The ruling concerns what jurors may hear about former St. Louis officer Ramelle Wallace’s record in James Pence’s civil case, St. Louis Magazine reported in its account of the ruling: St. Louis Magazine.
The order also concerns what jurors may hear about Wallace’s record.
The claims and the trial
Pence’s suit accuses Wallace and officer Joel Carvajal of assault, battery and false arrest, alleging they detained him without probable cause after officers crashed a police SUV into Bar:PM in December 2023. The city is also named in the suit, according to St. Louis Magazine. Bar:PM co-owner Chad Morris has separately alleged that officers took him behind the building, beat him and arrested him after he objected to Pence’s detention.
Earlier complaints and lawsuits
Prior complaints and lawsuits against Wallace have ended in different ways, according to St. Louis Magazine. A 2014 civilian complaint alleged that he challenged a motorist to a fight; the complaint was later sustained as conduct unbecoming an officer. A 2019 lawsuit alleged Wallace injured a man’s clavicle and leg bones. Another suit, filed about six months before the Bar:PM crash, accused Wallace of body-slamming and punching a man.
An internal investigation into a January 2022 incident resulted in 17 violations against Wallace, according to the same St. Louis Magazine report. Wallace now works for the North County Police Cooperative. A lawyer for a Bar:PM owner has said Wallace accumulated dozens of rules violations during his career, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported.
How complaints are handled
The City of St. Louis Civilian Oversight Board’s 2016-2019 report said complaints filed with the board on its joint form were forwarded to Internal Affairs within 48 hours. That describes the process during that period, not the handling of Pence’s case. The board says that since Missouri took over SLMPD in March 2025, police-misconduct complaints are handled by SLMPD’s Internal Affairs division, according to the Civilian Oversight Board’s report and its current information.
