Witness helps Yonkers police arrest graffiti suspects
By Will David
The Journal News • August 29, 2008
YONKERS – Three city teenagers accused of being graffiti vandals were arrested after serious damage was done to a business and nine of its trucks, police said.
A 30-year-old city man spotted them, called police and followed them to the Major Deegan Highway, while reporting their whereabouts to police.
Near the state Thruway’s 230th Street exit, Yonkers police stopped a Lincoln Town Car that Jasmine Silva, 18, of Orchard Street, Andrew Mack, 19, of 254 Sedgwick Ave. and Michael Cabon, 18, of 16 Lindsey St. were in.
All three were arrested.
They had spray paint residue on their clothing when they were stopped and one of them was carrying a book bag filled with cans of spray paint, Capt. Frank Bruno said.
The three teens may be in even more trouble because, after they were arrested, police said, they found three cell phones on the back seat of the car. The cell phones contained pictures of other graffiti damage on different properties around Yonkers, Bruno said.
Bruno said the three would not have been arrested without the help of the unidentified concerned citizen.
“We would have been in a lurch,” said Bruno, explaining that the three had driven away from Marrs Sales Corp. at 16 Harrison Ave. in a white 1999 Lincoln Town Car before police arrived to catch them red-handed. The witness later identified them as the three people he saw commit the large-scale vandalism.
The unidentified man called police at 3:30 a.m. yesterday to tell them that three people were spray painting trucks and the building wall of Marrs.
The witness then followed them, reporting to police from his cell phone where they were going. He followed them onto the southbound Thruway. At 230th Street, Yonkers Officers Dale Hughes and Michael Quatrocci stopped the Town Car and arrested them.
They are charged with second-degree criminal mischief, a felony, and third-degree criminal trespass, making graffiti and possession of graffiti instruments, all misdemeanors.
Reach Will David at wdavid@lohud.com or 914-696-8274. *Click here for the “Graffiti JUSTICE” page on this site for similar articles
Penfield police reports: Graffiti at Sign World
August 29, 2008
Graffiti at Sign World Someone spray painted graffiti between 8 a.m. Aug. 19 and 8:30 p.m. Aug. 20 on buildings and vehicles at three businesses: Sign World, 1183 Bay Road; Bayview Animal Hospital, 1217 Bay Road; and Frontier Communications, 1855 Empire Blvd. Between 8 p.m. Aug. 20 and 8 a.m. Aug. 21, more graffiti was reported at Bayview and White Oak Apartments, 1729 Empire Blvd.
Sensor paints graffiti vandals into corner
Article from: The Daily Telegraph
August 29, 2008 12:00am
Nose for trouble: A device that sniffs paint may end graffiti glory nights
HOMEOWNERS and businesses under siege from graffiti vandals have a new weapon to defend their properties – a hi-tech security sniffing device that detects airborne chemicals, including paint fumes.
The sensory device developed by a Sydney company sends a digital signal to the property owner’s computer or mobile phone alerting them to attack by graffitists.
Smaller than a shoebox and expected to cost several thousand dollars, the device can be disguised and attached to an outside wall where it will signal if graffitists call… To original article And click here for the Anti-Graffiti TECH page
Minors arrested in graffiti case
Published: Wednesday, August 27, 2008 – 2:00 am
By Kelly VanLeeuwen
TRIBUNE-TIMES WRITER
Mauldin Police officers arrested two juveniles Aug. 17 for graffiti incidents during the weekend to the buildings of Lava Java, Sub Station II and the Arbors at Brookfield apartments.
The juveniles were ultimately caught spray painting in daylight hours, which is unusual, police Chief Bryan Turner said.
The words “Team Fresh” and “Team Reckless” were painted on the exterior wall at Lava Java on East Butler Road. Turner said the words and the symbols of crowns were not gang related. *Click here for the “Graffiti JUSTICE” page on this site for similar articles
Man to remove city graffiti as part of sentence for spray-painting crimes
Alan Hall Portsmouth police photo
By Elizabeth Dinan
edinan@seacoastonline.com
August 26, 2008 2:15 PM
PORTSMOUTH — After pleading guilty to four graffiti-related charges Tuesday, a city man was court-ordered to pay $2,300 in restitution and perform 75 hours of community service that includes graffiti removal.
Alan Hall, 27, of 100 Ledgewood Drive, pleaded guilty to four class A misdemeanor counts of criminal mischief, admitting he spray painted graffiti on the city’s high school and three pieces of private property. Represented by public defender Emily McLaughlin, Hall negotiated the plea deal which reduced one of the counts from a felony.
While the court agreed to sentence Hall in 30 days, Judge Sawako Gardner noted the 75 hours of community service which was negotiated must include graffiti removal with the city’s public works department. The $2,300 restitution must be made within 30 days, the court also ruled.
Prosecutor Corey MacDonald said the sentence, to be announced in a month, will also include a fine and a suspended jail sentence. *Click here for the “Graffiti JUSTICE” page on this site for similar articles
Sticker graffiti craze takes off
by JONATHAN MARTENS – Tuesday, August 26, 2008
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Real thing: Spanish artist Dibo hides in front of his work
Graffiti is fiddly – it takes time to perfect, often involves working late and leaves you with spray paint all over your hands.
But one new invention could put paid to all that – a sticker book full of graffiti creations by some of the world’s best street artists.
Now would-be graffers can walk around sticking up masterpieces all over their favourite patch (although we should warn you this is just as illegal as the real thing).
The love affair with ’stickerbombing’ – or slapping stickers on street furniture with merry abandon – has a long history with young rebels.
But only now has a collectable, fully peelable sticker book with more than 250 specially commissioned stickers been developed.
London-based agency Studio Rarekwai took up the challenge with writers Ryo Sanada and Suridh Hassan compiling Stickerbomb, their newly released book.
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One of the images from the graffiti sticker book
The global collection features works by Dibo, Orkibal and Volt (this is where you should nod approvingly).
Asked about the British mecca for sticker appreciation, Mr Sanada, 28, said: ‘East London is the place, especially Brick Lane, that’s where most stickers are.
‘But it’s not just street artists who use them. Everyone uses stickers in their own way.’
So next time you are tempted to tut at a defaced lamppost, pause and consider what could be a renowned, um, sticker…
1 reader has commented on this story so far. Tell us what you think below!
- Allan, Glasgow
Appeal judges fine graffiti vandal who was jailed
The Scotsman
26 August 2008 11:45 PM Edinburgh
A NOTORIOUS graffiti artist who was given Scotland’s longest-ever jail term for vandalism has been fined £4,500 and ordered to carry out 200 hours’ community service.
Gary Shields, 21, of Glasgow, admitted spray-painting train carriages and stations across the country, causing £12,000 damage.
He was jailed earlier this year at Ayr Sheriff Court for the offences, which he committed between July 2004 and November 2006.
Shields, who served two months in Barlinnie prison before his release, carried out the graffiti using the nickname “Dayz”.
But his 28-month prison sentence was overturned at the Court of Appeal in June after he claimed he had turned over a new leaf.
Yesterday, High Court judges Lords Reed and Wheatley, sitting at the Appeal Courts in Edinburgh, ordered Shields to pay compensation and to perform community service.
Last night, a court source said: “He’s been told to pay the fine at £500 a month. The money has to go to EWS Freight, Network Rail and Scotrail.”
Fury over Web Film of Graffiti at Palace
By DUNCAN LARCOMBE
Published: Today (08-26-08)
The Video
AN internet clip in which a hoodie scrawls graffiti on Buckingham Palace was blasted by royal officials last night.
The footage, posted on YouTube, appears to show an intruder scale the railings in the dark as Guards march past.
The clip, called “Tagging Buck Palace” and seen by 1,000 people, is thought to be a prank to publicise a US film.
Insisting it was a hoax, a Palace source said: “Whoever is behind it has acted both irresponsibly and foolishly.
“The danger is that people may see this video and try a similar stunt.”
The clip appears on YouTube with a message from the hoodie, who writes: “Wnt 2 c da queen but she waznt @ her crib. Tagged it up prpr.”
He also scrawls The Wackness — the name of a film about 1990s New York released this week.
Graffiti Animals mark territory in all U.S. cities
Gallup Independent
By Philip Stake (8-26-08)
Staff writer
ABOVE: A wall in the alleyway between Coal Avenue and Historic Route 66 is one of the worst due to it’s location. BELOW: Jay Spencer drives a forklift past graffiti on an electrical box in the alleyway between Coal Avenue and Historic Route 66 on Monday afternoon. Despite efforts by police to curb the vandalism, graffiti continues to be a big problem. — © 2008 Gallup Independent / Brian Leddy
(…For example, Los Angeles county in California spent roughly $28 million in 2006, according to surveys conducted by Keep America Beautiful, a nationwide non-profit, which hosts the Web site graffitihurts.org. Chicago spent $6.5 million and Las Vegas $1.7 million.)
Full Article…
GALLUP — On June 30, 2006, the Brooklyn Museum unveiled 20 graffiti murals, each rich in color and brimming with original concepts. The exhibit ran three months and marked a change in the social psyche. What started as subversive vandalism during the late ‘60s and early ‘70s was suddenly thrust into public embrace.
But Gallup ain’t Brooklyn.
In Gallup, as in many other places, graffiti remains in its most primitive and destructive form. The markings are everywhere. Scribbles of disenfranchised youth, better known as “tags,” are scrawled illegibly down public alleyways and private fences, on downtown buildings and over doorways. You’ll find it on brick, wood, metal or concrete. To the outsider forced to view them, these strange markings are nothing more than enigmatic hieroglyphics; meaning that if artistic merit were currency, Gallup’s graffiti would be absolutely worthless. And indeed it is, although removal is costly.
The city spends about $40,000 each year cleaning graffiti, according to Parks Executive Director Ben Welch. That money keeps one full-time employee with a pressure washer running a futile race against vandals. And that’s probably the best that can be said for graffiti: It creates jobs.
The drawback is that graffiti attracts other forms of crime by signaling a lack of attention on the part of the community, according to the advocacy Web site, www.graffitihurts.org. It decreases the overall feeling of safety, thereby lowering property values and discouraging tourists. And the money spent on graffiti cleanup could have been used to better public schools, roads or parks.
The city of Albuquerque employs eight people, four crews of two, and spends roughly $1 million each year cleaning graffiti, according to Chief Public Safety Officer Pete Dinelli. Even that is a drop in the bucket when compared to larger metropolitan areas.
For example, Los Angeles county in California spent roughly $28 million in 2006, according to surveys conducted by Keep America Beautiful, a nationwide non-profit, which hosts the Web site graffitihurts.org. Chicago spent $6.5 million and Las Vegas $1.7 million.
Those figures are two years old, and recent headlines point to an increase since then. “Taking aim at vandalism,” read a July 20 headline in the Santa Fe New Mexican; and “Vandalism cases see sudden surge,” appeared in July on the front page of the Raton Range. El Paso city officials unveiled a “new, proactive” anti-graffiti initiative during a press conference just 11 days ago, on Aug. 15, according to the El Paso Times. El Paso’s plan is to spread the message that vandals will go to jail, through posters and handouts. It focuses on community involvement, encouraging residents to report graffiti vandals as soon as possible and to take steps toward quickly cleaning and painting over graffiti found on their own property.
This “community involvement” tactic is backed by Welch, and by Lt. Rick White of the Gallup Police Department, who the city sent to California for graffiti prevention training earlier this year.
“It’s definitely going to take a neighborhood effort,” White said, highlighting the difficulty of catching graffiti vandals in the act.
In fact, a neighbor’s call to metro dispatch on July 18 led to the apprehension of a 12-year-old boy who had been spotted painting a backward “R” followed by the letters “B” and “K” in a downtown alley with two accomplices.
In Gallup, where police logs are littered with more serious, violent crimes on a daily basis, prosecutors already have their hands full, although District Attorney Karl Gillson said that graffiti crimes often lead to felonious offenses. He said 65 juveniles have been prosecuted for graffiti since 1994, of which five have already gone on to commit more serious crimes such as burglary, aggravated battery, criminal sexual contact, and one pled no contest as an accomplice to first-degree murder.
Graffitihurts.org studies show that most graffiti vandals fall between ages 12 and 21, but the motivation behind their crimes is not as easily identified. Speculation ranges from boredom to influence from video games to gang activity. In Gallup, gang activity seems to be the most common assumption, but White is reluctant to assume anything.
“They’re putting gang signs up,” he said. “Whether they are in a gang or not I don’t know … some kids want to say they’re in a group and go around bragging that they are in a gang.”
At best, the vandals are wannabe artists; at worst, they are wannabe gang-bangers. In either case the crux of the problem lingers: How to stop it?
Sue Keeler, who runs a business on Historic Route 66 in Gallup, said she’s spent hundreds of dollars painting over graffiti behind her business time and again. Everyone agrees that quickly covering the markings — within 24 hours — is the best antidote against recurrence.
Albuquerque took punishment a step further four years ago when it began filing civil charges against graffiti vandals and their parents. A caveat to New Mexico’s juvenile code known as “vicarious liability,” allows the city to receive up to $4,000 from the parents of a minor if the court rules in favor of the city, which it has 121 times since 2004. According to Dinelli, Albuquerque has reclaimed $92,358 in property damage, restitution and punitive damages since the initiative began. It has also amassed more manpower for cleanup by securing 1,348 hours of community service.
The city is usually forced to settle for pennies on the dollar, and has collected only a fraction of the cost to keep the city graffiti-free. One reason is that not all vandals have been caught and another is that many can’t afford the “tens of thousands of dollars” required for removal. But, Dinelli said, the city has yet to see a repeat offender. He said that as part of the settlement, he requires the parents of graffiti vandals to sign a contract stating that if their child vandalizes again, they will be liable for the total amount of the damages.
“I make it very clear that it will not be tolerated,” Dinelli said. “It’s no more than an animal marking its territory.” *Click here for the “Graffiti COST” page on this site for similar articles
$5000 Reward
$5,000 reward will be paid for identifying and convicting the vandal who graffitied Epping Hotel bottle shop.
Readers are invited to call the Anti-Graffiti Hotline 9858 5944 at Eastwood Police Station where your call will be treated confidentially or 9879 9699 at Gladesville.
The Weekly Times with six local Chambers of Commerce together with Ryde Business Forum and Hunters Hill Council have united in a combined Anti-Graffiti campaign to rid the north western suburbs of Sydney covered by The Weekly Times of the eyesore of graffiti.
Participating Chambers of Commerce are Ryde, West Ryde, Gladesville, Eastwood, Epping and North Ryde/Macquarie Park. Readers are invited to report any new outbreaks of graffiti direct to The Weekly Times Hotline on 9807 6666.
Public record for Aug. 26, 2008
By GAZETTE STAFF Tuesday, Aug. 26, 2008
Rock County
Arrests
– GARY VILLEGAS, 20, of 232 Pearson Drive, Lake Geneva, on Wednesday at his home on charges of graffiti, theft and trespassing. Villegas, a known associate of the Latin Kings gang, admitted to police that he spray painted gang graffiti on several vehicles, a structure and roadway and that he stole a large concrete statue. *Click here for the “Graffiti JUSTICE” page on this site for similar articles
Vandals hit South Main businesses with graffiti
Tuesday, August 26, 2008 7:37am By Shavonne Potts
Gang graffiti was painted on several buildings and two trucks in the 1900 block of South Main Street, Salisbury, over the weekend. photo by Wayne Hinshaw, Salisbury Post
Vandals targeted a group of South Main Street businesses this weekend, tagging them with blue spray paint.
Someone spray painted the words “Brown Pride” and “Latino Pride,” along with other symbols, on the back side of seven businesses, mostly in the 1900 block of South Main.
The Salisbury Police Department’s gang unit is investigating.
Salisbury Police Chief Mark Wilhelm said one of the business owners noticed the graffiti when he arrived at work. Once officers began investigating, they discovered that several other businesses had been vandalized.
Wilhelm said most of the graffiti indicates the person or group responsible may be affiliated with a Hispanic gang.
“A lot of it is Hispanic. I can’t say all of it is,” he said.
It is up to the business owner to remove the graffiti, but Wilhelm said he’s looked into helping the owners.
One possibility is through the United Way Day of Caring Sept. 11.
“I’ve been in contact with someone who may have a couple of groups available,” he said.
Mitch Swicegood is one of the business owners whose building was tagged.
Swicegood owns N-Tune Car Stereo at 1913 S. Main St.
“We weren’t aware of it until law enforcement came through,” he said.
Swicegood said he and his employees don’t venture to the back of the building on a daily basis.
“It’s the first time we ever had any problems like that,” he said.
He’s not sure how he’ll go about removing the graffiti.
“We haven’t had a chance to work with it,” Swicegood said.
Of the vandals, Swicegood called them cowardly.
“You can tell it’s somebody who is not bold enough to do it out front. They had to sneak and do it,” he said.
Other businesses vandalized were:
- Enterprise, 1823 S. Main St.
- CSI: NC, 1917 S. Main St.
- Baker Distributing Company, 1915 S. Main St.
- Air Master Technologies Inc., 1912 S. Main St.
- Raymond Moore, building owner, 1925 S. Main St.
- The Driveshaft Shop, 1531 S. Main St.
Editorial: The stain of graffiti
Tuesday, August 26, 2008 6:02 PM
The graffiti spray-painted on downtown businesses last weekend is more than a superficial nuisance that can be covered up or scrubbed away. When such messages are symbols of gang activity — as may be the case here — they cast a deeper stain on the community.
In more innocent times, graffiti was sometimes thought of as “street art.” But that was before Salisbury and other cities across North Carolina and the nation found themselves confronting serious gang problems. Now, when graffiti appears on businesses, school buildings or vehicles, it’s often the work of “taggers” who are marking the territory of a specific gang and sending a warning to others. Besides defacing property, graffiti is part of the gang-banger culture. It’s designed to intimidate and harass. Culprits who get away with it may be emboldened to spread their colors elsewhere — or move on to more sinister acts.
Graffiti isn’t always a sign of gang activity, and police haven’t identified the culprits in this most recent incident. Copycats or “gang wannabes” sometimes appropriate gang symbols. But as parents and other participants learned at last Saturday’s Project Safe Family Day, where gangs go, graffiti tends to follow, and the community needs to treat it as more than mere vandalism. It’s the lurid symptom of an underlying scourge.
Graffiti has become such a nuisance in some areas that special laws have been enacted to carry more bite than existing ordinances against vandalism or property damage. Last week in High Point, the City Council approved an anti-graffiti ordinance that both sets penalties for violators and requires them to clean up and repair the property they’ve defaced. (If no one’s arrested, it requires property owners to clean things up.) Other cities have taken even more stringent measures: Los Angeles County passed a law that holds “taggers” and their parents or other guardians liable for civil damages. In Newark, N.J., city officials became so fed up with graffiti, they’ve considered prohibiting anyone under the age of 18 from purchasing spray paint.
Our local graffiti problem hasn’t reached that level — yet — and we can only hope that it doesn’t. Local law-enforcement agencies have stepped up their anti-gang efforts, as have schools and local youth agencies. Residents can do their part by reporting suspicious activity, especially if it involves spray cans or paint brushes, and they can follow the example of Scouts and other groups who have volunteered to help clean up graffiti in the past. That’s a good way for the community to send its own message.
Two Charged in Bristol Park Graffiti Spree
By DON STACOM |Courant Staff Writer
August 26, 2008
BRISTOL — – Two young city men were arrested in connection with a graffiti spree that badly marred the Rockwell Park pool in April. Angry city leaders said they plan to seek restitution when the cases go to court.
Remy-Jorge Cazada y Castro, 18, and an unnamed 17-year-old were charged with first-degree criminal mischief and third-degree trespassing. They were accused of spray-painting the nicknames Hack and Soro in 3-foot-high black letters on the walls of the drained pool just a few days before city workers were to fill it for the season.
Cazada y Castro, a recent graduate of Bristol Central High School, and the 17-year-old were arrested Friday and released pending Sept. 2 court appearances, Lt. Edward Spyros said Monday. Cazada y Castro lives on Woodard Drive, about 1 1/2miles from Rockwell, while the 17-year-old lives near the park, police said.
Police continue investigating graffiti vandalism just a week and a half ago that stained Rockwell’s pool house and a historic stone wall at the park. So far, investigators say they don’t believe that the crimes are related to the April vandalism.
“At this time, we haven’t found any connections between the most recent damage and these suspects,” Spyros said.
Both incidents infuriated neighbors and city officials, partly because the city is spending more than $2.5 million to restore Rockwell, its biggest and best-known park.
“We’re in the hopes that the court will prosecute to the fullest extent to of the law,” Mayor Art Ward said late Monday.
The 17-year-old’s name won’t be released unless a judge orders him to be tried as an adult. Ward said the city will ask that the 17-year-old and Cazada y Castro — or their families — be required to pay the $2,800 cost to clean the pool.
The criminal mischief charge is a Class D felony, which carries a maximum penalty of five years in prison and a $5,000 fine; the trespass charge is a Class C misdemeanor, punishable by up to three months in prison and a $500 fine.
Police have increased patrols in all city parks, and are planning video monitoring of some parks soon, Spyros said. *Click here for the “Graffiti JUSTICE” page on this site for similar articlesand here for “Graffiti COST”
Town property tagged with graffiti
By Ian B. Murphy/Staff Writer
Tue Aug 26, 2008, 09:24 AM EDT Lexington -
Police are investigating a recent spat of graffiti that covered town property in black spray paint.
“Several pieces of graffiti were located on various town-owned sites,” said Lt. Manuel Ferro of the Lexington Police. “A tag was used, and we are investigating it.”
Police found the black marks on the Hastings Park gazebo, the high school football field’s press box and refreshment stand, the overhead doors and backboard on the town’s tennis court, and bathrooms at the center fields.
On Monday, Police found spray paint cans and other physical evidence to aid their investigation.
Ferro said there is sometimes an increase in graffiti-related vandalism just before the school year.
“On occasion you’ll see a spike of graffiti or vandalism,” he said. “It is something our officers are aware of, and they’re concentrating their patrols in and around the schools.”
New technology to sniff out graffiti threat
Posted 11 hours 21 minutes ago
Updated 11 hours 7 minutes ago
New technology that can alert authorities to graffiti vandals by detecting their paint fumes is being showcased at a security exhibition in Sydney.
Running until Thursday, the innovation display will showcase over 150 exhibits of developments in security protection, including the so called E-Nose program.
State Development Minister Ian Macdonald says the E-Nose technology is of particular interest.
“It has applications for all types of buildings and trains and transport systems,” he said.
“It will quite clearly attract the attentions of many agencies looking at combating severe graffiti problems which cost taxpayers many millions of dollars each year in clean-up.”
Mr Macdonald says the exhibition will also provide a major boost to the NSW economy.
“The security industry is an industry with around $2.7 billion invested in it each year, 40 per cent of that is actually spent in New South Wales,” he said.
“These new technologies will hopefully assist these companies to grow and in growing create further income and employment in New South Wales.”
More than 4,000 visitors are expected to visit Darling Harbour for the exhibition, which is the largest security exhibition in Australia.
Graffiti concerns in Solvay
Photojournalist Cody Wolf
By Lisa Spitz
Monday, August 25, 2008 at 10:15 p.m.
SOLVAY – Unwanted graffiti is all over Solvay. That’s what resident Jennifer Marshall says, and she is very upset by it all.
“It’s ugly,” Marshall said. “I mean who would do that to your community.”
The graffiti is on the old firehouse. It’s also on a sign in the park next to the high school. In front of the dump there is a graffiti canvas. Marshall says the graffiti throughout Solvay is bringing down the area and believes someone must see what’s going on.
“Some of these things take time to do,” she says.
The graffiti isn’t offending Nick Geiss.
“I’ve seen it and I think it’s a good thing, people able to express themselves in they way of how they feel and everything,” Geiss says.
It’s an expression, without the property owner’s consent, is illegal.
“Unfortunately it’s going to cost us to clean it up but on the other hand, do we want to look at it all the time? No,” Marshall says.
Marshall wants the graffiti cleaned up and she hopes whoever is behind it will stop and find an appropriate canvass. The Solvay Police Chief was un-available for comment but one officer said there have been no complaints about the issue.
Woman returns to trashed home
By Daniel Brownstein
Published Tuesday, August 26, 2008
A Hilton Head Island woman returned to her north-island rental home Sunday to find it had been ransacked and covered in gang graffiti, according to a Beaufort County sheriff’s report.
Five of the windows were knocked out of the mobile home on Sunday Ford Drive. Latino gang graffiti was spray-painted throughout. The carpets were soaked with water.
Beer bottles and vases were broken on the floor, and the television was smashed into two pieces on the shower floor.
The damage occurred sometime between 8 p.m. Thursday and 2 p.m. Sunday, according to the report.
The homeowner had been in the process of remodeling the home for new tenants before the vandalism.
The total damage is estimated at $2,200.
In wrong places, stickers just another form of graffiti
Local businesses sometimes unwitting accomplices
- By COLLEEN MENSCHING – Staff Writer | Monday, August 25, 2008 5:11 PM PDT
You see them throughout North County: stickers promoting bands, brands and stores.
They are slapped onto surfaces where people are most likely to see them —- intersection signs and poles, downtown windows, bank drive-throughs and the like.
They are stuck on surfaces where it is illegal to put them.
And that makes the stickers just another form of graffiti.
In Escondido, stickers bearing the name of Kick Rocks, a skate shop, have been cropping up on street signs, business signs and at least one mailbox, which is considered federal property and could net six-figure fines for the vandals who put them there.
Alix Wada, manager of the family-run Kick Rocks skate shop on East Grand Avenue, said the stickers are intended as decoration for skateboards or bedrooms, not public buildings or private businesses.
He said store employees don’t encourage customers to slap Kick Rocks stickers on public property or in public view.
But employees can’t control what customers do with the stickers they buy, either, Wada said.
Wada said the store stickers cost between 25 cents and 50 cents, and that no other stickers are sold at the store.
“We don’t give them out for free,” he said.
Customers who buy boards, however, might end up with additional stickers that are packaged in by the manufacturer, he said.
Like Escondido, Oceanside has its share of sticker tagging, said Kiel Koger, public works division manager.
“It seems to be worse near the beach,” Koger said. “At intersections, you’ll see them on signs. They’ll just drive by them and throw stickers on them.”
Most of the stickers are for skate shops, surf shops and clothing lines, Koger said.
The city’s graffiti abatement crew removes them from public property using razors and chemicals, he said.
Vandals with stickers risk the same penalties as those wielding spray-paint cans, police said.
Any act that defaces, damages or destroys someone’s property without their permission is considered vandalism under the state’s penal code, Escondido Detective Roger Rodriguez said.
“It could be a Marine Corps sticker. … It’s still vandalism,” Rodriguez said.
In the severest cases, state law allows for fines up to $50,000 and prison or jail time.
Police and code enforcement officials in Escondido said the Kick Rocks stickers came to their attention only recently.
When store stickers are a problem, they try to stop it at the source by contacting business owners, they said.
“They’re usually cooperative,” Rodriguez said. “They want to do the right thing.”
Without that cooperation, the city is limited in what it can do, said Leslie Milks, manager of code enforcement in Escondido.
“Unless you catch someone in the act of doing it, it’s hard,” Milks said. “We don’t know that someone from the store has actually put these on there.”
For people interested in getting their name, or someone else’s, in the public eye, stickers offer particular advantages, Rodriguez said.
“It’s easy to cup a sticker in your hand,” Rodriguez said. “You see a kid on a skateboard going by and hitting signs, and then you notice the tag is left behind. They don’t even have to stop or slow down.”
“Slap tagging” provides vandals with an opportunity to spend more time designing and drawing their own tag and less time placing it —- or getting caught.
“They do all the work in the safety and comfort of their own home,” Rodriguez said.
Whether the tag is custom or commercial, slap-tagging is one of the cheapest forms of graffiti around, he said.
Stores and companies often offer free or cheap logo stickers, and free blank mailing labels are readily available from any post office or mailing store.
But the cost adds up for cities, which have work crews dedicated to daily graffiti abatement.
Crew members photograph the graffiti, take measurements and note the type of surface that has been affected so they can come up with an appropriate damage estimate.
And while it may be harder to catch a slap-tagger in the act, they can be caught, as shown by Rodriguez’s photos of boxes filled with blank labels confiscated from tagging suspects.
Painting vandals hit school two times
North Warren High a mess after attacks
Tuesday, August 26, 2008
BY JOE MOSZCZYNSKI
Star-Ledger Staff
Vandals have targeted North Warren Regional High School twice this month, with the most recent incident involving spray-painting several surveillance cameras and then painting graffiti throughout the exterior of the Blairstown building, police said yesterday.
That attack occurred sometime during the night of Aug. 14 or early Aug. 15, said Blairstown police Sgt. Stephen Losey.
“There was a considerable amount of damage. Just about every wall and window was spray-painted,” said Losey.
The graffiti included swastikas, anarchy symbols and obscenities, said school board president Bruce Hanelt.
“It looked like World War III broke out. It was a mess,” said Hanelt, adding that the drawings have been removed from the Route 94 school, which is attended by ninth- through 12th-graders from Blairstown, Frelinghuysen, Hardwick and Knowlton townships.
The first incident was reported just a week earlier, on Aug. 8, and led to the arrests of two students from Blairstown, Kevin Simonsen, 18, and an unidentified 15-year-old, Losey said.
Simonsen and the 15-year-old were both charged with criminal mischief and theft, said Losey. They were accused of breaking into the press box at the football field, taking public-address equipment from the building, vandalizing a concession stand and spraying fire-extinguisher foam on two construction vehicles.
The construction vehicles were being used by volunteers who are building a new parking lot at the school, said Hanelt.
Losey said police have stepped up patrols at school while they are on duty, but he noted that the police are a part-time force that operates only from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. After 10 p.m., State Police troopers patrol the township, he said.
The vandalism took place at the same time that the school, under a new superintendent, was making strides toward changing its image.
“We’re doing a lot of positive things at the school and something like this puts us on our heels,” said Hanelt. “We’re trying to change the whole culture of the school.”
Anyone with information about the vandalism was asked to call police at (908) 362-7668.
Graffiti art takes presidential race to the streets
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Jay L. Clendenin, Los Angeles Times
POSTER BOY FOR ‘HOPE’: L.A.-based artist Shepard Fairey created the now-ubiquitous graphic of Obama, who wrote to him, “Your images have a profound effect on people.”Artists including Shepard Fairey and Ray Noland head to the Democratic National Convention in Denver, home of MoveOn.org’s Manifest Hope Gallery Contest.
By Kate Linthicum, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
August 23, 2008
(…in February, Fairey received a letter signed by Obama that thanked the artist for his support and declared, “The political messages involved in your work have encouraged Americans to believe they can help change the status quo. Your images have a profound effect on people, whether seen in a gallery or on a stop sign.”)
ON A brick wall in downtown Atlanta that usually is splattered with graffiti tag names, a spray-paint portrait of Barack Obama now gazes over the streetscape.
In Chicago, an abandoned warehouse on the city’s South Side displays a life-size silhouette of the Illinois senator, microphone in hand.
And all over Los Angeles — on stop signs, underpasses, buildings and billboards — hundreds of posters and stickers of Obama, emblazoned with the word “Hope,” have been slapped up, guerrilla-style.
This year, some of the most arresting images in the race for the White House are not the work of ad agencies, political consultants or photojournalists but of a subculture of artists who use the streets as their canvas. Their pro-Obama work — there is no similar phenomenon for John McCain has been spotted everywhere, even Paris and Beijing.
It’s an odd twist in the world of street art, an arena where creative renegades question power and convention with their homemade posters and hand-painted murals — and don’t usually endorse major party politicians.
“It’s not cool with the sort of rebellious, punk, street-artist types to support something that is seen as a part of the system,” said Shepard Fairey, the Los Angeles-based street artist responsible for the “Hope” posters and stickers.
Coming together
Yet when it comes to Obama, street artists around the country are falling into line. “Obama’s a rock star, he’s got a great brand and he’s a very sexy candidate,” explained Ian Bourland, a University of Chicago graduate student who is one of the few academics studying recent street art. “It’s his race, his politics and his charisma.”
Street artists embrace the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee’s experience as a community organizer, in part because they view their own movement as similarly grass-roots. “He’s perceived as sharing their ethos,” Bourland said.
Fairey and Chicago artist Ray Noland plan to be in Denver next week for the Democratic National Convention. Noland will be hawking his paintings and posters and Fairey will be there as a judge in the Manifest Hope Gallery Contest, a national art competition he is sponsoring with MoveOn.org. Artists from around the country were asked to submit work about Obama or centered around the themes of hope, progress, change, patriotism or unity. The best works will be displayed at the Manifest Hope Gallery, which will be set up in downtown Denver.
Controversial approach
Street art — regarded as creative, non-gang graffiti by its admirers and as vandalism by its detractors — evolved in part out of the do-it-yourself punk movement of the 1980s.
Current targets of its rebellious edge include the Iraq war and gentrification, along with old enemies such as capitalism. “It’s pretty unusual to find things that street artists and graffiti artists are in support of,” said Joe Austin, a University of Wisconsin history professor who studies youth movements.
Still, street artists such as San Francisco’s Eddie (he asked that his last name not be used for fear of legal retribution) are enthusiastic about Obama, and they say they are expressing their sentiments in the vocabulary they know best.
“I could go and volunteer at the campaign and make calls, but that’s probably not the best use of my skill set,” said Eddie, who has plastered the Bay Area with red-and-black posters that feature a close-up of the candidate’s face. “Street art is what I do.”
Noland, 35, also a freelance graphic designer, makes Obama posters filled with basketball imagery to appeal to urban youth. In one, a smiling Obama clutches a red, white and blue basketball and stands beside the slogan “Obama got next” — a play off the lingo basketball players use to claim a court.
Noland became interested in Obama while reading his 1995 autobiography, “Dreams From My Father.” “I thought, ‘This guy has got it all. He’s got the pedigree. He’s gone to Harvard, but he’s also connected to the community, to the neighborhood,’ ” Noland said. “He also plays ball!”
His art is, Noland said, “a conscious effort to position Obama in a certain way, to position him as cool and to position him as hip.”
Noland first sold his posters to friends. Then, just before the Illinois Democratic primary, he rented a storefront and made it a temporary art gallery, where he marketed his screen-printed Obama posters and paintings. He eventually packed the pictures into his Subaru and took his work on the road. Noland set up shop in Pennsylvania, North Carolina and Oregon for those states’ primaries.
In North Carolina, Noland was surprised by a visit from Obama and his wife, Michelle, who “spent all of this time just gazing at the images,” Noland said. “I think he was overwhelmed at seeing all of this work with his face all around.” But, Noland said, Obama told him to keep up the good work.
Not in lock step
The pro-Obama street art movement has its detractors. Other artists have defaced the Obama work, and one blogger attacked Noland for depicting Obama “as a Messiah figure.”
Noland said he understands the critique — in one of his early images, Obama seems to be emanating gold rays of light — and he has toned down his recent work. Other critics have dismissed Fairey’s Obama “Hope” image, an idealized portrait of Obama gazing toward the sky, as no more than propaganda.
Fairey, 38, admits that his design was inspired in part by Soviet propaganda posters, but he insists that it is meant to provoke, not indoctrinate.
Before the Obama poster, Fairey was known internationally for his anti-authoritarian “Obey Giant” sticker campaign, which he launched in the late 1980s while studying at the Rhode Island School of Design. For the project, Fairey and his friends distributed stickers and posters featuring André the Giant, a French wrestler, many of which were stamped with the word “Obey.”
Since then, Fairey, who moved to L.A. in 2002, has launched projects including a clothing company, a magazine and a commercial design business. He runs the art gallery Subliminal Projects in Echo Park, DJs at dance parties and has been featured in numerous documentary films. But he says street art is his first love. When he talks about it, he adopts the sober vocabulary of an art historian and runs his paint-stained fingers through his graying blond hair.
Fairey got on board with Obama in 2004, when he watched the senator’s televised speech at the Democratic National Convention. “I was so impressed,” he recalled. “I thought to myself, ‘This is someone to watch.’ “
He liked Obama’s emphasis on the environment and his commitment to curbing lobbyists’ power. So in January of this year, just as the primary season was heating up, he drew up the design for the “Hope” poster. He has distributed more than 80,000 of them and made a downloadable version available free on his website.
Fairey, who has been arrested multiple times for trespassing and vandalism while putting up his guerrilla art, was worried that Obama’s campaign might not want to be associated with street art.
“When you look at how the general public looks at [street art], they’re scared of it,” he says. “They associate it with gang bangers and anarchists.”
Yet in February, Fairey received a letter signed by Obama that thanked the artist for his support and declared, “The political messages involved in your work have encouraged Americans to believe they can help change the status quo. Your images have a profound effect on people, whether seen in a gallery or on a stop sign.”
(An Obama spokesman added that the campaign hopes artists respect the law and their communities when putting up their art.)
Fairey also was asked to donate an official “Hope” campaign poster, which is being sold on Obama’s website.
And with that, the renegade went mainstream.
Graffiti Couple Arrested After International Tagging Spree
by Brooklyn Eagle published online 08-25-2008
In these Photos released by the NYPD on Thursday, the graffiti tags of “Dani” and “Ether” can be seen on New York City subway cars. Police believe the two tags belong to Danielle Bremner and her boyfriend, Jim Clay Harper, respectively.
The couple is alleged to have left their marks on train cars in London, Madrid, Paris, Frankfurt and Hamburg, as well as other European cities recently. The two were arrested separately at New York and Chicago airports on charges stemming from their domestic graffiti activities as they returned home from overseas.
They could face similar charges in Europe if the NYPD goes through with their plans to share intelligence on the couple with various European police agencies. *Click here for the “Graffiti JUSTICE” page on this site for similar articles
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City rolls out Graffiti Free Zones
Will scrub paint for free from private property
Mon, August 25, 2008
By Sun Media
The city is introducing six Graffiti Free Zones, where property owners can have graffiti removed for free.
Property owners in the six zones – Alberta Avenue, Downtown, Inglewood, Mill Woods, Old Strathcona and Stony Plain Road – who pledge to keep their property clean of graffiti for a year can apply to receive one professional cleaning at no charge.
The area needing cleaning can range in size from 4.6 square metres to 23 square metres.
The city hopes to expand the the program to other areas of the city in coming years.
The city’s graffiti management program, launched earlier this year, had faced criticism after threatening to fine residents or businesses that didn’t clean graffiti off their property.
Edmonton businesses neglect graffiti-removal money
Robin Collum, edmontonjournal.com
Published: 11:19 am
EDMONTON – Too few businesses are taking advantage of Edmonton’s graffiti cleanup program, the city says.
City Hall has been running a pilot program all summer that provides free graffiti-cleaning to properties in six “graffiti-free zones.” But few businesses are asking for help, organizers say.
“(Graffiti) creates a sense of insecurity in our city,” said Sharon Chapman, manager of the Graffiti Project. “(But) we’re finding limited property owners contacting us. We really need property owners to take advantage of the program before it gets too cold.”
There are six graffiti-free zones in Edmonton: the downtown core, Inglewood, Mill Woods, Old Strathcona, Alberta Avenue and the area around Stony Plain Road. Businesses in those neighbourhoods who ask the city for help can get up to 23 square metres of graffiti washed off their property for free. The city has budgeted $120,000 towards removing tags in the six zones.
The project was launched at the beginning of summer to help building owners follow the city’s community standards bylaw, which passed in April.
The bylaw has been controversial because it levels penalties against business owners whose properties are run-down, vandalized or untidy. Chapman said that the graffiti cleanup project was set up to make it affordable for buildings in graffiti-prone areas to follow the bylaw.
“We have been receiving some criticism over the last while that we don’t have supports available to property owners who have graffiti, but really we do have supports, we just really need property owners to take advantage of them for this year,” Chapman said.
The graffiti cleanup is a fairly simple process – three coats of a special solvent will take off almost all traces of graffiti from surfaces such as vinyl or brick. The cleaners then spray on another substance that acts as a barrier. If the building is retagged, the paint can be washed off with soap and water.
“It’s important that we get rid of graffiti,” said Jim Taylor, head of the Downtown Business Association. “We find that in cities, when it’s litter-free and graffiti-free, there’s a whole lot less accompanying crime. It’s a civic pride thing, and the people who do petty crime tend to hang out in areas that are rougher and messier.” *Click here for the “Graffiti COST” page on this site for similar articles
Police: graffiti vandal caught in the act
By the Lincoln Journal Star
Sunday, Aug 24, 2008 – 05:28:11 pm CDT
A 31-year-old Lincoln man believed to be involved in nine downtown graffiti cases was arrested around 1 a.m. Sunday, police say.
Officers started searching for the man early Sunday after a witness reported the incidents, said Lincoln Police Capt. David Beggs. They arrested Nathan L. Williamson of 3156 Alden Ave.
Williamson was painting the side of the Federal Building garage at N Street and Centennial Mall, Beggs said. Officers searched him and found ten cans of spray paint in his backpack as well as the two cans Williamson was carrying.<!–[if gte vml 1]> <![endif]–><!–[if !vml]–>
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In all, Williamson is suspected of causing about $1,300 in damage to properties Downtown.
Beggs said he did not believe the graffiti was gang related.
Sunday afternoon, Williamson was no longer in custody at the Lancaster County Jail, where he was taken after being arrested. *Click here for the “Graffiti JUSTICE” page on this site for similar articles
Battling against graffiti daubers
By Dee Adcock
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SHOPKEEPER Shaun Samways is tackling the graffiti menace that spoils an arcade in Dorchester – but fears he faces a losing battle.
Mr Samways, a tenant of two shops in Hardye Arcade with his pet and garden supplies businesses, said he was fed up with the sight of graffiti on a wall nearby.
He said he tried to mask some of it by putting pots of plants in front during shop opening hours.
Now he is planning to obliterate the graffiti by painting over the area and plans to monitor what happens afterwards.
Mr Samways said: “This area is on the side wall between my Potting Shed shop and Country Casuals next door.
“I try to hide the graffiti with stock but you can’t obscure it. It’s too big.
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“The trouble is that it’s just like a blank canvas for the graffiti artists.
“They can’t resist it. But I’m going to paint it over and then keep a log of what happens. I expect there’ll be graffiti there again the next day.”
He said graffiti appeared 48 hours after a previous clean-up.
Mr Samways said: “It’s only a small number of people who do this but it shows a total lack of respect for other people’s property.
“I’d like to see people who are put on community orders doing this sort of work as their contribution to the community.
“I’m trying to run a business here and I don’t have much time for this sort of thing.”
He added: “I’m happy with the location and if the Charles Street development ever gets built then it’s going to be an important link to the rest of the town centre. It’s got a lot of potential but nobody wants to see graffiti like this.”
PCSO Mark Wodarek-Black welcomed Mr Samways’s action.
He said: “There’s no doubt that vandals add to graffiti and damage if it isn’t dealt with. The hope is that by cleaning up this area people will respect it and leave it alone.
“Graffiti is unsightly and nobody wants to see it.”
Angelique Howell
Chief Inspector
Graffiti plagues West Bay
Cayman Islands
Published on Monday, August 25, 2008
By Debra Edwards
The continuing spread of graffiti in recent months in the district of West Bay has become a serious concern to police and the local community.
Culprits, who persist in spray-painting symbols, messages and expletives, have continually defaced the walls of private residences and places of business.
Speed limit signs have also been vandalised, with the offenders changing the miles per hour speed.
“West Bay Police Officers and residents of this community, along with the West Bay Beautification Committee, have worked very hard in making West Bay an attractive community. It is very sad to see that not everyone shares the same love and pride as we do for this neighborhood,” said Chief Inspector Angelique Howell, Area Commander of the West Bay District.
“It is a problem that we think is getting bad. Offences like this can be very disheartening, because it paints a bad image of the community,” she added.
Officer Devon Bailey, also of the West Bay District, reiterated Chief Inspector Howell’s concern, saying, “When tourists and people from other districts come to West Bay, we do not want it to be remembered for unsightly graffiti. You would think in this day and age people would be more civilized than to be painting graffiti.”
It is highly probable that juveniles are carrying out the spray painted graffiti. If that is the case then parents may be aware of their children being in possession of these types of spray paint cans, and should question their children on how, where, and why they obtained the paint.
“I am asking the community to be watchful and to report any instances of graffiti to the West Bay Police Station, or to Crime Stoppers,” said Chief Inspector Howell.
“Vandalism is a criminal offence and the culprits will be treated accordingly,” added Chief Inspector.
If caught, offenders will have to pay a fine of up to $500 or spend up to six months in jail.
Anyone with information about crime taking place in the Cayman Islands should contact their local police station, or crime stoppers on 800-8477 (TIPS). All persons calling crime stoppers will remain anonymous. They will become eligible for a reward of up to $1,000, should their information lead to an arrest or recovery of property and drugs.
Anti-tagging wall fights back
By CHARLIE GATES – The Press | Monday, 25 August 2008
Taggers spray walls but now the walls are spraying back in a graffiti-busting innovation that has cleaned up a Christchurch trouble spot.
If a would-be tagger approaches the Stormwall, a patented Kiwi invention, motion sensors activate high-pressure water hoses that drench the tagger and prevent spray paint from sticking to the wall.
The system had eradicated tagging since it was installed on the outside of Southern Monograms on the corner of Colombo and Carlyle streets about six weeks ago.
The first system to be installed in the South Island, the Stormwall had turned the heavily tagged wall overlooking the railway track into a blank canvas.
Warwick Taylor, a director of the company that installed the system, said the Stormwall was similar to a men’s urinal.
“You walk up to it and motion sensors trigger water to spray out in a mist and run down the wall. It is atomised water so if they did get paint on the wall, it is very easy to remove in the morning,” he said.
Taylor said the wall was now graffiti-free.
The system was invented by Hawkes Bay resident Tony Bicknell. Twenty systems have already been installed in the North Island.
Bicknell’s business partner, Patrick Bridgeman, said the system stopped graffiti.
“All the walls we have in place are just never tagged. They have a go once and they get water sprayed on them so they do not come back,” he said.
However, a video demonstrating the Stormwall on YouTube has attracted the ire of the tagging community.
Comments on the film boldly claim the system will never stop taggers.
“Dude, I paint when it rains, that won’t work,” said one post.
“Graffiti cannot be stopped,” proclaimed another.
The Christchurch City Council spent $46,900 on graffiti removal in July and spent $1.2 million last financial year.
A new law that raises the maximum fine for tagging from $200 to $2000 and bans the sale of spray cans to people under 18 was passed in June. *Click here for the “Graffiti COST” page on this site for similar articles
An arrest for graffiti attacks
24 August 2008
A BRISTOL man has been arrested by Portishead police in connection with a number of graffiti attacks in the town.
The De Baron tag, well-known in the Bristol area for more than a year, recently began appearing on privately owned walls and buildings throughout Portishead.
Sergeant Terry Scoble from the town’s police station said: “A 30-year-old male has been arrested in connection with the graffiti attacks in Portishead and in excess of 30 more attacks in south Bristol.
“Computer and technical equipment has been seized and the man has been released on bail pending further investigations.”
Earlier this year, Portishead police won the regional heat of the prestigious national Tilley awards for its anti-graffiti scheme.
Operation Jacket involved stamping out tagging in the town, which cost North Somerset Council an estimated £30,000 ($60,000 US) to clean up.
Sgt Scoble added: “Portishead police will not tolerate graffiti and we will continue our robust response to anyone defacing the town. *Click here for the “Graffiti JUSTICE” page on this site for similar articlesandhere for “Graffiti COST”
Graffiti not being deterred by efforts
By CHRISTOPHER RUVO
The Intelligencer
While surveillance cameras and increased police patrols have reduced criminal mischief at Veterans Memorial Park in Upper Moreland, graffiti continues to be a problem, officials said.
Police last week reported two new graffiti jobs, one at the pavilion, the other on a bench at the park, which until earlier this month was known as War Memorial Park.
The new reports add to the year’s running tally of at least 10 graffiti incidents, which so far have cost the township upwards of $1,000 in cleanup bills, an official said.
“We have to pay for the man-hours and the paint when we have these incidents,” said Pat Stasio, Upper Moreland’s director of parks and recreation.
The good news is that the township is on pace to spend much less than it used to annually before cameras and increased patrols started. Previously, the annual vandalism bill was $6,000 to $8,000 and the criminal mischief at the park was worse than just graffiti.
“They used to break lights and destroy trash cans and damage the hockey rink,” said Stasio, adding the township is in the process of “continuing to clean up the park and make it as user-friendly as possible.”
The graffiti incidents reported this year range from unintelligible markings made in marker to more elaborate symbols and “tags,” some of them gang related. Usually the pavilion is the target.
On April 18, an officer discovered a Latin Kings gang symbol spray-painted in yellow on the pavilion and two smaller markings signifying the gang done in permanent marker.
Twelve days later, it was reported that surveillance cameras recorded two unidentifiable males, one in a yellow hoodie, spray-painting the pavilion. Their handiwork included a three-pointed crown, a Latin Kings symbol.
Both police and Stasio doubt real gang members produced the symbols.
In June, an officer found white paint splattered on the pavilion, the hockey rink surface and a goal in the rink. In May, police discovered “Northwest Philly” painted in blue paint on a park bench. “NWP” and undecipherable designs were painted in the same blue on the pavilion.
In other incidents, vandals used markers to scribble words and designs, from profanities to the seemingly innocuous like “black top.” The two most recent defacements, which were discovered on Thursday and Aug. 16, were done in marker.
Christopher Ruvo can be reached at 215-345-3147 *Click here for the “Graffiti COST” page on this site for similar articles
Berlin’s Holocaust Memorial Vandalized With Nazi Graffiti
Berlin’s memorial to the Jews murdered during the Nazi era was vandalized Saturday, Aug. 23, only a week after a similar memorial to gays and lesbians persecuted by the Nazis was damaged, police reported.
In Germany’s national memorial to European Jewish victims of the Holocaust, seven of the steles that make up the monument were desecrated with 11 Nazi swastikas in red and black paint.
Federal investigators have taken over the case.
On Saturday last week, a viewing window was broken and a fence pushed over at the monument for homosexuals, located across the street from Jewish memorial.
In response to last week’s act of vandalism, 200 people protested in front of the gay and lesbian monument on Monday. *Click here for the “Graffiti VIOLENCE-HATE” page on this site for similar articles
Graffiti found near vet memorial
By Stephen Graff
By The Denver Post
Article Last Updated: 08/23/2008 06:29:31 PM MDT
At about 8 a.m. this morning, Tim Drago’s fears were realized.
The Gulf War veteran and founder of the Colorado Veterans Monument in Civic Center Park found two graffiti messages sprayed in bright purple on the walkways surrounding the monument.
“I was afraid something might happen and hoping it wouldn’t,” Drago said.
One message read, “I SAW, I FELT, PAIN!” on the ground, just west of the monument. The other one, written next to a rose garden, read, “OH, By the way “NONE” of us like rose’s.”
“(It) indicated to me that they don’t like veterans,” Drago said.
He tried unsuccessfully to remove the markings and they were still visible Saturday evening.
Drago isn’t sure who defaced the area, but asked Re-create 68 protesters who were in the park Saturday if they knew anything.
“We had absolutely nothing to do with that,” said Glenn Spagnuolo, co-founder of Re-create 68.
A documentary film crew from Nashville, Tenn., were also at the park Saturday to film Re-create 68. The crew, who’s been following the protest group around for two months, said it’s not their style.
“I would be shocked if they did it,” said Todd Cassetty, who is part of the film crew.
*Click here for the “Graffiti VIOLENCE-HATE” page on this site for similar articles
Skate Park shut to clean a new batch of graffiti
By Mark Storer
Correspondent
Saturday, August 23, 2008
Skateboarders arriving at the skate park in Camarillo’s Pleasant Valley Park were disheartened to find it closed Friday morning.
Workers with the Pleasant Valley Recreation and Park District were cleaning the course after the latest in a string of tagging incidents, officials said. The tagging graffiti included swastikas, obscene references and personal insults.
“It’s been closed a number of times recently,” said Daryl Wagar, park superintendent. “We called the police twice (Thursday) because of problems with some of the skaters here.”
According to Wagar, “It’s not the kids who are the problem. We’re getting a lot of skaters in here between the ages of 18 and 30, really, and they’re not the regulars. They’ve been rude to our staff, spitting at them and yelling at them, and it’s that group that is the problem.”
Greg Stuart, president of the Boys & Girls Club of Camarillo, agreed. The skate park is directly behind the club’s facilities.
“We’ve noticed it’s not the regulars that seem to be the problem,” Stuart said. “I’ve been seeing a lot of people — not really kids, but older guys — who aren’t regulars around the park.”
Besides the graffiti, an oak tree adjacent to the skate park has become festooned with tennis shoes. Some 22 pairs were visible Friday.
The shoes have been there for some weeks, with new ones being added all the time.
“It takes a lift to get them out of there and we don’t own one of those,” said Wagar. “We’re spending between 12 and 15 thousand dollars a year on repairs to vandalism to these parks.”
Pleasant Valley Skate Park is not the only vandalism target.
At Mission Oaks Park, which was designed with metal blocks and guards on the cement to prevent skateboarding, vandals have used tools to remove the metal barriers, Wagar said.
At Pleasant Valley Skate Park, vandals have used tools to cut portions out of the wrought-iron fence that surrounds the course.
The June 14 death of Camarillo resident Andrew Singler, 18, a skate park user, led to tagging and graffiti in memoriam to him. Still visible on the course Friday was a message to Singler from a fellow skater. “Enjoy Heaven,” it read.
Park District officials said they and the Singler family are cooperating on ideas for combating the graffiti.
“We want to find ways to prevent this stuff from happening,” said Dan LaBrado, general manager of the district. “We’re spending a lot of money on repairs, and that can’t continue.”
The district and the Singlers are working to create a community forum on skateboarding, he said.
“We hope the community can help us.”
District officials also have been working in cooperation with the Camarillo Police Department to help make arrests and stop vandalism. A police spokesman was not immediately available for comment Friday.
Wagar said the district’s new Park Patrol program has been helpful, too.
“We’ve got more of a presence out here than we used to,” he said. *Click here for the “Graffiti COST” page on this site for similar articles
Blotter: Graffiti painter pays price
07:27 AM CDT on Friday, August 22, 2008
By Donna Fielder / Staff Writer
A college student whose self-styled artwork has defaced buildings and other surfaces in Denton was trying to make amends Thursday by agreeing to paint over graffiti he painted on the back of a storage building in the 2700
Denton police Detective Orlando Hinojosa said he would charge the student with one misdemeanor count of vandalism, and the student would cover over any mess that he made.
“He said he was just bored,” Hinojosa said.
A witness had called the police department’s graffiti hotline after watching the student wield a can of spray paint on an electrical box near a restaurant. The witness watched him drive away and wrote down his license plate number. Hinojosa contacted the student, who said he “tagged” the surface with his nickname. The nickname matched other graffiti around Denton.
But he is only one of several vandals currently spray-painting walls and utility fixtures in Denton.
Recently, vandals covered walls and parts of buildings all over the Robert E. Lee Elementary School campus. Hinojosa is looking for someone with information about that incident.
“We need for more people to use that hotline when they see someone defacing someone else’s property,” Hinojosa said.
The number is 940-484-5865, or tipsters can reach Hinojosa at 940-349-7974. *Click here for the “Graffiti JUSTICE” page on this site for similar articles
Was Novato’s worst offender graffiti artist nearly nabbed?
By Tim Omarzu
Managing Editor
Wednesday, August 20, 2008 2:02 PM PDT
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COURTESY PHOTO “Poet” left his tag on the McClay Bridge in April; it was removed by Greg Tognotti, Novato’s graffiti abatement worker, who has cleaned up “Poet” graffiti at least 100 times around Navato.
On Tuesday, Aug. 12, an Elmwood Court resident caught a teen spray-painting the word “Poet” on a wall.
The youth got away after the resident got a good look at him and got his first name — which may or may not have been his real name.
That may be the closest that anyone has gotten to catching Novato’s most prolific graffiti artist. Poet has left his tag at least 100 times around town, said Greg Tognotti, the city’s full-time graffiti abatement worker.
“He’s my number one arch-enemy,” Tognotti said. “I’ve been following that guy for the last eight months, all over. He’s really random. I can’t figure out his pattern.”
Tognotti thinks that Poet has even taunted him, leaving the message, “Don’t stop now, kid, the chase is on.”
The Elmwood Court resident called Novato Police after the Aug. 12 encounter and gave the following description of the tagger: a white male with black hair, 16 or 17 years old, 5 feet, 4 inches tall with a thin build.
Based on the description, police showed the resident a photo line-up of suspects — but none of them was Poet, said Novato police Lt. Dave Jeffries.
Even with a positive match, it might be hard pinning all 100 of the Poet tags around town on one person, Jeffries said.
He made an analogy: “Trying to get a positive match with handwriting is difficult; try it with spray paint.”
Novato police Sgt. Earl Titman added, “It could be (one) guy. (But) there could be copycats out there.”
Tognotti predicted that Poet will come to justice sooner or later.
“Someday he’ll get busted,” he said.
NYC pair eyed in European graffiti spree
BY ROCCO PARASCANDOLA
- 7:33 PM EDT, August 20, 2008
They are the Bonnie and Clyde of the graffiti world, and now a Queens woman and her boyfriend have been arrested, suspected of causing more than $100,000 in damages at transit facilities around the city, Newsday has learned.
This undated photo of a subway car bearing the graffiti tag “Ether” was released by the New York City Police Department on Thursday, Aug. 21, 2008. Police believe the tag belongs to native New Yorker Jim Clay Harper, who along with his girlfriend, Danielle Bremner, left his on train cars in London; Madrid, Spain; Paris; Frankfurt and Hamburg, Germany, and elsewhere. The couple was arrested separately at New York and Chicago airports on charges stemming from their domestic graffiti activities, as they returned home from Europe. They could face similar charges in Europe if the NYPD goes through with their plans to share intelligence on them with various European police agencies. (AP Photo/NYPD)
This undated photo of a New York Transit Authority Number 1 subway car bearing the graffiti tag “Dani” was released by the New York City Police Department on Thursday, Aug. 21, 2008. Police believe the tag belongs to Danielle Bremner, who along with her boyfriend, Jim Clay Harper, left her mark on train cars in London; Madrid, Spain; Paris; Frankfurt and Hamburg, Germany, and elsewhere. The couple were arrested separately at New York and Chicago airports on charges stemming from their domestic graffiti activities as they returned home from Europe. They could face similar charges in Europe if the NYPD goes through with their plans to share intelligence on them with various European police agencies. (AP Photo/NYPD,)
But the suspects problems aren’t just local: the couple just got back from three months in Europe, where they dined, partied – and tagged their way through 10 or so countries, according to law enforcement sources.
“They had a mad bombing trip,” one source said.
At least one of those countries France has expressed an interest in prosecuting the duo, the source said.
One of the suspects, Danielle Bremner, 26, of Woodside, apparently knew she was being sought and flew from Europe to Chicago, where authorities there arrested her Tuesday night.
Her boyfriend and alleged accomplice, Jim Clay Harper, 23, who is from Chicago but had been living in Queens, left Europe with Bremner and was arrested at JFK International Airport, also on Tuesday night.
“We consider her the number one active female tagger, possibly in the country, definitely in New York,” the source said. “He’s a big player. He just hasn’t been caught. Now he has, and his status in the graffiti world will definitely go up.”
Both Bremner, whose tag is “Utah” but sometimes uses the tags “Dani” and “Erin,” and Harper, known as “Ether,” are in the NYPD’s book of most notorious taggers.
When Bremner is extradited back to New York she faces criminal mischief and burglary charges in a Manhattan indictment accusing them of tagging train yards in Inwood and Harlem. Harper was arraigned Wednesday, plead not guilty and was released. He and his lawyer could not be reached for comment.
Sources said both suspects face further charges for a number of other acts of graffiti in all the boroughs, except Staten Island – including tagging 8 subway cars in Manhattan and about 20 acts of vandalism in the Bronx.
“They’ve been prolific,’ a second source said. “It’s what they do.”
It was unclear if New York City Transit officials were aware of the arrest, but Charles Seaton, a transit spokesman, said the agency was glad police are intent on going after those who tag subway cars and rail yards.
“We applaud the efforts the NYPD is making,” Seaton said. “Graffiti vandalism is ugly to look at and expensive to deal with.”
A woman at Bremner’s family’s home in Bayside hung up on a reporter, refusing comment.
Her history is well-documented, however. In 2006, she was arrested for graffiti in Toronto while attending York University. Sources said she was convicted and had to pay restitution. She also paid $8,000 in restitution for a Boston conviction, sources said, and she is wanted in that city because she never appeared at her arraignment after she was arrested on 18 charges for allegedly making graffiti at a railyard.
Harper, sources said, is part of MUL — for Made You Look – a graffiti crew with roots in Chicago and several other states. *Click here for the “Graffiti JUSTICE” page on this site for similar articles.
Four Arrested In Alleged Graffiti Spree
Roseville police arrested four teens this morning on felony charges in connection with a graffiti spree.
By KFBK NewsTeam
Wednesday, August 20, 2008
It started when a resident near Cirby Way and Sunrise Avenue saw two people writing graffiti on a sound wall near Oakmont High School around 12:30 this morning and called police. The suspects fled as officers arrived but were quickly located. Investigators found graffiti damage estimated in the thousands of dollars on Cirby Way, Kensington Drive and in Eastwood Park. Arrested on felony vandalism and conspiracy charges were 19-year-old Brandon Benvenuti, 18-year-old Jerin Miller, 18-year-old Moses Rodriguez and a 16-year-old. *Click here for the “Graffiti JUSTICE” page on this site for similar articles.
SIUC police dealing with graffiti
BY ADAM TESTA, The Southern
Wednesday, August 20, 2008 5:37 PM CDT
CARBONDALE — Three cases of graffiti on Southern Illinois University Carbondale campus buildings have been reported in the last week.Graffiti with the letters CBN was found on Altgeld Hall on Saturday, and more graffiti was found on Micron Lab and Davies Gymnasium on Monday and Tuesday, respectively, according to the SIUC Department of Public Safety.At least one of the latest two incidents also included the letters CBN, said Todd Sigler, director of the Department of Public Safety. It is believed the letters stand for “color by number,” but officials aren’t sure of its complete meaning.Sigler believes the two are related, at least in design if not in suspect, but the third is an isolated incident. Graffiti is “something we contend with periodically” but not a significant problem, he said.“It’s an added expense to clean it up, and we hope people would take pride in their campus,” Sigler said.Damage to walkway lights and panels at the SIUC’s south overpass was also reported earlier this week.
Graffiti program will make taggers pay
Article Launched: 08/19/2008 05:12:41 PM PDT
LOS ANGELES COUNTY – A graffiti enforcement program that will allow for a civil process in addition to the existing criminal procedure was approved today and becomes effective September 18.
The new ordinance allows the county to declare itself a “graffiti victim” and recover costs for graffiti abatement – including enforcement, removal and damages.
The County can recoup unpaid costs through liens or special assessments against the property of the graffiti offender or guardian of offending minor.
The cost of graffiti abatement has been re-assessed to reflect the true cost to taxpayers for removal, repair or replacement of defaced property to $522; and $665 for enforcement per incident in County areas.
Adult graffiti offenders are subject to a civil citation issued by the Sheriff, and administered through the County’s Ombudsman for fines up to $1,000.
LA County to hold taggers’ parents liable for graffiti
The Associated Press
Article Launched: 08/19/2008 06:55:23 PM PDT
LOS ANGELES—Parents will soon be held liable if their children are caught tagging property in Los Angeles County, according to an anti-graffiti ordinance approved Tuesday by the Board of Supervisors.
The ordinance will go into effect Sept. 18 and will allow the county to recover costs of removing graffiti. The county can also recoup unpaid costs by placing a lien on the property belonging to a tagger’s parent.
Parents can expect to pay hundreds of dollars if held responsible for their children’s graffiti. According to the ordinance, graffiti costs more than $520 to remove, and another $665 to apprehend each culprit.
Supervisor Gloria Molina said the measure is a “wake-up call” to parents and will strengthen the county’s pilot anti-graffiti program.
The program was initiated earlier this year after two people were killed for confronting taggers in Pico Rivera. In about six months, the project arrested 168 taggers, including 113 minors, who caused an estimated $345,000 in damage in the Pico Rivera and Whittier areas, Molina said.
Arrests in Sheboygan War Memorial Graffiti
By Jay Sorgi
Story Updated: Aug 18, 2008
Sheboygan police have brought two men into custody in the case of vandalism of a Hmong War Memorial.
Sheboygan Police Lieutenant Scott Middlestadt said an 18-year old man, someone who was with him, and 13 other people may be involved in the graffiti at Deland Park and other taggings
It happened two weeks ago, and the incidents went over a ten-day period.
In that time, people found graffiti on houses, garages, park benches, municipal buildings, and a car along with the war memorial.
Middlestadt states officers took photos of a graffiti and made a link to a known gang member.
They then executed search warrants at the home of the gang member, and they discovered video of the taggings.
*Click here for the “Graffiti JUSTICE” page on this site for similar articlesGraffiti Ordinance to Be Discussed
Posted: Aug 14, 2008 05:41 PM
Updated: Aug 17, 2008 05:35 PM
Aman Chabra Reporting
Graffiti has traditionally signified the decay of a community. However, with the continuing growth of Idaho Falls, law enforcement hopes to be able to eliminate graffiti much quicker and easier than before.
A new ordinance being discussed Thursday night by the Idaho Falls City Council will determine how fast officials will be able to remove graffiti from any building around town.
Under the current system, law enforcement must first contact property owners before removing any markings no matter how unsightly. However, if passed, the new ordinance will allow them to bypass that step, as long as it has not been removed within 48 hours of its initial appearance.
“I think it can be a good thing,” said Sandra Reddish who lives in an apartment complex frequently hit by taggers, “I think every day that it’s there it provides the reinforcement that the gang is looking for of the fact that they are being empowered with what they’ve done. So, the faster it can be removed, I think that would be a good thing.”
Law enforcement says if unsightly graffiti can only lead to worse things for a community. It also gives taggers more recognition for their accomplishment.
City Police Chief, Steve Roos says that if a city is allowed to decay with graffiti, then worse crimes are bound to happen.
The City Council is scheduled to meet Thursday evening to discuss the issue at their chambers in downtown Idaho Falls.
Gang Members Charged in Sheriff’s Car Graffiti
Posted on Friday, 1 of August , 2008 at 8:25 pm
TAMPA, FLA—Detectives from the Hillsborough Sheriff’s office arrested three admitted gang members this week in connection with graffiti being sprayed on a sheriff’s cruiser and on eight travel trailers on property along Interstate 4.
Charged were John Philip Souza, 18; Ryan C. Campbell, 18, and Joshua T. Jordan, 19, all from Plant City.
Souza and Jordan are charged with burglary, felony criminal mischief and misdemeanor criminal mischief; Campbell is charged with burglary and felony criminal mischief Arrested for spraying graffiti on Sheriff’s cruiser and private property
Police said the three suspects entered the property of Bates RVs at 4656 McIntosh Road on July 27 and sprayed gang graffiti on eight travel trailers partially buried in the ground along Interstate 4. On July 10, suspects Souza and Jordan allegedly spray painted gang graffiti, the initials DSM, on a sheriff’s marked cruiser in the eastern Hillsborough County area.
The suspects admitted they are members of the Dirty South Mafia. All were taken to the Hillsborough County Jail. 8-1-08*Click here for the “Graffiti JUSTICE” page on this site for similar articles
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