Taggers Generating
New Rash Of Graffiti

By Kurt Helin
Editor

As different “tagging crews” try to top one another, the amount of graffiti throughout Long Beach has spiked in recent months, leaving both city graffiti clean-up crews and police working overtime to stem the tide.

The majority of the graffiti has been from tagging crews as opposed to gangs, East Division Community Policing Staffing Assistant Kimberly Cloughesy told residents at the Belmont Shore Residents Association meeting last week.

Those crews are made up of mostly boys, usually ages 14-17, who know each other through middle and high schools, she said.

Graffiti started to grow last September, when students went back to school, Cloughesy said. Most of the crews are associated with different high schools in the area — recently Wilson High was hit with about 130 tags done by a crew from another area high school.

She added that having schools out on spring break has added to the time on taggers’ hands, and the amount of tags in the city.

Tagging crew graffiti is different than “gang tags” where gang members are marking territory or sending messages. Rather this more common graffiti is the work of crews whose goal is simply to see how many graffiti “tags” of their logo they can get put up around the city.

That distinction doesn’t make the graffiti itself any less ugly or difficult to remove, she added.

Police have been working on the issue both because it is a crime and because it is seen as a “gateway crime” to burglary and robbery. The skills taggers develop to paint graffiti unnoticed can translate to breaking into cars or homes, or being a lookout for another criminal.

In addition, most of the paint or markers used by taggers is stolen. It is illegal for someone younger than 18 in Long Beach to carry spray paint — or even a permanent marker — because that can lead to graffiti.

Police have put together a database of the crews, areas they operate and, as best as they can tell, who are members.

Usually, graffiti tags just have the two or three letter initials of the tagging crew, although sometimes the tagger will put his or her nickname after it, Cloughesy said. In cases where the nickname is attached and that person is ultimately identified, the person can be charged with all the times that tag is found. To avoid this, taggers now use mostly just the crew name, making it impossible for police to prosecute for a specific incident without a witness.

Because of the volume of graffiti in the city right now, workers for the city’s graffiti removal team are backlogged. Crews are working as fast as they can, but are currently behind the 72-hour response time goal the city has set.

If your home or business is hit with graffiti, the LBPD offers these suggestions:

• Document it, either by photo or by keeping track of regular occurrences and letting police know about it. If the tag is one that does come with a moniker — the name after several letters — then call police, that tagger may be able to be prosecuted.

• Remove it as soon as possible — leaving it up encourages more tagging. Taking it down immediately helps keep taggers away — they want their tags to be seen (that leads to tags along freeways and other prominent places). Cloughesy cited the example of the venerable Long Beach hang out Joe Jost’s — if graffiti is painted on the building, store employees erase it the next day. After a while, the taggers won’t waste their paint on it.

• To have the city remove the graffiti, call the Graffiti Removal Hotline at 570-2773. For businesses along Second Street, the Conservation Corps has a contract to remove graffiti from the Belmont Shore business district, call the BSBA to notify them of a problem.

• Do not confront a tagger — they are often armed. If you see a tagging in progress, call 911.