{"id":48753,"date":"2025-11-22T18:36:08","date_gmt":"2025-11-22T18:36:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/48753\/"},"modified":"2025-11-22T18:36:08","modified_gmt":"2025-11-22T18:36:08","slug":"cops-bust-vandal-who-destroyed-religious-items-at-brooklyn-catholic-church","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/48753\/","title":{"rendered":"Cops bust vandal who destroyed religious items at Brooklyn Catholic church"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A man burst into a Roman Catholic church in Brooklyn, where he damaged a handful of religious items before being taken into custody, officials said Saturday.<\/p>\n<p>Keeonn Wilson, 33, is facing multiple counts of criminal mischief for his bizarre assault on <a href=\"https:\/\/stmatthew-brooklyn.org\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">St. Matthew Roman Catholic Church<\/a> on Eastern Parkway near Utica Ave. in Crown Heights, cops said.<\/p>\n<p>Wilson entered the church at around 11:20 a.m. Friday. Once inside, he damaged several religious items, including an incense holder and two candle holders, cops said.<\/p>\n<p>Church staffers called police, who found Wilson at the scene and took him into custody without incident.<\/p>\n<p>Wilson caused about $7,500 worth of damage before he was taken out of the church, police said. His arraignment in Brooklyn Criminal Court was pending Saturday.<\/p>\n<p>Wilson lives in South Carolina. A motive for the vandalism was not immediately disclosed.<\/p>\n<p>Friday\u2019s church attack took place about a week after police announced their search for a man carrying a LGBTQ rainbow flag who <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/NYPDTips\/status\/1988538101866574150?s=20\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\" data-mrf-link=\"https:\/\/x.com\/NYPDTips\/status\/1988538101866574150?s=20\">vandalized three Queens churches in a 20-minute span<\/a>, spray-painting graffiti <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nydailynews.com\/2025\/11\/12\/vandal-draped-in-lgbtq-rainbow-flag-graffitis-3-queens-churches-calling-them-anti-gay-cults\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">calling them \u201canti-gay cults.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Cops\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nydailynews.com\/2022\/12\/26\/elite-nypd-squad-uses-surveillance-video-to-track-and-catch-criminals-we-take-a-lot-of-pride-in-our-work\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\" data-mrf-link=\"https:\/\/www.nydailynews.com\/2022\/12\/26\/elite-nypd-squad-uses-surveillance-video-to-track-and-catch-criminals-we-take-a-lot-of-pride-in-our-work\/\">released surveillance footage of the suspect<\/a>, who wore sunglasses and a rainbow handkerchief that covered his nose and mouth, and asked the public\u2019s help identifying him and tracking him down.<\/p>\n<p>The vandal hit the three churches, which are all within a few blocks of each other in Far Rockaway, in quick succession beginning at 1:40 a.m. on Oct. 5, cops said.<\/p>\n<p>Anyone with information regarding the whereabouts of the Queens vandal is urged to call NYPD Crime Stoppers at (800) 577-TIPS. All calls will be kept confidential.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A man burst into a Roman Catholic church in Brooklyn, where he damaged a handful of religious items&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":48754,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[98,100,99,262,263,266,85,267,9,24,264,12,63,261,265],"class_list":["post-48753","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-brooklyn","tag-brooklyn","tag-brooklyn-headlines","tag-brooklyn-news","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-sub-county-region"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48753","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=48753"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48753\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/48754"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=48753"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=48753"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=48753"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}