin Neil, the couple said in an interview.
Neil, a two-year veteran of the department, came under the public eye on Aug. 8, when a surveillance camera inside a BP gas station caught him pushing a customer and then striking him with a pair of handcuffs. The customer, Bryan Boyle, said he was hit in the face and head and thrown to the ground. The police department launched an internal affairs investigation within an hour of the altercation, records show.
The Post-Dispatch has reported that Neil also had a prior complaint of misconduct against him, cited in internal reports, for pushing two people to the ground at Wheelhouse, a bar at 1000 Spruce Street downtown.
Now LaMarr, 27, and his girlfriend, Abbey Busch, 25, are talking about that incident. They allege Neil's unprovoked attack at Wheelhouse on May 26 left them bruised, sore and shaken.
Neil's attorney, Brian Millikan, declined to comment.
LaMarr and Busch, who live in Florida, said they had just gotten into town that night and were visiting with Busch's siblings at the bar. Neither was drinking heavily, they said.
LaMarr was standing next to Busch, daughter of Kraftig beer founder William K. "Billy" Busch, when Neil ran into him. LaMarr's Kraftig spilled all over the floor. "Which was a tragedy," LaMarr quipped.
LaMarr said he yelled, "Excuse me!" as Neil pushed past.
"'What did you say?'" LaMarr recalled Neil asking. "'Say, 'Excuse me,' one more time.'"
"So I said, 'Excuse me!'" LaMarr said.
Neil lunged. With Busch standing between the two men, Neil's tackle took them both out, they said.
"We were just lying there, flat on our backs, blown away by what just happened," LaMarr said.
LaMarr and Busch said a group of bouncers then surrounded them and told them to leave. While they were waiting outside for a ride, Neil emerged on a staircase near them. "He was just standing there, looking over the railing," LaMarr said. "And I said, 'Are you serious, man? Did that just happen?' He looked down at me and said, 'You want to go to jail tonight?"
LaMarr and Busch filed an Internal Affairs complaint against Neil.
Police do not release the outcomes of such investigations. But both incidents _ with LaMarr and Busch, and then with Boyle _ could violate department policy, which requires police officers to "maintain reasonable standards of courtesy" in their relationships with the public.
Neil has not been charged with a crime in either case, and no police report was written about the Wheelhouse incident.
Multiple emails, phone calls and messages to Stephen Savage, owner of the Wheelhouse, have not been returned.
LaMarr and Busch are still stunned.
"It was scary for both of us," Busch said, looking at LaMarr. "And embarrassing. I bring you to St. Louis and this is where we hang out _
"And, oh yeah, you're getting tackled by a police officer."
