Although earlier reports identified the man who crashed his car into the 10 Commandments monument outside of the Oklahoma statehouse as a Satanist, his mother told KOCO that her son, Michael Reed, was a devout Christian.

Secret Service officials said that when they interviewed Tate, he indicated that Satan had told him to destroy the monument. He also allegedly said that he wanted to kill President Barack Obama.

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His mother, Crystal Tucker, told KOCO that her son is a practicing Christian, and that “he would never deface something that meant so much to him. He takes the Ten Commandments very seriously. He has been very Christian his entire adult life.”

After a work-related injury four years ago, though, she said he began to have “breakdowns,” and “he one thing that is foremost in his mind, his religion, is the thing he takes it out on. A statue of the 10 Commandments would be something that would attract him. Anyone who knows Michael, knows he loves his God. Right now, everyone is praying for him.”

Lucien Greaves, spokesman for the Satanic Temple — the group erecting a monument to Baphomet on the same site — said that he was “appalled to learn of the act of destructive vandalism laid upon the 10 Commandments monument in Oklahoma.”

Oklahoma Governor Mary Fallin promised to rebuild the monument, saying that “the people of Oklahoma will not stand for acts of violence against the Capitol or its monuments. This monument was built to memorialize the historical significance of the Ten Commandments in guiding our own laws and lives.”