A Little Rock church was burglarized and vandalized Saturday afternoon, police said.
The Highlands Church at 1717 N. Mississippi St. in Little Rock was broken into Saturday around 2 p.m., according to a Little Rock Police Department report.
The church’s 67-year-old caretaker opened the church Sunday around 10 a.m. to find windows had been broken and fire extinguishers had been sprayed all over the church.
“We were shocked when we walked in on Sunday,” Stephen Elliott said.
The 15-person congregation did not have a Sunday service, but it plans to have a service Feb. 19, Elliott said. Instead of last weekend's service, church members held hands and prayed for the people who broke in.
Elliott said he has been working to clean up the mess left by the people who broke into the church.
The burglars broke communion glassware, shattered windows and used offering plates as Frisbees, he said, and he told police that the damage might cost the church as much as $20,000.
The church gets broken into every three to four months, Elliot said, but nothing was stolen this time.
The caretaker said a camera inside the church might have taken photos of the vandals. The criminals broke the camera, but he noted that photos might have been stored on its SIM card, which wasn’t taken.
No arrests had been made at the time of the report.