Crew plays beat the clock with taggers
By Sadie Gurman
ROCKFORD REGISTER STAR
Click here for more information about Sadie Gurman

ROCKFORD — Michael Richardson feels caught in a perpetual game of tag with a nameless, faceless It. Armed with paint rollers, he and other city workers spend their days undoing the cryptic work of the city’s graffiti taggers. Still, it isn’t enough.

Taggers sometimes return in less than 24 hours — sometimes to the same buildings, garages and sheds cleared the night before.

“It’s like they’re watching,” said Richardson, a painter with the Public Works Department. “When the city cleans it off, they want to tag it back up again.”

Richardson and three other members of the city’s graffiti-removal team are closing in on the final week of a yearly spring cleanup, when warmer weather lets them patch up taggers’ winter work. For more than two weeks they’ve canvassed the city, often hitting the same neighborhoods and the same streets more than once, he said.

In winter, when low temperatures prevent paint from adhering to walls, the workers photograph graffiti and look for paint to match the defaced buildings’ original hues. In March, they whip out the paint rollers and chemicals and play catch-up before the next wave of graffiti, building maintenance supervisor Jerry Ahrens said.

During catch-up mode, the team of four is called to as many as 30 to 40 vandalized sites a day, Ahrens said. The department has fielded nearly 500 reports of graffiti since January, foreshadowing what officials predict will be a heavier year for tagging.

The department will expand to match the increase, Superintendent Bill Keith said. Its 2007 budget calls for an additional employee who, among other tasks, will document and remove unsightly taggings. The city is likely to spend more this year, surpassing the $40,000-plus it spent on cleanup last year, Keith said.

“It’s something you have to bear. You certainly can’t leave it on the wall,” said Rockford resident Jim Powers, deputy director of The NoGraf Network, an international organization that generates information about graffiti and how to combat it. “You leave it on the wall, and the message it conveys is that nothing’s being done, and we should get used to our community looking like this. And more appears.”

The city’s graffiti-removal team, started in 1993, aims to conceal graffiti within 24 hours of the time it’s reported, although that’s tough during spring catch-up, Keith said.

City workers will clean graffiti from nearly all residential property within city limits, but they don’t do cars or signs.

“We’ll do what we can to take it off,” Ahrens said. “If that doesn’t work, we’ll paint.”

The mangled mix of strange markings remains a mystery to Richardson, even though he sees them every day. Powers said much of the tagging is gang-related, signaling a surge in gang activity in the area. There are other taggers, too, of the “hip-hop” variety, who mark prominent intersections and highly visible property for sport, Powers said. There’s no violence attached to hip-hop, Powers said, just ego.

Spotting the difference can be tricky for the untrained eye. Gang-related graffiti, often the work of entry-level members, is low-profile, hidden in alleys or on garage doors, Powers said — an advertisement, a kind of territorial marking for gangs.

Either way, Powers and Ald. Ann Thompson are encouraging anyone who spots graffiti to report it to the city’s graffiti hot line as soon as they see it.

“There was a time when we’d virtually eliminated gang graffiti in Rockford, and now I see it coming back,” Powers said. “It’s sad to me.”

Staff writer Sadie Gurman can be reached at 815-987-1389 or at sgurman@rrstar.com.

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david boone wrote:
I agree, the city of Rockford should set up an area for all these people and folks to tag. I think the city of Rockford should also set up a shooting gallery.

If you set up a tagging area you might as well set up a shooting gallery and might as well move the morgue to the same area. At least it might slow all the shooting in other areas of the city which would lower taxes and jail population.

gtob, I think you might have something.

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gtob wrote:
This subject is a hard one to deal with. I talked with a "tagger" on the forums and they honestly believe they aren't doing anything wrong even though it's illegal, not to mention the problem it causes the home owner or business owner....
After much discussion this person still believes they should be able to express themselves all over town. The problem is they haven't been on the receiving end of this and have no clue how much hassle it is to others.
A lot of these kids are very talented artists but they are frustrated because they haven't got what it takes to become a legit artist so this is how they express themselves. They feel WE the people should provide a place for them to "express" themselves. Problem is, they want everyone else to do this for them and they do not want to pay any consequences for doing it. This attitude isn't going to help anyone. If and when a "tagger" gets caught he then has a criminal record. When he grows up and becomes a man/woman you are left with a criminal record I think you do not want in your life.
I think their age shows you that they are not capable of being adults yet so they are still acting like a teen who thinks they are indestructible even at our expense. This happens to be the biggest reason the city won't listen when kids ask for a place to do their "art". Kids won't go halfway with the city in any way and the city won't go half way with them in any way. When these kids grow up enough to stand in front of the powers that be and talk as an adult about their childish behavior, then and only then will the city listen to them. If you won't even admit you are doing something destructive and wrong, why do you think they should listen to you?
It's only art when everyone can enjoy it. Otherwise it's just ugly crap.

Posted: Tue Mar 27, 2007 9:07 am
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When it becomes crystal clear that the consequences for this type of behavior is major, then you will see the behavior subside. Stiffer fines ($5,000.00), jail time or extended stay in juvenile detention (6 weeks) combined with community service ( 4 weeks) where they are acturally on graffitti clean up duty. Try it Rockford!


Posted: Tue Mar 27, 2007 10:44 am