By Raul Hernandez, rhernandez@VenturaCountyStar.com
September 7, 2004

Oxnard Detective Brian Bishop looks a lot like the people he arrests for illegally spray painting walls, highway bridges, freeway signs, fences, billboards, houses and commercial buildings.

The tall, wiry detective looks much younger than some of the graffiti vandals he hunts down. There are the dark, stylish sunglasses sitting on his forehead, a thin goatee and black hair that is very closely cropped -- nearly bald. What sticks out the most, however, is the attitude he flashes: Nobody comes to his house -- the city of Oxnard -- to leave behind ugly paint blotches, scrawlings and designs.

"I want my house to be in order, you know what I mean?" said Bishop. "And I think that is how everybody in the city feels, especially the Police Department. We want our house to look nice. You are not going to have shoes laying around your house and dirty shoes and stuff when company comes over."

One graffiti vandal can create eyesores throughout a city. This causes hundreds of thousands of dollars in damage to property, lowers real estate values and leaves negative lasting impressions on visitors.

"Our taxes are going toward graffiti cleanup," Bishop said. "Nobody likes graffiti. Nobody wants to see it."

Still, there are bored youngsters, gang members, tagging crews and self-proclaimed graffiti artists who use spray paint on houses, offices, shops and public structures. Cleaning it up cost cities thousands of dollars. Oxnard recently budgeted about $400,000 this fiscal year for its graffiti-removal program.

140 crews, 200 solo vandals

Bishop, Oxnard's one-man graffiti cop, is up against many spray-paint criminals, some who come from as far as Simi Valley to vandalize property.

He estimates there are about 140 tagging crews and more than 200 solo graffiti vandals in Oxnard alone.

"It's big," Bishop said. "It averages out maybe eight, nine, 10 guys per crew ... a lot of people."

In this mix are "one-time" taggers, who vandalize once and stop doing it, he noted.

Bishop asked that his photograph not be taken or age given for this report because of the work he does.

Oxnard is not the only place where taggers and other vandals strike.

Bernardo Gonzales, supervising deputy district attorney with the Juvenile Division, said graffiti vandalism is a "huge problem" in Ventura County.

"It is a problem you can see wherever you drive, practically," he said.

Those younger than 18 arrested for vandalism end up in the juvenile courts.

Gonzales said young offenders can get up to a year in confinement for minor graffiti crimes. This can result in probation, court-ordered restitution and community service. It depends on each case, and the judge weighs the home situation, the circumstances surrounding the crime and the minors' needs, Gonzales said.

So far this year, 148 juveniles have been prosecuted on a total of 461 counts of graffiti vandalism, he said.

"There are a few individuals that are doing a lot of damage," Gonzales said.

Problem rising in county

Traditionally, Oxnard had more graffiti criminals than other cities, but this has changed, he said.

"It's all over the county now," Gonzales said.

Last year, the District Attorney's Office prosecuted 21 adults for graffiti-related vandalism, said Bill Redmond, supervising deputy district attorney of the General Felony and Misdemeanor Division. He said adult offenders are usually sentenced to three years probation and ordered to pay restitution.

In addition, they are given five to 20 days of work release, which means they have to pay $25 daily to clean beaches, parks and highways, Redmond said.

Probation 'search terms'

Usually, graffiti probationers have "search terms" tacked on to their probation. This allows authorities to stop and search probationers on the streets or their homes to make sure they don't have spray-paint cans or markers, say officials.

Also, the parents of the juvenile offenders can be ordered to attend parenting classes, Gonzales said.

Bishop said some parents lack good child-rearing skills.

"This one guy told his mom, 'Hey, I am going out with my friends tagging.' She said, 'OK,' " Bishop said. "She knows he's a tagger, but she's got, like, other kids. So there is one less kid to deal with."

Other parents are in complete denial even after they are confronted with a lot of evidence on graffiti crimes, Bishop said.

"They say, 'It wasn't my kid, not my kid, no,' " he said. "They get mad at you because you arrested their kid."

Graffiti has absorbed Bishop to the point where words don't have the obvious meanings anymore.

"Tagging and gang graffiti, it is a form of communication," Bishop said.

"It's silly, but to them it makes complete sense. So now I have to think like them to understand them. I look at words these days, a normal word in the English language, I look at it and say, 'I know that guy.' "

Although Bishop can read graffiti like an archeologist deciphering hieroglyphics on an Egyptian tomb, he knows he is fighting a war that he'll never win.

"It's a game, and I am not going to win," he said. "I can't. There are hundreds of active hard-core taggers, not to mention all the other idiots that are out there tagging, and there is me."