Getting tough on taggers
Joe Nelson and Gina Tenorio, Staff Writers
Article Launched:08/26/2006 12:00:00 AM PDT
SAN BERNARDINO -
Ray Orozco stood on the shimmering rooftop of the former Bekins Moving and Storage building on E Street. He looked to the west and pointed to Interstate 215.
He knows the many motorists traveling along the freeway, passing through the west end of downtown San Bernardino, have seen the graffiti damage done to the building recently.
Taggers climbed onto a corrugated steel awning and spray-painted their monikers the names or initials they give themselves or their tagging crews on the building's wall. They kicked in chicken wire covering a second-story window, climbed onto the sill and spray-painted above it.
Orozco, manager of Import Glass Corp., said he hadn't seen such vandalism since the business opened in the three-story concrete box building in the 100 block of South E Street three years ago.
"We never really had this until now," Orozco said Thursday as workers for Los Padrinos Youth Services, a nonprofit that contracts with the city for graffiti removal and other services, climbed ladders and took to the wall with paint rollers and brushes.
Orozco said the taggers hit the building the first weekend of March, and he was glad to see that it took the workers only 30 minutes to remove the graffiti.
But he worries about the next time.
"I wouldn't be surprised if they tried to do it again," Orozco said.
One thing Orozco can take comfort in is that he works in a city with one of the most aggressive police graffiti task forces in the nation.
Though composed only of one sergeant and two officers, the Police Department's Graffiti Task Force makes four times the number of arrests per officer than any law-enforcement agency in the country, said Sgt. Dwight Waldo, who supervises the task force and is a nationally renowned graffiti expert who has helped set up more than 200 graffiti programs for law-enforcement agencies nationwide.
"Of all the (law-enforcement agencies) I've been exposed to, even New York City and Los Angeles, we definitely blow them away," Waldo said.
In the nearly 15 years he has worked graffiti crimes in San Bernardino, Waldo has become one of the most well-versed and knowledgeable sources on the issue, a sort of clearinghouse on graffiti crime and trends. He teaches state-certified classes on graffiti enforcement and prevention across the U.S., and his colleagues in law enforcement corroborate his confident assertions.
"He's an excellent resource to all of us working graffiti in California," said Detective Cathy Nelson of the Riverside Police Department, who heads its graffiti task force. "He goes all over. He's highly respected. He works with probation, he works with schools, he does pretty much the whole gamut, and other law-enforcement agencies are trying to follow that style."
Worth the cost
Annually, San Bernardino spends about $750,000 on graffiti removal and enforcement, Waldo said.
The city contracts with Los Padrinos for $500,000 a year, but the services the nonprofit organization provides probably saves it millions of dollars in losses due to graffiti vandalism. The remaining $250,000 is used to pay officer salaries and for police equipment used to thwart graffiti vandalism.
"We try to remove the graffiti within a 24-hour time period. Whoever is doing the writing will eventually stop because whenever they put it up, we take it down," said Santos Pineda, project coordinator for Los Padrinos.
This year has been one of the worst in graffiti vandalism since the early 1990s. So far, Los Padrinos has removed about 1.3 million square feet of graffiti citywide, Waldo said.
"I'm thinking it's a generational thing. I'm wondering if these are the little brothers of guys who were doing it six or seven years ago," Pineda said, adding that the prevailing hip-hop culture and the media's embracing of it may also be a factor in the rising number of tagging incidents.
The Police Department's Graffiti Task Force has a public hot line for citizens who wish to report vandalism, allowing officers and Los Padrinos to promptly respond to locations. Officials say quick removal of graffiti sends a strong message to taggers and gang members: Such defacement will not stay visible for very long in the city.
Data shows that removal of graffiti in 24 to 48 hours of its going up results in a nearly zero rate of recurrence.
It discourages graffiti artists, taggers and gang members from marking walls and other property with spray paint, paint markers, etching tools or slap tags all tools of the subculture because graffiti is something that many taggers and gang members spend a great deal of time putting up, oftentimes taking dangerous measures to do it.
`'If you get it early, you discourage them because their works of art are quickly erased," Mayor Pat Morris said.
Perception is reality
Eighty-five percent of graffiti in the city is done by taggers, typically teenagers or young adults who get a thrill from painting their monikers on public and private property. Gang graffiti is typically turf-related and is hardly seen outside a six- to eight-block radius of a territory a gang claims, Waldo said.
Either way, graffiti gives the perception of gang activity, blight and crime that historically have dealt a whopping blow to the economic vitality of the city and its tax base, Waldo said.
"I run everyday through the north end of our city, and when I see graffiti blight, I get both depressed and angry," Morris said. "The average person does not know that graffiti on the stop sign, on the curb or on the block wall is a tagger's delight or a gangbanger's message. What they do know is it's an unpleasant and displeasing sight. It gives an inference of chaos that all is not orderly in the world."
Robert Fabrizio, owner of Wilshire Capital Group Inc. on Highland Avenue, fell victim to tagging Aug. 6 when someone defaced his business and several others in the Highland Town Shops plaza, causing about $50,000 in damage, he said.
"First of all, it's devastating to drive up and see your building tagged. It's disfigured. You know it's going to keep clients away," Fabrizio said. "You kind of take it personal in a way."
Since then, Fabrizio said his building has been hit twice by taggers, the latest incident occurring Thursday night or early Friday morning.
"I had to paint over graffiti on the back wall this morning," Fabrizio said during a telephone interview Friday. "I was out there this morning with the paint can, trying to match the building again to cover up the tagging."
Fabrizio, who is in the business of providing home loans to people, has another office in the Del Rosa area that he said he is closing.
"People are afraid to go to the office, so I'm relocating," he said.
Collaborative efforts
Other law-enforcement agencies also take proactive steps in curbing graffiti vandalism, which is seen as a stepping stone to bigger crimes primarily burglary, because taggers become so skilled in counter-surveillance.
"It's an eyesore," said Ontario police Officer Anthony Ortiz, who is part of a two-man team that focuses on graffiti calls.
They have worked closely with Waldo, sharing information and tracking the gangs, tagging and party crews.
Soon, the Ontario officers hope to coordinate a monthly meeting that would bring together graffiti law-enforcement officials from the county's West End for even more discussion and information-sharing.
"These kids don't understand what they're doing to their communities," Ortiz said. "Cities spend thousands of dollars a year because of graffiti. It's a waste of resources."
Just like in San Bernardino and most other police departments, photos are taken of the graffiti before it is removed. Monikers are logged and kept on file, which proves to be a valuable asset for follow-up investigations that typically lead to the arrests of suspects.
Notoriety drew the attention of Redlands police to a street gang that began as a tagging crew, said Carl Baker, spokesman for the department.
In January, the city's downtown saw an increase of graffiti vandalism. Police linked it to what was then considered a party crew.
The taggers, which Baker did not identify, have since been classified by Redlands police as a street gang. As soon as the increase in activity became apparent, the department took action, pushing aggressively to connect the vandals to their monikers, Baker said.
Since the first of the year, Redlands police have made more than 60 arrests and slowed, if not completely stopped, the tagging by the newly formed gang, Baker said.
Redlands' and Ontario's vandals are taggers and skate crews while Banning sees a fair share of gang graffiti, said Deputy Police Chief Leonard Purvis.
Purvis considers his department fortunate in that residents are very responsive. Offending scrawls are reported quickly, and the key is to remove them as quickly as possible.
Technology and the future
Efforts are under way to expand graffiti enforcement and prevention.
The Southern California Graffiti Task Force, composed of more than 20 law-enforcement agencies and of which Waldo and Riverside's Nelson are members, meets regularly to discuss the latest trends in graffiti and tagging.
"We're in the process of making it statewide," Nelson said.
The subculture of graffiti has crept into the high-tech world, and webmasters are consigned to put graffiti on Internet web sites. Web sites such as Artcrimes.com, which Waldo said is considered the clearinghouse for graffiti information, and other sites have added fuel to the fire.
"I think it's a big issue we have with technology. And now you have Myspace," Nelson said.
"We had one webmaster we shut down who was working four different Web sites for different people," Waldo said.
Enforcement and prevention
Waldo prides himself on San Bernardino's aggressive stance in graffiti. The city, he said, has built a reputation as a zero-tolerance city, and that if you get caught tagging, there will be consequences.
"Nobody gets a walk with us," Waldo said. "These are pattern crimes and these are pattern criminals. If you let them walk, the message you're sending is that if you're caught in our city, you won't get prosecuted."
Education, he said, is one of the best preventive measures. He said his officers spend about 35 percent of their time at public schools educating children on the consequences of graffiti vandalism.
About 85 percent of youths officers have contact with at the elementary and middle-school levels do not participate in the activity. The remaining 15 percent who do usually go on to more serious crimes and land in the California Youth Authority. It costs $44,000 a year to house a juvenile at the CYA, Waldo said.
"When you look at it, we're saving the state $3,740,000 a year," Waldo said.
Mayor Morris, who was a San Bernardino Superior Court judge for more than 30 years, agrees with the Police Department's tough stance on graffiti.
"Accountability is critical. You find them, You charge them with their vandalism. They're fined," Morris said, adding, "Jail time is appropriate in my view."
TO REPORT GRAFFITI VANDALISM:
San Bernardino Police Department Graffiti Task Force: (909) 384-5658
Los Padrinos Youth Services: (909) 885-7066
San Bernardino Police Dispatch (to report crimes in progress): (909) 383-5311