CANTON, Miss. (WLBT) -“Every veteran in the United States of America needs to see how they’re being defaced by their brothers that fell in arms. They need to see this,” said George Hodges.
A sacred area that’s supposed to be a place for rest and peace has become a den for vandals and criminal activity.
All of this frustration after tombstones and memorials at the Canton Cemetery were shot up multiple times, many belonging to World War II veterans.
“The bullet holes in the memorial, and you will see where they ricocheted off one and defaced it with, a, I guess they are gangs signs. I don’t know what it is to be honest with you. And they took their time to do it because, I mean, this is some heavy stuff that they went through,” described Hodges.
You can see dozens of bullet holes inside of memorial statues of the Denson-Everett-Joyner family who all served in the United States Armed Forces. You can even see offensive and derogatory messages on some.
Hodges says seeing these acts of violence against deceased loved ones breaks his heart.
“I’ll tell you what, a piece of my heart got ripped out. A piece of my soul started leaking, and my anger started boiling. Does that make sense? That’s where I’m coming from,” he explained.
“The question is: who did this and why would they want to do it? These are individuals, Denson-Everett-Joyner, who served in wars to protect our country, and for someone to desecrate their efforts and their dedication to our country is absolutely sinful and insane and should have never happened,” added Canton Mayor William Truly.
After paying a visit to the cemetery, Truly says he will work closely with the police department to ensure crimes like these don’t happen again.
“How do you keep people from desecrating the dead? From vandalizing graves? That’s the mentality of someone who is just not right,” the mayor said. “So this is a terrible act and hopefully we can find who did this. This is just not normal for people to go around desecrating those who have lost their life and the memories of loved ones.”
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