Whether criminal charges will be filed in a fight at a Sikh temple in Greenwood depends on police finding and identifying dozens of people involved in the altercation, a task the police chief said is impossible.
In April, police were called to the Gurdwara Shri Guru HarGobind Sahib Ji temple on Graham Road, near Allen Road, where people were fighting and a crowd of 100 to 150 people had gathered. Ten people were treated for minor injuries.
Greenwood police have continued investigating the incident, including reviewing surveillance camera footage from inside the temple.
From that video and interviews with temple leadership, police requested the prosecutor file charges against four people, including one adult who pepper-sprayed a 13-year-old girl who now has permanent damage, Greenwood Police Chief John Laut said.
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Johnson County Prosecutor Brad Cooper has not filed charges because he wants to charge all of the people who participated in the brawl — which he estimates is about 40 people — and not just a few of them, he said.
Cooper wants police to identify all of the people shown on video that were engaged in aggressive behavior that day, so he can charge all of them with disorderly conduct, he said.
“I am not going to just charge a few of them, I want to charge all who participated,” Cooper said.
“Every law enforcement officer in the county was called out that day, and people should be held accountable.”
Laut said what Cooper has asked police to do is impossible.
While the video does show multiple people engaged in the fight that day, police cannot identify all of them. Even Sikh leaders are not sure who all of the people are, since not everyone who was there that day belonged to the Greenwood temple, Laut said.
“He’s asking us to do something we cannot do. It is impossible to identify all of them,” Laut said.
He also said that if the charges that police requested were filed, investigators would likely get more help to identify more of the people involved that day.
Police have found that the brawl that day was over a change in leadership at the Sikh temple. They have continued working with the temple since then to investigate.
