Dallas

Historic South Dallas Church Vandalized

An historic church in South Dallas was vandalized Monday night.

Members of the Mount Olive Lutheran Church arrived Tuesday morning to find more than a dozen shattered windows all throughout the property.

“Somebody was very angry. We have the windows on the basement side. They're broken out. The stain glass in the front that's over 100 years old, it was broken,” explained volunteer, Bobbie Edwards.

Pieces of glass could be found all around the parking lot as Edwards pulled into for work. She and another church member weren’t sure what had happened until they found several bricks, taken from the church, lying near the broken windows.

“They peeled some of the bricks off the sign and some that were sitting there,” said Pastor Deb Loudin-McCann.

Surveillance video shows a man in a red, hooded sweatshirt walking up to the church around 9:00 p.m. Monday. The cameras caught the man throwing several bricks at windows around the building before walking away a few minutes later.

Church members didn’t immediately recognize the man, but they believe he could be someone who has benefited from their homeless services.

“They care deeply about other people, even whoever did this,” Loudin-McCann said of her congregation. “These tears are not so much for the building or the beautiful windows as they are for the people because this has hurt them.”

The church is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. During the 1960s, it was a meeting place for Martin Luther King Jr. and other members of the civil rights movement. Since then, the South Dallas community has come to revere the property, despite incidents of vandalism over the decades.

“It will always be remembered as long as it stands on the corner,” Edwards said, “The corner of Meadow and Martin Luther King, it will be a beacon. It will be important.”

Tuesday evening, church members boarded up the broken windows. They say they plan to monitor the building more moving forward to try to deter any more mischief.

Despite what they experienced, they say it will not stop them from feeding more than 200 homeless people, something they do every Wednesday morning.

Anyone with information about the suspect is asked to contact Dallas Police 214-671-4TIP.

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