Police, city taking anti-graffiti message to the streets BY CHRISTOPHER BURBACH

WORLD-HERALD STAFF WRITER

Omaha police and prosecutors plan to launch an anti-graffiti initiative aimed at busting perpetrators of the neighborhood scourge, cleaning up trouble spots quickly and deterring potential vandals.

The effort will focus on neighborhoods in the Omaha Police Department's southeast precinct, south of Dodge Street and east of 42nd Street. That's where the most graffiti occurs.

Police will run special operations, including training a new surveillance video camera on frequent targets, Police Capt. John Friend said.

Police and City Prosecutor Martin Conboy plan to visit middle and high schools to discourage students from doing graffiti. Police and prosecutors also will recruit volunteers for a community graffiti cleanup, and they hope to "re-energize" neighborhood groups to be vigilant.

Conboy said gang graffiti has increased since a lull that followed the city's last special enforcement initiative in 2000 and 2001. That effort produced about 150 arrests and numerous convictions, many of which resulted in jail sentences of five to 30 days.

Friend said he, Conboy and others recently met to discuss what more the city could do.

"The graffiti van can't keep up," Friend said. "We need to do as much as we can to prevent it."

The city's graffiti van is used to paint over graffiti.

Several businesses, garages and houses in neighborhoods south of downtown were hit during the weekend.

"We just covered the two spots here last Thursday after the city didn't come out, and then we came in Monday, and they were hit again," said Chris Brooks, office manager of River City Barricade Co. at Sixth and Pierce Streets.

When baseball players took the field for some spring ball Tuesday at Lynch Park, 20th and Center Streets, they passed a proliferation of graffiti on the park's maintenance building and picnic shelter. The building was coated on all four sides with layers of gang monikers and obscenities, which police said probably dated to the winter months.

Conboy said he is unaware of other crimes connected with the graffiti. But there's always a concern that it will breed more crime, he said, especially when the vandals cross out each other's signs to send signals of disrespect.

Regardless of whether officials track other crime to graffiti, it creates the perception that neighborhoods are unsafe and frightens some neighbors, especially older people, Conboy said.

"That's unacceptable that people should have to live in that kind of fear," he said.

Independent of the initiative, alert police nabbed three teenagers Tuesday night, Friend said.

"It was just good police work," he said.

Lt. Doug Cook, Sgt. Angie Diehm and Officer Tom Dignan made the busts after police noticed a car parked near 24th Street and Deer Park Boulevard with one person inside, the engine running and the windows fogged, Friend said. Police stopped the car nearby after two people ran to the car and it took off.

The officers found fresh spray paint on three nearby businesses, and cans of spray paint in the car. They cited two teenage boys and a teenage girl on suspicion of destruction of property.

Convictions carry maximum sentences of up to six months in jail, a $500 fine and an order to clean up the graffiti. Conboy said he and police will give that information to students when they visit schools.

"We'll talk to them about how graffiti affects the community as well as how it can affect them personally if they get caught," he said.

Conboy also hopes to encourage law-abiding students to discourage their peers from painting graffiti.

"Ninety-nine percent of these kids are good kids," he said. "They don't want people to assume all kids are doing it."