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SALT LAKE CITY -- The Salt Lake City Prosecutor filed new charges against one of the men involved in a fight at a downtown nightclub several months ago. The charges are against John "JJ" Pikula, the man who was shot by off-duty Deputy Rudy Chacon.
As you may recall, the Salt Lake County District Attorney's Office cleared Chacon of any wrongdoing that night. District Attorney Lohra Miller said Chacon's actions were justified based on the circumstances, though no county charges were filed against Pikula.
"In the context that we had presented to us, it looked like the aggressor here was Mr. Pikula," says Salt Lake County Prosecutor Sim Gill.
After interviewing hundreds of witnesses and going through all of the evidence and surveillance video, Gill says Pikula, the man shot by Deputy Rudy Chacon, was acting criminally.
"It was a mixture of both the video that was there as well as the eyewitnesses who were able to positively identify certain types of behavior in filing criminal charges," Gill says.
According to charging documents, on the night of September 19, 2009, a fight broke out at the Green Street Social Club over some women in Chacon's party. Witnesses say Pikula "head butted" a man, then threw a glass object in the face of Chacon's brother, Bobby.
Bobby's face was bleeding, and he was headed to the restroom to deal with his injury, when Pikula broke free from security guards, ran toward Bobby and forced him to the ground.
Chacon told investigators he watched Pikula repeatedly strike Bobby in the face with his fists. Then fearing that his brother may be more severely injured or killed, Chacon drew his firearm and fired one round at Pikula.
"We had Deputy Chacon's brother who was being assaulted; according to the evidence that we had, he was down on the ground, he was in a defenseless position, he was not fighting back," Gill says. "There were assaults that were occurring."
Pikula faces several misdemeanor charges, including assault, reckless endangerment and criminal trespassing. He turned himself into the Salt Lake County Jail Thursday afternoon and is being held on $25,000 bail.
KSL requested a copy of the surveillance video from Green Street, and we've been told it is part of this investigation and cannot be released.
E-mail: jstagg@ksl.com
