Statue at Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception vandalized

Kristi King | kking@wtop.com

December 8, 2021, 8:53 PM



D.C. police are investigating vandalism in a religious garden in Northeast, in which a man wielding a hammer knocked off a statue’s hands and pummeled its face before leaving with the hands.

It happened in the Rosary Walk and Garden of the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception late Sunday night.

Surveillance video of the attack on the Our Lady of Fatima statue shows a man knocking off the statue’s hands, stepping back, pausing to examine the effect, hopping back onto the statue’s pedestal to pound the statue’s face and then calmly walking away with the hands.

“Though we are deeply pained by this incident, we pray for the perpetrator through the intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary under her title of Our Lady of Fatima,” Monsignor Walter Rossi, rector of the Basilica said in a statement.

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