LONG BEACH, Calif. (KABC) — Vandals caused destruction when they broke into a Catholic school in Long Beach and trashed the assembly hall, chapel, classrooms and destroyed a Virgin Mary statue.<\/p>\n
Video provided by Holy Innocents School shows widespread damage on the campus.<\/p>\n
Tony Tripp, the school’s director of advancement, said he does not know why the campus was targeted.<\/p>\n
Tripp said when school staff arrived Monday morning, they found the assembly hall, chapel, and classrooms had been broken into and just about everything was torn apart, including multiple statues thrown to the ground and shattered.<\/p>\n
“The biggest damage that was most surprising was done to the sanctuary where they took the tabernacle out of the sanctuary and tried to break it open,” Tripp said.<\/p>\n
“We have a large statue of Mary that was from 1958 when the school opened and they threw it on the ground and took our podium and threw it on top of the statue to break it,” he added.<\/p>\n
School officials believe multiple people may have been involved due to the scale of destruction.<\/p>\n
The damage and police activity restricted the daily Mass on campus, but classes were not interrupted.<\/p>\n
Long Beach police responded and are actively investigating.<\/p>\n