KALISPELL, Mont. — A man in Montana was recently arrested for toppling a Ten Commandments monument on the grounds of a county courthouse with a chain and his pickup truck. He is now facing a felony charge of criminal mischief.

According to reports, those in the vicinity of the Flathead County Courthouse on the afternoon of June 27 called police after they noticed a man wrapping a chain around the Ten Commandments monument stationed outside of the facility.

They reported that the man then attached the chain to his truck and drug the monument out into the southbound land of South Main Street.

NBC Montana reports that the individual removed the chain after uprooting the Decalogue and left the scene.

It is not known whether bystanders took down the man’s license plate number or if security footage was utilized, but the Kalispell Police Department states that the department “quickly located the suspect’s vehicle and identified the driver.”

He has been identified as Anthony Weimer, 30, of Columbia Falls. Weimer was transported to the Flathead County Detention Center, where he was charged with one count of felony criminal mischief. He pleaded not guilty earlier this month and is scheduled for trial in October.

The Kalispell Police Department, Flathead County Sheriff’s Office and Montana Highway Patrol all responded to reports that the granite monument had been uprooted. Video footage shows officers helping to push the monument onto a tractor or bulldozer scoop to lift it out of the road.

According to the Associated Press, the Fraternal Order of Eagles donated the monument to Flathead County in the 1960s. Following threat of a lawsuit in 2004, the Eagles sought to purchase other pieces that would make the display about the history of law in America to broaden its meaning.

The organization asked the City in 2012 to take possession of the display and move it Depot Park, but city council declined, citing concerns about being sued over separation of Church and State violations.

The various other monuments that make up the “Cornerstone of Law” display at the courthouse include the Magna Carta, the Mayflower Compact, the Bill of Rights and the preambles to the U.S. and Montana constitutions.

As previously reported, more than a dozen Christian billboards erected on a 10-acre plot of land in Columbia Falls, known as “God’s Ten Commandments Park”, were vandalized in 2015.

The signs had been created by horse rancher Phillip Klevmoen. 17 out the 21 billboards were either defaced with spraypaint or slashed with a knife over a two-month period.

“We want this to go forward throughout the nation. You can see what’s happening to the country,” Klevmoen told reporters in 2014. “Not only are we forgetting Him, we are kicking Him out of our society.”

Romans 13:8-10 teaches, “[H]e that loveth another hath fulfilled the law. For this — thou shalt not commit adultery, thou shalt not kill, thou shalt not steal, thou shalt not bear false witness, thou shalt not covet, and if there be any other commandment — it is briefly comprehended in this saying, namely, ‘Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.'”

“Love worketh no ill to his neighbor. Therefore, love is the fulfilling of the law.”

Psalm 119:105 likewise states, “Thy word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path.”

Ephesians 6:12 reminds Christians, “For we wrestle not against flesh and blood but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.”

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