Graffiti spurs collision between two very different worlds
By David Siders
Record Staff Writer
January 21, 2007 6:00 AM
It was Oct. 12, a Thursday, and McClure, 51, was sitting at his desk.
"I was eating lunch, and I heard something right outside," he said.
About this series
Graffiti is seen on buildings, walls, overpasses and many other public places.
Taggers say it’s freedom of expression and their form of art. For others, it’s
vandalism — a costly defacing of property that can cost hundreds of dollars or
more to clean up. Today and Monday, The Record looks at a tagger and the
business owner who decided enough was enough.
It was a scraping "resonating through the cabinets," McClure said.
He walked outside, past the secretary and out the front door. On the sidewalk
was a lanky 16-year-old holding a pen and standing beside his own tag, SINKER1,
and that of his crew, DRK.
"He was caught in the act," McClure said.
McClure, like many business owners who arrive at work each morning to find that
they've been tagged, had plotted and daydreamed and boasted: "Give me one of
these sons of bitches one time, and I'll take their head off."
To the boy, he was curt.
"Excuse me; can I help you?" McClure said.
"No."
"Can I help you?" McClure said.
"No."
Scott Weiss, the boy, stepped back, and then he ran.
He tore north from McClure's woodworking shop, across the Sutter Street Bridge
and left in front of a taco truck. He fled up Hunter Street in his Nikes - size
11 hi-tops pounding past a pile of broken pallets and a rusted 10-speed.
Back at the mill, McClure hopped in his pickup and spun west to Center Street,
then north, then east on Sonora Street to Hunter Street, where he saw Weiss,
exhausted, loping down the sidewalk. He pulled in front of the boy and opened
his door.
"I was coming after him," McClure said. "And it wasn't pretty."
Weiss was flushed and his chest burned. "I was like, 'Oh, damn,' " he said.
"This man ain't quittin'."
McClure said, "Where you going?"
"School."
"No you're not. You're going to jail."
Weiss ran west on Sonora Street. He cut across a vacant lot, past Styrofoam cups
and empty cat-food tins, across Center Street, behind McDonald's and west onto
Lafayette Street. He was wheezing, but he was fast.
He scurried up Madison Street, darted west, then hopped a 6-foot chain-link
fence. He cut through a playground full of students. Then north on Van Buren
Street and across Weber Avenue.
He ran in one door of the Waterfront Warehouse and out another, to a courtyard
where he hid, "being on the safe side, kind of like."
Then he walked across the street to school.
"I figured, if I get to school everything will be OK," Weiss said.
***
Weiss is almost always early to school. Not because he likes class, which is "hella
boring," but because his social existence depends on slouching by the gate for
more than an hour each day, high-fiving his friends and gossiping, shivering and
being cool.
He is respected; he is "ghetto," he said.
At Model Alternative High School, Weiss has class only in the afternoons. His
mornings are consumed by his "normal duties": playing a computer game, "NFL Head
Coach"; eating Wheaties; and watching "The Price is Right" ("Get me a ticket to
'The Price is Right'; I'll win," he said).
On the last day of school before winter vacation, two months after McClure
chased him, Weiss was late to get into the shower and in a rush to "get fitted."
"I don't even know what the heck I'm going to wear today," he said.
The pinstripe blazer in his closet - across the room from his Hot Wheels cars
and Little League trophies - was reserved for appearances at the mall.
"I'm a shopaholic," he said. "I live at the mall."
For school, he pulled on denim Pluggs and a white T-shirt. He spread gel onto
his red hair and came downstairs in a fog of his brother's cologne.
In his hand was a red gift bag. Inside was a present for Reina Melendez, a
friend.
The gift was a personalized ornament and a photo album. He regretted not getting
her an Elmo doll, which is her favorite and is cool. It cost $15, though. Too
much.
At 11:10 a.m., two hours before school, Weiss slogged north from his South
Sutter Street house and past Union Planing Mill. He spent $1 on two packages of
Skittles, and on the sidewalk he told a pit bull, "Shut up."
He fiddled with the bag in his hand.
"If she don't come," Weiss said, "I'm going to be hella mad."
Melendez was not at the gate when Weiss arrived. Valerie Nuñez and her friends
were, however.
"Hey, Scotty," she said.
Weiss chewed Skittles and sat on the hood of a car. A friend had half a
cigarette, and Weiss crossed the street to watch him smoke it.
Finally, at 12:30 p.m, there was some "action." Five kids had been pulled over
in a white Grand Prix. Weiss went around the block to see. The driver was 15 and
had neither a license nor a permit, one of the driver's friends said.
But the traffic stop dragged on, and that, too, became "hella boring."
The bell rang, and Weiss went to class. A movie was on, and a girl asked the
teacher for her grade.
Weiss asked: "What do I have, an F?"
The teacher, Susan Diohep, nodded.
Weiss splayed his hands on his desk, rested his chin and watched "Sweet Home
Alabama." He put the bag for Melendez by his chair.
When Weiss saw her in his next class, he pitched the bag to her and shrugged.
The 16-year-old girl hugged him.
***
Weiss never wanted to walk past Union Planing Mill. He didn't want to have moved
here from Hayward, or to have a stepfather in prison and a mother who doesn't
understand that the reason his father can't call often is because he drives a
bus in Las Vegas and is so busy at work.
"My life is hell," Weiss said, and he meant it.
But it would be worse if he was caught. Already he'd been found with marijuana
and, about a week later, a box cutter at school.
"I figured, if I get to school everything will be OK," Weiss said. "My
assumptions were wrong."
What Weiss did not know was that McClure already had caught him. McClure had
seen Weiss jump the fence, and a supervisor had directed him to the office.
McClure described the boy he was chasing: "Caucasian. 16. Reddish hair. Backpack
on. Runs fast." The vice principal who heard his report pointed in a binder to a
photograph of Weiss.
Police were called, and Weiss was arrested. McClure returned to work.
That afternoon a police car arrived at the mill. An officer stepped out, and
McClure could see Weiss handcuffed in the back.
The officer wanted a damage estimate.
McClure said, "Why?"
If the damage was $500 or more, the officer explained, Weiss would be booked
into Juvenile Hall. If it was less than $500, he would be cited and go home.
"The policeman, he didn't care one way or another," McClure said.
McClure did. And, he said, "I was still pretty pissed off." In any event, he
believed it would soon be over between him and the boy.
It wasn't.
Vandalism victim offers teen a chance at redemption
By David Siders
Record Staff Writer
January 22, 2007 6:00 AM
STOCKTON - The sermon at Central Valley Baptist Church on a recent Sunday was
about salvation. Scott Weiss bowed his head.
"We are falling very short," the Rev. Bob Cooney preached. "We ought to be
praying for our young people that they would seek God in everything they do. ...
When we mess up, we let down the Holy Father."
Weiss had messed up. On Oct. 12, after the 16-year-old put graffiti on the wall
of Union Planing Mill, he sat handcuffed in the back of a police car while an
officer asked the mill's owner to estimate the cost of erasing it.
About the series
Graffiti is seen on buildings, walls and overpasses and in many other public
places. Taggers say it's freedom of expression and their form of art. To others,
it's vandalism: defacing of property that can cost hundreds of dollars or more
to clean up. Today, The Record ends a series that began Sunday, looking at a
tagger and the business owner who decided enough was enough.
Sunday
A 16-year-old tagger whose "life is hell" and a 51-year-old business owner who
had vowed to deal with taggers in one way -- "take their head off" -- meet for
the first time. But not the last.
Today
A teen troubled by marijuana use and tagging, and the business owner who "saw
something'' in him move down a path with unexpected results.
It was mill owner Dick McClure who had seen Weiss penning graffiti on his wall
that day. He had chased him in a pickup through south Stockton, all the way to
Model Alternative High School. He had pointed out Weiss and had him arrested. He
had wanted to "take (his) head off."
Five hundred dollars or more and Weiss would be booked into Juvenile Hall;
anything less and he'd be sent home, the officer said.
"Four ninety-nine," McClure, 51, said. "Maybe I saw something in him."
Still, he believed it was over between him and the boy.
»»»
Weiss' mother is Tina Torres, 44, a Head Start teacher. A graffiti charge could
derail her son's probation, she knew. Already he had been caught with marijuana
and a box cutter at school, and the court was troubled by the variety, if not
the volume, of his crimes, she said.
"How dare you?" she yelled at him in the car outside school, where an official
had just suspended him. "What were you thinking?"
Torres wanted to see what he had done and to try doing something "to at least
show to his probation officer that, yes, he did this, but he also went back to
correct it."
McClure was out back in the mill when a page came over for him. Lynne Smith, the
office manager, met him at the back door.
"His mother's here," Smith said.
McClure thought, "This could be interesting. ... This could go either way."
In the lobby, he stood behind the counter, half expecting Torres to erupt. The
office staff watched.
But Torres did not erupt. She said she was sorry and that her son was, too. She
said the boy wanted to apologize, and she asked McClure if he would see him.
McClure said, "Yes," and she returned to the car to fetch her son.
Before they went in, she told him: "The man is willing to accept an apology from
you. You're going to go in without an attitude. The man is willing to accept
restitution from you, and whatever it is, you're going to do it."
He skulked in with his head down.
"Look up," his mother scolded.
He did.
He said, "I'm sorry for what I did."
McClure said: "Well, it's like this. You owe me 40 hours of work, and it will be
as such: You will report here at 5:45 in the morning and be ready to start work
at 6 a.m. You'll work until 2:45. If you are even one minute late, the deal is
off."
Weiss was sitting on the curb when McClure arrived the next day, at 5:45 a.m.
Shop foreman Ben Castellon put him to work with Mitchell Harding, a 265-pound,
6-foot-7-inch man. He handed Weiss a broom and told him to sweep.
Weiss was not impressed. He had a "little punk-ass attitude," Castellon said.
And he was tired.
"He came home and went to bed," Torres said. "He was dead tired. I tried to call
him from work. He said, 'I'm sleeping. Leave me alone.'"
Weiss did not want to go back.
"It was more of, 'Why am I here?'" he said. "I could be at home sleeping, doing
my normal duties: eat breakfast, watch TV."
It is unclear what caused Weiss' outlook to change, but it did. Maybe it had to
do with the pressure Castellon put on him or with conversations they had, both
the man and the boy said.
In one of those discussions, Castellon talked to Weiss about his tag, SINKER1.
Weiss said the word sounded right when he came across it while flipping through
a dictionary, looking for a tag.
Castellon told Weiss it was depressing, that sinkers hit bottom.
"I'm at the bottom," Weiss told him.
Woodwork could be his way up, Weiss said.
"I started thinking, 'Huh, maybe this is for a good reason,'" he said. "I'm
pushing a broom. I'm thinking: 'Maybe I'm here for a good reason. Maybe this is
a turning point.'"
»»»
McClure and Castellon are unable to pinpoint exactly what compelled them to do
what they did next.
But Castellon, who said, "I personally don't take a special interest in a lot of
things," had taken a special interest in the boy.
McClure had taken a special interest in him, too. Weiss had spunk, he said.
"Maybe I saw something in him," McClure said. "Maybe I saw something when he
started running."
McClure offered Weiss a job. Minimum-wage work every morning before school. If
he worked hard and stayed out of trouble and off drugs and either graduated or
earned a GED, he could become an apprentice in two years. Four years later, he
could become a journeyman cabinetmaker.
To be a cabinetmaker - to be an apprentice, even - would be to have a union job
with good pay and benefits, and a shirt with a Union Planing Mill logo, the kind
of tag that gets respect, Castellon said.
Weiss' mother cried when she heard. His dad was impressed. He told him to "go
for it," Weiss said. His stepfather was proud, too.
"Don't blow it," his mother said her husband told him.
Weiss very nearly blew it. And in December it was clear that he still could.
First, it would be hard for him not to smoke marijuana. And he would have to
pass a drug test to be employed.
It would be hard to stay out of trouble, too. Too hard, it turned out. He and a
friend were arrested in December. It was the friend who had stolen razors from a
grocery store, but Weiss was there with him, his mother said.
"To be honest with you, my son is a follower," she said. "He tries to fit in."
On top of that, Weiss said he still is "in" with his crew, Down Right Krazy,
although he said he only prints DRK on a wall if he feels he must. If, for
example, "I see an enemy (rival crew) on the wall, I'll pen it out and write
this (DRK)," he said.
He also has adopted a new personal tag, FROST, to replace SINKER1. He said he
puts it only on paper.
"I changed my name," he said. "Of course."
It is unclear how much of what Weiss boasts about is real and how much is
bravado. He does not talk about graffiti in front of McClure; he does not talk
about the mill in school.
Depending on his company, he is either "ghetto" or a "sports kid" or he is
"learning from my mistakes and making my life better."
When the pastor at Manteca's Central Valley Baptist Church asks those who have
been saved to raise their hands, Weiss puts his up. His friends do not see that.
"He's afraid of what other people are going to say," his mother said.
»»»
Jan. 12 was a consequential day. Weiss had court in the morning - there was an
outside chance he would be sent to juvenile hall, his mother feared - and,
later, a drug test.
In court, Weiss was offered a deal. The prosecutor would drop the marijuana,
weapon and theft charges if Weiss would plead guilty to vandalizing Union
Planing Mill, his mother said.
He took the deal.
Then his public defender told the judge about the drug test Weiss would take
within hours and about how Weiss had gone to work for the mill and soon might
return there for good, Torres said.
The judge was encouraged and said "something about the negative to the
positive," Torres said.
He is scheduled to report back to court Feb. 28.
Castellon got the result of the drug test Tuesday.
"He came back clean," Castellon said.
Weiss walked to the mill to meet McClure and Castellon on Thursday.
"Now what's in front of you is what you make of it," McClure said.
Castellon advised Weiss to take his mother out to dinner, and the boy smiled.
"Anything you want to say?" Castellon said.
"I'm ready for work," Weiss said.
"Attaboy," McClure said.
If Weiss is to continue at the mill, to become a union man, he will have to stay
out of trouble, which is not a certain bet. And he is so far behind in school,
he will have to enroll in summer school or adult education if he is to make it.
His mother isn't sure he will.
"I don't know," she said. "I can only say what I hope."
The prospect of failure, she said, is real.
But the prospect of success is real, too, she said.
He is scheduled to start work today.