A 6-foot-tall stone Ten Commandments monument installed Tuesday on the Arkansas Capitol grounds was toppled less than 24 hours later after a 32-year-old Arkansas man drove a vehicle into the statue, police said.
Chris Powell, a spokesman with the Secretary of State's Office, said he was called early Tuesday and told a man drove a vehicle through the monument. That driver — identified in an arrest report as Michael Tate Reed of Van Buren — was arrested by Capitol police shortly after, Powell said. Investigators believe Reed recorded himself as he drove into the statue, Powell added.
The arrest report said an officer around 4:45 a.m. spotted a dark-colored vehicle "start from a stopped position and ram the Ten Commandments monument."
"I immediately exited my vehicle and placed the subject in custody," Corporal Chad Durham wrote, noting Reed was first taken to a local hospital before being booked into the Pulaski County jail.
Reed faces charges of defacing objects of public respect, trespassing on Capitol grounds and first-degree criminal mischief, according to the report.
It was “absolutely” a shock to get the call about what happened, Powell said.
“We had some concerns, just because this was such a highly charged issue with some people,” Powell said.
The busted pieces of the granite monolith were seen inside a taped-off barrier near the walkway to the Justice Building before 7 a.m. Wednesday. A set of tire tracks were visible in the grass on the western side of the small slope on which the statue sat.
Capitol crews later worked to clean up the hunks of granite. One employee drove a John Deere tractor as three other men discussed how to hoist one of the larger broken blocks onto a wooden platform to be hauled away.
A few people driving by on their way to work on Capitol grounds pulled over to take photos and shout questions out their car windows about what happened.
The push for the monument was led by Sen. Jason Rapert, R-Bigelow, who sponsored the 2015 law to erect it on state grounds.
"It's always good to see things fulfilled, and I think it's a great day for the people of Arkansas," he said in an interview Tuesday.
The monument was paid for by more than $26,000 in private donations.