HOUSE SPRINGS — As many as five Jefferson County Sheriff's deputies have been suspended with pay because of a bar room brawl early Thursday morning, said Sheriff Oliver "Glenn" Boyer.

Boyer, who is out of town, declined to name the officers involved or disclose any details about the incident, saying an internal investigation is under way. He said the officers were off duty at the time of the fight.

"At this point, it's a professional standards investigation, and I can't comment much more beyond that," he said.

Dave Gaulden, 50, of Eureka, who owns R-Place Bar & Grill in House Springs, said the fight began between two women — one of whom came with the officers — in his bar about 12:30 a.m. near the restroom. Several bar employees went to help the female customer while the other woman returned to the officers, who were dressed in T-shirts and jeans. Soon, five off-duty male officers surrounded the bar employees, Gaulden said.

Although Gaulden doesn't know what triggered the fight, the melee was captured on the bar's video surveillance system.

He said all of the officers were escorted out of the bar and a bartender observed them removing their rear license plates in the parking lot.

Moments later they came back into the bar, Gaulden said.

Anna Rankin, a bartender, said, "I told them 'I'm going to call the cops,' and they said, 'We are the cops.'"

Surveillance cameras inside the bar do not record sound. The video shows Gaulden falling to the ground and being punched. It then shows the backs of the attackers gathered around Gaulden, who is on the floor. The attackers walk away, and Gaulden can be seen getting up from the floor.

Gaulden said he told the off-duty deputies, "I was the owner of the bar, and I was just trying to stop a fight."

"The thing is, I don't even have a clue what it was all about."

Bryan Anspach, a maintenance worker at the bar, said the officers left him with black eyes, cuts on his nose and knots on his head. Rankin says she suffered bruises on her arms and back from where they restrained her.

Gaulden said he went to Des Peres Hospital on Thursday and was treated for a broken bone in his right foot, and doctors X-rayed his knee and back. He has a large cut on the bridge of his nose and a black eye. He also is wearing a brace on his right foot.

After Gaulden called the police, on-duty sheriff's deputies reviewed the footage upon arriving at the bar and identified their colleagues from the tape, Gaulden said.

Gaulden said he let the officers take his camera without making a copy of the tape for himself first, and it was returned to him later Thursday with the footage intact.

The incident comes on the heels of allegations against two other area police officers.

In St. George, video of a police sergeant taunting and threatening a motorist grabbed national attention earlier this week.

On Thursday, a probationary Arnold police officer resigned hours after he was accused of pointing a gun at a motorist in a White Castle parking lot in Florissant.

Kim Bell of the Post-Dispatch contributed to this story.