Lynwood-area high school has statue stolen from front of school days after attempted theft

LYNWOOD, Calif. - A Lynwood area high school is looking for answers after a statue was stolen from in front of the school over the weekend. It happened just days after the school said there was another attempt at taking the statue.

Gudiel Crosthwaite, the Superintendent of the Lynwood Unified School District, posted a video on X discussing the theft Sunday morning. 

According to Crosthwaite, the statue of Marco Antonio Firebaugh was stolen from the front of Firebaugh High School.

Credit: @LynwoodSchools via X 

Photos shared to X showed the before and after of the statue area. In one picture, the statue had ratchet straps and rope tied around the base, while in the second, the statue was gone. 

While it wasn't immediately clear when exactly this happened, in his video, Crosthwaite said the robbery happened "not too long ago."

"I need your assistance to send a message out to everyone that these thieves will get away with coming into our community and stealing our precious Marco Antonio Firebaugh statue," he said.

The district said that this wasn't the first time this week that someone tried to nick the statue. Back on Jan. 17, the statue was found with a similar yellow rope around the base, showing that someone had tried and failed to take the statue.

Credit: Lynwood Unified School District

According to school board member Julián Del Real-Calleros, that morning, someone in the community saw the alleged theft and scared them off.

The district is asking anyone with information on the theft to contact the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department's Century Sheriff's Station at 323-568-4800.

The statue depicts former California State Assemblymember Marco Antonio Firebaugh. Firebaugh was well-known as one of the authors of AB540, also known as the California Nonresident Tuition Exemption, which gave undocumented students access to in-state tuition at California's public colleges and universities. He died in 2006.