SANTA CLARA, Utah (ABC4) — Police are investigating after a church belonging to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was found to be vandalized with vulgar language and obscene images overnight.
Captain Rich Rodgers with the Santa Clara-Ivins Police Department told ABC4.com that the vandalism happened at the LDS Church located near 3680 Pioneer Parkway in Santa Clara. An officer came across the obscene vandalism while on patrol.
Images show the front doors of the church as well as several trailers in the parking lot spray painted with the words “F— Jesus” and pornographic images. On the doors of an unattached building vandalists also sprayed the words, “Your a cult.”
Images of the vandalism can be found below. Viewer discretion is advised.
Elizabeth Benson, who is member of the Church, said she was assisting with a funeral this morning when she heard about what happened.
“It was very disheartening. Shocked. because we lived in a very, I thought, a simple community. Like this type of thing doesn’t happen here because its a safe community. And so I was very shocked. It made me upset,” Benson said.
Brenda Levya, who lives near the Church, said her trailer was also sprayed with graffiti, leaving her shaken. Levya said she was also upset about the cost of cleaning up.
“It looks like they just decided to be mad at somebody. Probably it was more towards the Church. I think they walked past our house and saw that they had utility trailers and a truck. So they decided to use vulgar language. It was pretty obscene,” Levya told ABC4.
She said the paint for the truck is expensive, and that it’s going to be hard to repaint it.
Benson said she has lived in that neighborhood for 20 years and has not seen anything like this before.
“I just want it down and say nope. This is our community. We don’t need that. We don’t need them to come by and see that they are proud of their work. We are going to take it down and say nope, this is our community,” Benson said.
“It’s totally disrespectful,” Levya added. “It’s not smart to do. If you want to say something to somebody, go say it to them or take it to the law, but don’t do another crime if you have had some injustice or something. It’s not fair to the general public.”
Rogers did not say if they have a suspect in the vandalism but did confirm that an investigation is ongoing.
No further details were made available.
MJ Jewkes and Canon Secrist contributed to this report.
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