{"id":178451,"date":"2026-03-28T21:32:33","date_gmt":"2026-03-28T21:32:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/178451\/"},"modified":"2026-03-28T21:32:33","modified_gmt":"2026-03-28T21:32:33","slug":"vandal-spray-paints-pagan-on-st-francis-statue-outside-queens-catholic-church","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/178451\/","title":{"rendered":"Vandal spray-paints ‘pagan’ on St. Francis statue outside Queens Catholic church"},"content":{"rendered":"

A brazen vandal spray painted \u201cpagan\u201d<\/a> on a religious statue outside a Catholic church in Queens, cops said.<\/p>\n

The hooded tagger was recorded on surveillance video walking up to the statue of St. Francis of Assisi in front of St. Rita Roman Catholic Church<\/a> on 36th Ave. and 12th St. in Long Island City on March 21 around 6:29 a.m., then using blue spray paint to graffiti the statue and sidewalk.<\/p>\n

The unidentified defacer then spray-painted an arrow up its base that pointed toward the statue before taking off on foot. Churchgoers discovered the vandalism soon before morning Mass the same day.<\/p>\n

Mayor Mamdani condemned the incident, posting on X<\/a>,\u00a0\u201cEveryone in our city deserves to practice their faith freely, without fear or intimidation.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Statue<\/p>\n

Statue at St Rita\u2019s in Long Island city was vandalized when a tagger spray painted the word \u2018PAGAN\u2019 on the statue. (Diocese of Brooklyn)<\/p>\n

\"Statue<\/p>\n

Statue at St Rita\u2019s in Long Island city was vandalized when a tagger spray painted the word \u2018PAGAN\u2019 on the statue. (Diocese of Brooklyn)<\/p>\n

\"Statue<\/p>\n

The Diocese of Brooklyn<\/p>\n

Statue at St Rita\u2019s in Long Island city was vandalized when a tagger spray painted the word \u2018PAGAN\u2019 on the statue. (Diocese of Brooklyn)<\/p>\n

\"Statue<\/p>\n

The Diocese of Brooklyn<\/p>\n

Statue at St. Gertrude church in Far Rockaway was knocked over and smashed. (The Diocese of Brooklyn)<\/p>\n

\"Statue<\/p>\n

The Diocese of Brooklyn<\/p>\n

Statue at St. Gertrude church in Far Rockaway was knocked over and smashed. (The Diocese of Brooklyn)<\/p>\n

Show Caption<\/p>\n

1 of 5<\/p>\n

Statue at St Rita\u2019s in Long Island city was vandalized when a tagger spray painted the word \u2018PAGAN\u2019 on the statue. (Diocese of Brooklyn)<\/p>\n

Expand<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

The damage to the statue was estimated at $500, cops said.<\/p>\n

No arrest has been made.<\/p>\n

The paint perp\u2019s attack came on the heels of the violent targeting of another religious statue, on March 14, around 8 p.m. \u2014 this time at the other end of Queens, in Far Rockaway<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The 100-year-old sculpture of the Blessed Mother in front of St. Gertrude Roman Catholic Church, at Beach 38th St. and Beach Channel Dr., was knocked over and smashed.<\/p>\n

No arrests have been made. The NYPD Hate Crime Task Force is investigating both incidents.<\/p>\n

It was unclear if both vandalism incidents were committed by the same person.<\/p>\n

The Diocese of Brooklyn, which also serves Queens, noted that both statues have been previously vandalized. The St. Rita\u2019s statue has been defiled three times in the past two years, while the one at St. Gertrude has been hit even harder, attacked three times in less than six months, according to the diocese. The most recent damage to the latter statue is \u201cirreparable,\u201d the diocese said.<\/p>\n

Anyone with information is asked to call the NYPD\u2019s Crime Stoppers<\/a> Hotline at 1-800-577-TIPS (8477)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A brazen vandal spray painted \u201cpagan\u201d on a religious statue outside a Catholic church in Queens, cops said.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":178452,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[262,263,266,85,267,9,24,264,12,63,261,122,124,123,265],"class_list":["post-178451","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-queens","tag-city","tag-county","tag-crime-and-public-safety","tag-latest-headlines","tag-local-news","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-new-york-county","tag-news","tag-nyc","tag-nyc-crime","tag-queens","tag-queens-headlines","tag-queens-news","tag-sub-county-region"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/178451","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=178451"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/178451\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/178452"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=178451"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=178451"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=178451"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}