Business owner’s frustration over graffiti taggings grows

By Rob Baxter
ROCKFORD REGISTER STAR
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BELVIDERE — For the eighth time in five weeks, a downtown business owner’s building has been tagged with gang graffiti.

Greg Fleming said he has tried bright lighting on the exterior of Fleming Heating and Air Conditioning at 422 Buchanan St., but to no avail.

Last year at his business, somebody placed a rag into his car’s gas tank and lit it. It luckily went out, he said.

“I understand that the Police Department can’t put somebody out there 24 hours,” Fleming said. “That’s unrealistic. But it’s a problem. It takes two coats of paint and eventually it will start peeling off.”

At least two other downtown businesses were weekend victims of graffiti, Deputy Chief Butch Falkenstein said. Both sit along McInnes Court between South State Street and the Community Building Complex of Boone County.

Police are investigating but usually have to be lucky to find the culprits, Falkenstein said. They are believed to be members of two rival street gangs.

“Members of the two gangs are trying to mark their territory, establish their turf,” Falkenstein saud. “It’s tough to catch them, though, because usually no one sees them doing it.”

Fleming said he is considering buying a camera that would be mounted outside to help catch the individuals in the act, after a suggestion made by Police Chief Jan Noble.

A request for a fence around the back of his property, which borders a railroad track, was denied by the city.

Fleming, whose family business has been in South Beloit since 1964 and in Belvidere since the early 1990s, is beginning to lose patience.

“I have talked to the mayor and everyone, and up front they are nice and all,” Fleming said. “But I am concerned. I rent out other spaces to tenants, too. So far, it appears it’s confined to this building. I don’t know what else to do.”

Added pressure comes from a Belvidere ordinance that requires property owners to paint over or remove the graffiti within 10 days of the occurrence. Those who don’t comply can be ordered to repay cleanup costs if the city has to do it, or they can be fined or forced to clean up graffiti at other locations as part of their punishment.

Fleming’s graffiti had been painted over by Tuesday afternoon.

Police are asking anyone with information on such crimes to call the department at 815-544-9626 or Crime Stoppers at 815-547-7867.