Police seek leads in hate crime at Maywood Catholic Church

Vandals ransacked a Catholic Church in Maywood on Monday in an incident that police are classifying as a hate crime.

The vandals broke into the Santa Rosa de Lima Church, where they defecated in an auditorium, scrawled "666" in the kitchen and stuck a knife in a painting of the Virgin Mary, the Maywood-Cudahy Police Department said.

"The vandalism was of a heinous nature, and in fact, consistent with a hate crime," the department said in a news release.

The church is in the 4400 block of West 60th Street. No other details were available.

Anyone with information is asked to call detectives at (323) 562-5005.

-- Robert J. Lopez

Photo: Vandalized painting of the Virgin Mary. Credit: Maywood-Cudahy Police Department