Recently in taggers Category

LOS ANGELES -- Sheriff's deputies Tuesday sought a tagger who uses the moniker "RUETS" for his alleged role in vandalizing several trains, busses and other public property, officials said.

Thomas Benson, 28, a.k.a. "RUETS" allegedly belongs to several tagging crews including AL (At Large), PDB (Pros Don't Boast) and ND (North East). He may also belong to a group known as Mad Society Kings, sheriff's deputy Michael Thibodeaux said in a statement.

"MSK is a tagging crew that we know to have ties to several other crews here in L.A., including those that Benson is a part of," said Thibodeaux, "We believe a tagger, Jason Williams, who uses the tagger moniker REVOK, is a leading figure in the MSK crew."

In April Williams was convicted and sentenced to 180 days in jail after a judge found that he had violated the terms of his probation in a previous vandalism conviction. He was found to have violated his probation on a misdemeanor vandalism charge by failing to pay adequate restitution to his victims, officials said.

Williams was arrested by deputies with the Sheriff's Metro Transit Services Bureau Special Problems Unit prior to his April conviction.

"These taggers are not misguided kids," Detective Sergeant Ron Marquez said in a prepared statement, "These suspects are in their 20s and 30s. They are adults who pass themselves off as artists, when in reality, they're criminals who commit vandalism crimes that cost property owners and taxpayers a lot of money to clean up."

For more information, visit the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department website to see "LA's Most Wanted Taggers at:

http://sheriff.lacounty.gov/wps/portal/lasd/graffiti/

To see some of RUETS work visit:

http://graffiti.graffhead.com/2009/05/ruets-go-lakers-round-2.html

COMPTON -- A freeway tagger was struck and killed early Saturday on the 710 Freeway in Compton, California Highway Patrol officers said.
The man had just illegally painted the center median when he dashed across the 710's northbound lanes just north of Alondra Boulevard at about 4:15 a.m., CHP Officer Ed Jacobs said.
A 2006 silver Nissan Maxima merging onto the freeway from Alondra Boulevard hit the man as he and two accomplices were sprinting from the median across the northbound lanes.
All three were described as men in their 20s, but no names have been released.
The tagger was also struck by another vehicle, whose driver fled. The make and model of that vehicle was not immediately known.
The CHP said the other two taggers were detained and questioned. The driver who hit the man was not cited.

The District Attorney's Office charged the son of a city councilman with petty theft Thursday for allegedly offering to pay three others to steal campaign signs belonging to his father's political opponent.

James Beilke, 18, and Paul Puente, 20, of Pico Rivera, were charged with one count each of petty theft, officials from the District Attorney's Office said. James Beilke is the son of City Councilman Ron Beilke.

If convicted, Puente and James Beilke each could face up to six months in county jail or a fine of up $1,000, said D.A. spokeswoman Jane Robisoncq. Ron Beilke was not implicated. He did not return a phone call seeking comment Thursday but previously said his son is innocent.

WHITTIER - A 13-year-old boy and a 15-year-old girl face felony vandalism charges after allegedly tagging all over the city causing a combined $51,000 in damages.
Police said the teens worked on their own. The boy is believed to be responsible for 66 tagging incidents that led to $23,000 in damages. The girl allegedly tagged 126 times causing more than $28,000 in damages.
Whittier police spokesman Mike Dekowski said the District Attorney's Office hasn't yet filed charges against the teens, who were arrested Feb. 2 and 3.
Both were cited out after their arrests. They will return to juvenile court at a later date.
Dekowski said the girl, who lives in the unincorporated Whittier area, tagged also in Pico Rivera and La Habra. Officers are working with other agencies to determine how much the damages were in these communities.
He said the boy, who lives in Whittier, scribbled and scrawled on signs, curbs, walls and sidewalks in the east end of town.

Cyrus Yazdani, better known as "buket" the tagger who posted his exploits on YouTube, pleaded guilty to 32 counts of felony vandalism and admitted a special allegation that the damage exceeded $50,000.

As a result he'll get 314 days of county jail time, 256 hours of graffiti removal time and five years fo formal probation.

He received the sentence despite objections from the prosecution, which sought state prison time for the prolific tagger, who may have recently posted on this blog.

Here's the infamous video:

I don't know what to make of this story. There's a lot of questions that Montebello PD declined to answer.

The jist is that two groups of taggers got into two fights over the course of the afternoon.

Here's the story we posted early this a.m.:

MONTEBELLO - Rival tagging crews "beat each other up" Sunday afternoon, resulting in two people being sent to the hospital, said Montebello Police Lt. Govan Yee.

The first incident occurred around 4:30 p.m. at the 100 block of 18th Street. A man was attacked and beaten with an object by several members of a rival tagging crew.

Immediately after, the victim retaliated by attacking a rival tagging member, who was at his home on Wilcox Avenue.

Yee said it does not appear that either victim will press charges.

"Both of them were not very cooperative as to giving information," Yee said. "It's typical that gangs and tagging crews handle their own problems. Unfortunately, it results in more violence down the road."

Yee declined to give the names of the gangs, the names of the victims, or the victims ages

Here's the top of the story we've just posted on the web. These two knuckleheads are suspected of causing about $15,000 in damage:

AZUSA - Two teens were arrested earlier this week on suspicion of tagging more than 30 windows at a shopping center during the course of a week, according to police officials.

Azusa Police first received reports of etchings in several plate glass windows at the Citrus Crossing Shopping Center, at the corner of Citrus Avenue and Foothill Boulevard, on Sept. 4, according to Azusa police Lt. Frank Chavez.

Further investigation led merchants and police to discover more than 30 windows had been vandalized, he said. Damage of the windows is estimated to be $15,300, Chavez said.

Detectives determined the etchings to be connected to a local tagging crew and proceeded to interview members of the crew at an Azusa area school. Chavez would not disclose the name of the school.

While at the school Thursday one juvenile, 16, was identified as one of the taggers at the shopping center. The other teen was turned in by his parents at the Azusa Police Department Jail.

This is a press release from Supervisor Gloria Molina's office. It came just two days after an emotional hearing before the Supes about the deaths of Good Samaritans who try to stop graffiti vandals throughout the county:

Los Angeles County Supervisor Gloria Molina will join Lieutenant Gil Carrillo of the Sheriff's Department Homicide Division to publicize a $25,000 reward for anyone with information leading to the arrest and conviction of the person(s) responsible for the death of Luis Sandoval, a 71-year-old East Los Angeles resident who was shot in the abdomen after witnessing two males spray-painting graffiti on the side of a business located at the corner of East Olympic Boulevard and South Hicks Avenue. 

Mr. Sandoval had been riding his bicycle home and lived just four houses away from the scene of the crime.  Though the shooting took place on February 25, 2007, Mr. Sandoval died approximately four months later on June 13, 2007.  Authorities have since confirmed that his death was due directly to the injuries he sustained as a result of the shooting and are now asking for the public's help to solve this homicide--the third graffiti-related killing to occur in the First District.  (Robert Whitehead of Valinda was shot and killed in March 2006 while trying to stop graffiti taggers from spray-painting his neighbor's garage; Maria Hicks of Pico Rivera was shot and killed in August 2007 while trying to stop graffiti taggers from spray-painting a wall in her neighborhood.) 

Surviving relatives of Luis Sandoval will be available at tomorrow's press conference for interviews and pictures of the crime scene will be on display.
 
"Luis Sandoval was a hard-working, retired steel worker with a large family whose only transgression was being at the wrong place at the wrong time," Molina said.  "The anguish his death has caused his family is indescribable--and it is particularly painful to the community since it is the third graffiti-related homicide to take place in the First Supervisorial District.  It is my sincere hope that this $25,000 reward compels someone to bring information forward that will help us catch the people responsible for Luis Sandoval's murder."

If the person who decorated this wall on Orange Avenue in West Covina gets caught, he or she will be responsible for the clean up, according to a law signed by Gov. Arnold Wednesday.  This from LAist:

When a tagger gets sentenced, it's up to the judge whether or not being on a clean up crew is part of the punishment or not. Soon, it will be mandatory after Governor Schwarzenegger signed some new graffiti legislation sponsored by Los Angeles that forces part of their punishment to be cleaning graffiti. City officials say graffiti has increased significantly in the past few years, from "25 million square feet of graffiti-stained surfaces in 2005 to 31.7 million in the year that ended June 30,"

There's a couple of things I covered in Tuesday's column that were vague and thought I pass the information on after doing some more "research."

First of all, the bookstore was City Lights on Vermont in Los Feliz. Great bookstore -- very tiny -- but an ecclectic selection of interesting titles. I've seen several interesting authors stop by to do readings and signings. It reminds me of the old Vroman's.

As for the magazines, the graffiti mag was titled UP. I just looked at it again and after reading the article with the LA graffiti photos, I realized the photos were all shot in the 1970s by a guy named Gribble (not Dale Gribble from King of the Hill).

Several of the photos are posted on Flikr here. There's also an interview with Gribble on Handselect.

One night last week, I found myself in a bookstore in a nice Los Angeles neighborhood.

It was one of those neighborhoods whose residents probably "don't get" the San Gabriel Valley -- or Whittier for that matter.

Anyway, I was perusing the magazines looking for something to take and read. There were no copies of MAD and my second choice, Pro Football Weekly, was also suspiciously missing in action.

Then I noticed a magazine that stood out among the art and fashion magazines on another rack. I can't remember the name, but it was devoted entirely to the "art" of graffiti and tagging.

I had to look.

The usual suspects stood out among the photos: New York subway scenes, Amsterdam murals, boxcars on the nation's rails. I turned to the index and found "Drive-by Shootings." (I'm sure you get the double entendre). The story devoted itself to decoding the gang graffiti of Los Angeles; marvelling along the way about the artistry of the whole endeavor.

In recent days there's been tales in the news about these virtuosos.

Like the story of a tagger who uses the moniker "Buket. Police busted "Bucket", a San Jose State art school grad and Las Vegas convention planner, after several videos cropped up on YouTube featuring the "artist" at work on freeway overpasses and in concrete riverbeds.

One of the most viewed stories on the newspaper's Web site last week told the story of a man and a teen arrested in Covina on suspicion of taking part in a spree that tagged 22 locations along Azusa Avenue.

A few weeks ago we ran a story about a Baldwin Park tagging crew suspected of involvement in the November slayings of a teen-ager and his father in front of their Downing Avenue home.

Where's the romanticism in these stories?

Long before I worked in the newspaper business, I sold patio covers and awnings for my then father-in-law. He had (and has) an office on Mission Boulevard in Pomona. I can remember getting mad at the taggers who would occasionally graffiti the building. I thought about ways to intervene, but never really did anything -- and never thought of the indecipherable scribbling as art.

That wasn't the case with Robert Whitehead, of Bassett, or Maria Hicks, of Pico Rivera. They intervened and got dead for the trouble. I'm sure there's countless similar stories. I know a guy who paints over graffiti for a living and he's told me that he's been intimidated by taggers --and even shot at -- trying to make one San Gabriel Valley neighborhood a little better.

In Whitehead's case, he was killed March 6, 2006 trying to stop two gang members from tagging up a neighbor's wall. During the investigation into the slaying, detectives with the Los Angeles County sheriff's homicide bureau uncovered a suspected connection between the Mexican Mafia prison gang, La Eme, and Whitehead's alleged killers.

As for Hicks, a 58-year-old grandmother, she was shot to death on a warm Friday night last August after confronting a group of taggers in the neighborhood where she lived her entire life.

That was going through my mind as I flipped through pages deciphering the clever, angular strokes of some guy named "Sneaky" or "Sapo" or "Spooky" or "Snoopy" or "Lil Shooter." It occurred to me that this might as well be some ivory tower sociologist's look at a foreign country or the take of a preening self-important East Coast artiste.

Then I got it.

They don't live here.

I guess it should come as no surprise that taggers are turning to YouTube to show off their daring.

What is a surprise though is that police actually watch the videos and recently caught a suspected tagger who pulled off a pretty stupid stunt in broad daylight high above the Hollywood Freeway.

Here's the stunt that got Buket sent to the bucket.