Man who vandalized temple fought with workers, ‘smeared blood thoughout’ inside
ST. GEORGE – A St. George man who broke into the St. George LDS Temple Saturday and caused thousands of dollars worth of damage is facing felony charges connected to the early-morning mayhem.
Just before 5 a.m., a security guard at the temple of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints contacted St. George Police about “an individual who was (possibly) inside the temple causing damage,” according to a probable cause statement.
Read more: Man breaks into, vandalizes St. George LDS Temple; temple worker describes incident
A responding officer was told that a temple worker had encountered an individual, later identified as 22-year-old Charles Gregory Logan, who was wearing dark clothing and “smashing a chair and table in the female dressing room.”
Logan would then run out of the dressing room to a stairwell that took him to the fourth and fifth floors while the temple worker ran out of the room “frightened and scared.”
As the officer spoke to the security guard, another temple worker came running into the lobby and told them that temple workers on the fifth floor were fighting with the intruder.
“I ran to the top floor and found the individual … wrestling on the ground with two temple workers,” the responding police officer wrote in the statement.
The temple worker had asked Logan to come with them and he “had refused and became agitated.” In response, the two grabbed Logan to keep him from causing additional damage. During the struggle, Logan put one of the men in a headlock and caused a cut to his left ear.
The officer, who was joined by an additional officer, told Logan he was under arrest and ordered him to roll onto his stomach. When Logan refused to comply, the two officers “went hands on” with him.
“Charles refused several commands to stop resisting and actively resisted attempts to place him into handcuffs,” the officer wrote. “After a few minutes of struggling with Charles he was taken into custody.”
It was determined Logan had smashed out a ground-level window to that led into the female temple workers’ dressing room. He proceeded to cause “extensive damage” as he ran through the temple and up to the fifth floor.
He broke several chairs and a glass table on the ground floor, followed by more chairs and tables and lamps on the fourth and fifth floors. He also broke out some of the windows and “smeared blood throughout the area,” the officer wrote.
Temple security estimated the damages to run between $10,000 and $15,000.
Logan was taken to Dixie Regional Medical Center for examination before being charged with criminal offenses related to the vandalism spree.
Logan has been charged with felony-level counts of burglary and criminal mischief, misdemeanors for assault and interfering with an arrest and an infraction for disorderly conduct.
Logan has prior convictions in Washington County for misdemeanor drug possession.
Police couldn’t confirm to St. George News Monday any motive Logan may have had for breaking into the temple.
While the incident caused the temporary closure of the temple Saturday morning, operations returned to normal shortly thereafter.
Persons arrested or charged are presumed innocent until found guilty in a court of law or as otherwise decided by a trier-of-fact.
Email: mkessler@stgnews.com
Twitter: @MoriKessler
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