Monday morning at Holy Innocents School in Long Beach did not start with homeroom and quiet prayer. Staff walked into a ransacked campus, with religious statues smashed and sacred objects either damaged or gone. The assembly hall, chapel, and multiple classrooms were left in disarray, leaving students and parents stunned. School leaders canceled the usual assembly-hall Mass and immediately began cataloging what was missing or broken as police opened an investigation.
What investigators found
Principal Cyril Cruz first knew something was wrong when she noticed a door ajar and sent her son to take a look. He came back with a blunt report: “Mommy, it’s trashed.” Inside, staff found the assembly hall, chapel, and several classrooms forced open and vandalized. Statues of the Virgin Mary had their hands and at least one head chopped off, the tabernacle was ripped from the chapel, and multiple doors appeared to have been pried open. Prayer books were dumped out, guitars and audiovisual equipment were damaged or taken, and the school’s internet connection had been cut. Staff called Long Beach police around 7 a.m., and officers arrived roughly four hours later; a forensics team later examined the scene, as reported by Long Beach Post.
School and community response
“This is like my home,” Cruz told the Long Beach Post after seeing the damage. She called off the assembly hall Mass but kept the campus open so students would not be sent home in confusion. Around noon, students held a rosary procession that carefully steered around the taped-off crime scene, and the sisters at the school urged prayers both for the shaken community and “the people who did it.” High-ranking clergy and representatives from the Archdiocese of Los Angeles visited the campus. They described the destruction as unlike anything they had previously encountered there, according to the Long Beach Post.
About the school
Holy Innocents is a parish-run TK–12 school in the Wrigley neighborhood. The school website lists the campus at 2500 Pacific Avenue and identifies the program as a Catholic classical liberal-arts TK–12 institution within the Archdiocese of Los Angeles. School leaders have begun a room-by-room inventory of damaged and missing items while coordinating with investigators, according to public information on Holy Innocents School.
Long Beach police have opened a preliminary investigation into a break-in in which multiple items were stolen, and school officials say they will work with investigators as they tally losses and plan repairs. Parents and neighbors have started offering help and support, and school leaders say they will provide updates as the inquiry continues.
