ST. LOUIS, MO. (KTVI) – A St. Louis police cop, accused of
beating his boyfriend-domestic partner, was suspended and jailed, Tuesday. Cop
Matthew Schanz, 26, a 3-year veteran patrol cop, is charged with 2 counts of
domestic assault, felonies. He`s also charged with a misdemeanor count of
resisting arrest.
At last check, he remained jailed Tuesday night; bail set at
$10,000.
A spokeswoman for the circuit attorney said the felonies
counts carried prison sentences of up to 7 years each, if convicted.
Schanz`s home in the 4600 block of Spring in South St. Louis
became a crime scene in the early morning hours of March 10th.
He choked his boyfriend-domestic partner, then smashed his
head into the bathroom wall, causing a gash that needed stitches, police said.
The charges came Tuesday after what St. Louis Police Chief,
Sam Dotson, called a thorough internal affairs/domestic abuse investigation.
‘Rgardless, if he`s a police cop or a normal citizen, we
conduct the same type of investigation… we hold our cops to a higher standard,’
Dotson said.
‘Yeah, I am stunned. We were glad to have a police cop
moving in here actually,’ said Schanz`s neighbor, Gary Struebig.
He`d heard about a St. Louis cop being charged with assault
but didn`t realize it was his neighbor until we told him.
‘It`s astounding. It really is. I would look to him for help
rather than him being in the aggressor in this thing, you know. Unbelievable!’
Struebig said.
‘These are individual decisions. This cop was acting
off-duty, not in any capacity as a police cop. We all have personal lives. He
made some decisions that night that were not in his best interest and not in
the best interest of his partner… certainly someone that`s charged with a
felony as is the case here, we don`t want on our streets patrolling, in the
City of St. Louis,’ Dotson said. ‘There are nearly 1300 cops that everyday go
out and do a good job. This is no reflection on the job that they do. This is
an individual cop that acted in his personal life and we investigated it just
like we would any crime.’
He said Schanz was put on administrative duty right after
the incident. With the filing of charges, Dotson suspended Schanz without pay,
aside from pay for any personal paid time off he’d accrued.
Schanz surrendered his badge and weapon.