VIDEO: Incident at Evansville bar sparks community outcry

EVANSVILLE, Ind. (WFIE) - Evansville Police say they have been made aware of videos circulating on social media showing an incident at Chaser’s Bar Saturday night.

A woman who took two of those videos shared them with 14 News.

They are in the player above, but we do want to warn you. They are violent.

The video shows several members of Chaser’s security hitting, kicking and dragging a man out of the bar.

Family tells 14 News the patron in the video is Shane Hendrix. His father Steve Hendrix says Shane is in the hospital with missing teeth and several fractures to his face.

Sunday afternoon, protesters gathered on West Franklin Street, calling for justice and accountability.

“There is no reason for this,” said Steve Hendrix. “If you are a bouncer, you are supposed to escort the person out of the building, not beat them up. You’re not a pouncer, you’re a bouncer, there’s a difference.”

Steve drove up from Nashville Sunday to join the protest. Several dozen people gathered, many holding signs, and speaking out against Chasers.

“I hope that this never happens to anyone ever again,” said Shane’s cousin Derek Robb. “I hope they’re not able to stay in business because of this.”

“It’s just completely out of line,” said friend of the family Bob Morphew.

Not only is Morphew friends with Steve Hendrix, he’s a former bouncer at several Evansville bars. He says when he saw the video, his blood was boiling.

“We never did anything like this,” Morphew said. “This is totally uncalled for. I’ve escorted people out larger than me without causing damage.”

Morphew describes what he sees in this video as criminal activity, and wants charges filed against the two security workers that did this to Shane.

“He should have simply just been escorted out,” Morphew said. “It doesn’t matter what he said, you just ask him to leave and walk him out the door.”

And as calls for justice rang out across the street, Shane’s father Steve says it’s been silence from Chaser’s, with nobody reaching out to him or his son about what happened Saturday night.

We also reached out to Chaser’s several times for comment. We were told no one was in the restaurant today that could answer our questions. It also appears that Chaser’s has deactivated their Facebook page.

Evansville Police say they had an off-duty officer working at Chaser’s Saturday night, but that officer was not present when the altercation happened. They say that officer was outside tending to a separate issue.

An EPD media release sent about the situation is below:

The Evansville Police Department has been made aware of numerous videos circulating on social media showing an incident that occurred at Chaser’s Bar at 2131 W Franklin St. The videos show a patron involved in a physical altercation with security staff. The Evansville Police Department has reviewed cell phone footage, as well as security footage, and we can confirm that the officer who was working at the business was not present during the altercation. The officer was outside of the building dealing with a separate issue. This officer did not witness the incident and was not in a position to intervene. The investigation into this incident is ongoing at this time. The Evansville Police Department has received multiple videos and comments regarding this incident. These, along with security footage, will be reviewed by investigators. Anyone with information can contact the Adult Investigation Unit at 812-436-7979.

Evansville Police Chief Philip Smith made a social media post about the situation. You can read that below:

The responsibility of law enforcement is to be the line between order and chaos. The force that is willing to stand up to those that would do harm to and victimize others and hold them accountable. The men and women of the Evansville Police Department do just that on a daily basis. As Chief I get to enjoy them making me look a lot better than I really am on our successes. That also means I fully accept responsibility when we can do better. The events at a local bar and grill this past weekend have made their way around social media. The business has received harsh criticism based off the actions of a couple of individuals in their employ. To the owner’s credit they have been cooperative throughout this entire process. My agency has received criticism on the way we’ve handled the investigation. I wanted to address couple of things here.

There was an off duty officer working for the business. He was requested outside of the business to address an issue unrelated to the event. During this time the victim, had a dispute with a bartender, and according to witnesses and surveillance he appeared to have lunged at the bartender. The bouncers, intervened by taking the victim to the ground. To this point their actions were justified.

From that point and beyond the actions of the bouncers were unreasonable, brutal, and illegal in my opinion. They went far beyond what someone in charge of the safety of patrons should be doing to keep order in an establishment.

Once the officer returned, the event had already taken place and the bouncers told the officer that the victim was the agitator. The officer, being a trained officer asked to see the footage from inside the bar and saw no indications of the victim being the aggressor. He then drew a case number for an incident report. According to the officer the video he saw footage of only showed the portion of the incident where the victim was taken to the ground and he did not observe the strikes and kicks that have now been viewed millions of times courtesy of an onlooker. I would like to commend the onlooker for capturing the true events on camera.

Once I learned of this incident, my immediate comment was that those bouncers should be arrested. I am fully aware that I had the advantage of seeing a social media video, like many of you, that my officer was not able to view at the time. When I recieved more facts of the incident I immediately requested detectives to come in and investigate further and I made contact with the owner, who again was cooperative.

The investigation is still very active and to ensure the integrity of the investigation I will come just short of saying what all has happened, but I will say that we are seeking justice for this victim. As long as I am Chief our citizen’s safety and justice for victims is my top priority. I will also never allow one of my officers who did the right thing according to the information available to them at the time take the hits. That’s my job.

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