Man Carved Name on Alamo Wall With Car Key: Cops

Julio Perez will likely remember the Alamo for a long time to come, mainly because he's being accused of damaging it to the tune of $250,000, KENS 5 reports. Police say the 22-year-old Texas man tried to carve his name with a car key into a 250-year-old wall in the Monks' Burial Room, creating a 3-by-1-inch gash in the recently designated World Heritage site. Per the police report, a tour guide reportedly spotted Perez notching "Julio" into the limestone and told him to stop, and an Alamo security guard nabbed him and a female companion when they tried to escape, the San Antonio Express-News notes.

"In Texas we take our history seriously and consider the Alamo to be sacred ground," the Alamo Rangers chief said in a statement, per the New York Daily News. "Desecration of any part of these hallowed grounds, especially the walls of the Alamo Chapel, will not be tolerated." Perez has been charged with second-degree felony criminal mischief, and the damaged room has been closed to the public as preservation experts try to figure out how to how to fix the carving. (Cops are still questioning girls named Destiny to see who defaced the Black Cliffs of Idaho.)