A driver in Oklahoma drove up a ramp near the Capitol steps overnight and into a granite monument of the Ten Commandments, smashing it to pieces in a supposed act of vandalism.
Oklahoma Highway Patrol Capt. George Brown said that the person abandoned the vehicle and then fled the scene after destroying the monument on Thursday, according to the Associate Press.
Authorities took a man into custody Friday after they say he admitted driving a car into the Capitol ground overnight and into the monument.
The man was detained after he showed up at a federal building in Oklahoma City Friday morning, "rambling and making derogatory statements" about the president, according to the AP. He then admitted destroying the monument, said David Allison, an agent with the U.S. Secret Service in Oklahoma City.
"He claimed he got out of his car, urinated on the monument, and then ran over it and destroyed it," Allison said, according to the AP. "He said Satan told him to do it, and that he was a Satanist."
The suspect was then turned over to the Oklahoma Highway Patrol for questioning, Allison said.
The 6-foot-tall monument was finished in 2012 with the blessing of Oklahoma's conservative Legislature. The American Civil Liberties Union of Oklahoma has been fighting to have it removed however, arguing that it violates the state constitution and could be viewed as a state endorsement of a religion.
The ACLU has been suing on behalf of a Norman minister and others who feel where the monument is located violates the state constitution's ban on using public property to support "any sect, church, denomination or system of religion."
A judge ruled in September that the monument doesn't violate the state constitution, according to the AP. ACLU attorneys have already filed an appeal with the Oklahoma Supreme Court.
"We consider this an act of violence against the state of Oklahoma," said Republican state Rep. Mike Ritze, of Broken Arrow, whose family spent nearly $10,000 having the monument erected, according to the AP. "We are obviously shocked and dismayed, but we're not discouraged," he said, vowing to have it rebuilt.
The monument's placement has caused others to seek their own on the Capitol grounds, like a satanic group that earlier this year who unveiled designs for a 7-foot-tall statue of Satan.
Other requests have been made as well, including one from the satirical Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster
Governor Mary Fallin said the act of vandalism is "appalling" and volunteered to help raise the money to have it restored.
Ryan Kiesel, the ACLU of Oklahoma's executive director, shared Fallin's view, saying that he and his clients are "outraged."
"To see the Ten Commandments desecrated by vandals is highly offensive to them as people of faith," Kiesel said.
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