Long Beach Catholic school vandalized, religious articles destroyed overnight

Staff entered the School Hall at the Holy Innocents School in Long Beach, leading students to their daily morning Mass on Monday, when they discovered the destruction.

Video showed shelves, school supplies, furniture, audio equipment and religious articles thrown and, in some cases, destroyed, throughout the building. A life-sized statue of the Virgin Mary, with the school since its opening in 1958, was shoved to the ground and decapitated.

The church tabernacle, a fixed and locked box that holds the Eucharist, was ripped from the sanctuary and thrown to the ground. It appeared like people tried to pry the tabernacle open, but it stayed locked, said Tony Tripp, the school’s director of advancement.

“It looked like a hurricane came through this place,” he said.

He and fellow staff members of the Catholic school sent the students back to their classes and called police as well as the San Pedro Pastoral Region, part of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles.

Tripp and his colleagues first wondered how people entered the School Hall and caused so much damage before they asked why.

Items, such as the sound system, appeared to be stacked by the door, as if people were planning to steal them but ran off before they could. Police told school officials it seemed like a large group entered the School Hall, and some people wanted to steal from the school while others wanted to destroy everything there, Tripp said.

The school has been broken into and burglarized before, Tripp said, but this case likely caused thousands of dollars of damage, the largest case Holy Innocents has faced.

The vandalism was report around 7:20 a.m., and at least one person broke into the School Hall and stole several items, police said.

Police left after collecting blood, fingerprints and shoe prints, among other evidence, Tripp said, and school staff members began the cleaning process.

A priest had to remove the desecrated tabernacle before school officials could call in parents to help organize everything and determine what was destroyed or stolen. Tripp said they may work overnight to have the area cleaned and hold Mass again this morning.

“We’re not stopping,” he said.

Holy Innocents is a co-educational TK-12th grade school.