A man was detained on Monday morning for threatening employees at the Indianapolis Masonic Temple and vandalizing the structure with red spray paint, causing $5,000 in damage, according to police.
Police said officers were summoned to 525 N. Illinois Street at 10:50 a.m. after receiving a report of vandalism in progress. When policemen came, Lynn Jackson was sitting on the building’s stairs, waiting for them.
Jackson spray-painted various crimson streaks and symbols with unknown meanings on the inside and outside of the structure. He also spray-painted the following text on the east side of the building: “Geometry provides no beginning, only expands the middle.” The man also destroyed the Scottish Rite Cathedral across the street, breaking windows and smearing graffiti.
“Some bizarre, vaguely anti-Freemason statement of some kind,” said Chris Hodapp, President of the Masonic Library and Museum of Indiana. “We haven’t figured out yet quite what it was he was trying to say.”
Hodapp, author of “Freemasons for Dummies,” claims the organization’s objective is to better the world one individual at a time. However, the man who vandalized the building holds a different opinion on the group.
“He said his father had been a Mason and his father had been turned evil by the Freemasons,” Hodapp claimed. “He had all these bizarre statements he was making.”
Hodapp stated that the suspect was able to enter the building because a door had been propped open.
“He managed to get here into the hallway and proceeded to paint over 100-year-old pictures and paint the marble walls and spray paint a piece of statuary in the front hall.”
Tiffany Robinson, a security guard, challenged the individual, who then aired his strong anti-Freemason sentiments.
“He was saying that he hates the Masons; he wished they were dead, they need to be put in a grave,” Robinson said. “So I called the police.”
The suspect informed Robinson that he was going to sit outside and wait for police. When the police arrived, they brought him into custody.
Hodapp believes that the process of repairing the damage will be a more significant challenge than the cost.
According to online court records, Jackson is charged with intimidation, a low-level felony, and criminal vandalism, a misdemeanor.
Jackson is scheduled to appear in Marion County court on Friday at 9 a.m.
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