Tipsheet

DOJ Launches Investigation Into California Catholic School Desecrated and Destroyed by Vandals

Joseph Chalfant
Joseph Chalfant  |  February 03, 2026 3:45 PM

The Department of Justice will open a civil rights investigation into the targeted vandalism of Holy Innocents School, a parochial school in Long Beach, California.

Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon announced that the investigation would take place on social media Tuesday. The school was targeted at some point on Sunday night, when vandals smashed statues of the Virgin Mary, threw the tabernacle to the ground and attempted to break in, and scattered Bibles across the chapel.

The statues, reportedly worth tens of thousands of dollars, had their hands and at least one head chopped off and then smashed. Some objects that were hand-crafted by religious sisters were also desecrated. Instruments, audio equipment, and cabinets were all also destroyed.

“We have a large statue of Mary that was pushed down and destroyed,” Tony Tripp, the school’s development director, told a local news outlet. “We had the tabernacle, the gold tabernacle where our Lord is kept here, they tried to break that open to get the host out of there.”

“Our message right now is truly prayer,” said Catherine Cruz, a student of the school. “They are still created by God, and so we still want to love them, even though they did a terrible thing, we still want to pray for them.”

Bishop Robert Barron, a prominent Catholic voice in the United States, called for the faithful to join him in praying for the school.

The attack occurred just before the start of Catholic Schools Week.