Many people think 'tagging' isn't a real crime, police say

By Cinda Alvarado Caller-Times Corpus Christi Caller Times - Corpus Christi,TX,USA
July 16, 2004

Gran Jalisco restaurant was open just three months before graffiti artists "tagged" the building with spray paint. But eyesores like that on the business at 4744 Ayers St. won't stick around long after an anti-graffiti coalition steps in.

The coalition, comprising the Corpus Christi Police Department and other local groups, is stepping up efforts to erase the markings and prosecute offenders.

"There's not a lot of it, but it just looks ugly," said Gran Jalisco owner Cipriano Fuentes. "Some of my customers commented on it. There is no need to get mad over something I can't do much about. All we can do is paint over it."

Painting is just what the newly developed coalition intends to do.

Through an agreement, the Nueces County Juvenile Probation Department's Make Amends program, the Volunteer Center of the Coastal Bend, the Nueces County Community Supervision and Corrections Department, Judge J.A. Gonzalez and Judge R. Balderas are joining forces to wipe out graffiti. By working together, their goal is to paint over offending paint within 24 hours of receiving a complaint.

"It has become evident, despite a lack of numbers to support an increase in graffiti, that there seems to be more of it," said Police Chief Pete Alvarez. "I suspect that it is because we are not removing graffiti as quickly as we were before."

Before, police worked with the Junior League to cover graffiti in a timely manner. In 1998, the league maintained the Graffiti Wipe Out program, a hotline and work teams that went to graffiti-covered locations. In 2002, the Junior League turned the program over to the volunteer center. Since then, Alvarez said, the department has tried to assist the volunteer center.

Commander J.V. Garcia said police are unaware exactly how widespread graffiti is. Because police classify graffiti as vandalism or criminal mischief, it lessens the likelihood of retrieving graffiti crime statistics, Garcia said.

"It is understood amongst police circles that graffiti can be a difficult problem to deal with since much of it often goes unreported," Garcia said. "Many people think that graffiti is not a police or a 'real crime' problem."

Sgt. Domingo Ibarra said there are two kinds of graffiti, "gang art" and "tagging."

"(Gang art) is critical to gang members - it's their newspaper. It's how they advertise territorial jurisdiction," Ibarra said. "Whenever a gang tags something, they are basically declaring that this is their territory."

"Taggers put up what they call art. You'll see characters, balloon-type letters and they'll usually put their names somewhere on it," Ibarra said. "Their only objective is to tag a high-profile area and see how long it stays up there. Attention is very much one of their stimulants."

Ibarra said the coalition's objective is to have graffiti offenders remove their work themselves. Each official or group organizes work teams, usually made up of juvenile probationers, to clean graffiti.

The Make Amends program organizes cleanups Thursday through Saturday. Juvenile offenders are taken to sites where theycover the offending markings with paint the city's Park and Recreation Department provides.

"It really touches home when they go out and clean up graffiti on a fence of an elderly couple because it puts a face with the property," program supervisor Rick George said. "It shows them the worry and the pain it creates for someone."