Urban Heroes, Battle against Taggers
Los Angeles Times writer Steve Lopez is right on again today in highlighting "urban heroes" from the enclave of Highland Park.Why are they worthy of being called heroes ?? Simply they are risking their lives in a sadly, downhill fight against the blight that is the "tagging epidemic" that grips our city.
Night after night, armed only with a flashlight, these citizen heroes of Highland Park go out in the darkness to reclaim properties that have been defaced by the swarms of tagger/gang bang crews who think the masses will enjoy their "mosaics" of "street art".
Recently, the toll of standing up to these "purveyors of graffiti art" has been measured in blood. Whether it be in Pico Rivera or in the High Desert. We must hold our elected officials accountable in protecting property from the scourge that is rampant graffiti.
Thoughts to Ponder. Do we need to continue invest countless of millions of dollars in dubious outlays in programs that fail to enforce basic laws against vandalism ? Thinking "LA Bridges". Is "tough love" the more viable option in this ongoing war against this new breed of "urban vandalism" ?
In the years past, murals were commissioned crossed the city to combat the blight of graffiti. Now ?? The "Virgin Mary" is unsafe from the the new breed of vandals. Thus, is it the time to go "Singapore" on these urban thugs ??
In ending, props to the unsung "HEROES OF HIGHLAND PARK".
New fear to add to the list: taggers - Los Angeles Times
Posted by Red Spot in CD 14 @ 9/16/2007 08:33:00 PM
17 Comments:
I live in CD 14 and see graffiti removal crews in the area almost every day. Yet there never seem to be enough of them to keep up with all the tagging. Do any of these taggers ever get caught? How about some sting operations by LAPD?
How about installing cameras in the areas that are certain to be hit? Clean up the area and wait.
How about clean up a spot, see how long it takes the taggers to return, clean it up again, the have the cops waiting? Or use the National Guard or a few weekends if we ever get them back from Iraq.
Make examples of them.
With CM's like Hahn and the rest who are initiating the $30 million parcel tax for "gang prevention" the problem will never go away.
Like Connie Rice says "This city and the leaders are stuck on stupid".
If they were in business and could not raise taxes, they would be bankrupt. Wait, we are almost bankrupt. An then they cant' figure out why nobody can afford to buy a home with all of the taxes and bonds.
Until this city learns to manage its money and resources, they will never fix the problem(s).
Most people think taggers are sneaking out in the middle of the night but most tagging is done on Sunday afternoons in my neighborhood in the Valley.
We have the East Valley Alliance and the West Valley Alliance. They come the day after you call them. Or you can call 311, but they just call the Alliance and you wait a few days longer so it's easier to call them directly yourself.
Our neighborhood council has gotten together with some homeowner groups and we chose a color and we go out and take out the graffiti immediately in places like washes (which are under the care of Army Corps) or private property that the Alliances don't like to cover, etc.
Of course where I live, these are not kids from gangs. These aren't even future gang bangers. They are spoiled little white kids spraying pictures and using stencils.
I confront them, tell their parents, make them help me clean it up and swing their backpacks full of paint tips and stencils around while threatening to give it to my Senior Lead Officer.
We aggressively pursue tagging. It is urban blight. If you are caught tagging or dumping, I know the City can impound your car, but good luck catching the kids. Most of the ones around here don't even drive cars yet.
A group of friends in our neighborhood used to commit 'midnight acts of beautification,' painting [over] tags and graffiti while someone stood guard with a cellphone. . .
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Me and my brother who are ex-milatary would be happy to stand guard with a 0.45 caliber hand gun , it is much faster than a cell phone and more effective.
And it is mostly young little stupid mexicans doing the gang graffiti. The young idiots arrested in Pico Rivera and the desert were all Mexican, what a shock. What does it take for people to realize what low life cowards these illegal alien mexicans are.
And to add insult, we have our pandering low life cholo mayor pandering to these low lifes, criminals fucking un-belivaable.
Maybe if we had council members who had leadership and guts to speak out against tagging at schools or have a community meeting and tell the damn parents they will be fined possibly the tagging would stop. But when we have idiots like clowncil now and a moron like Huizar who doesn'tmind his district being dirty, trash filled, illegal vendors all over and says nothing to them then the residents who take pride in their community suffer. Notice Huizar does so much more for the illegals then the legal residents who pay his salary.
Heroes, no they're idiots. Naive, little idiots who run around in their liberal, alice-in-wonderland world. Of course, it's dangerous. We don't have a Los Angeles of 20 years ago. We have rampant gangs now, yah those who beat on their initiates, that deal in crime. Remember those artsy liberals that wanted to retain the City's "graffiti art"? This is what they get. Look lady, call 311, and let the professional "graffiti busters" deal with it. And if you like the excitement, go out at night with your covering-up paint and then deal with the results.
And just for good measure, let's rant about this LATimes distorter, SL. What color commentary as "What he and his wife love is that an artist can live on the same street as an immigrant laborer and a UCLA professor, just minutes from Pasadena or downtown L.A., and halfway between mountain and sea" is just hack propaganda. Then, finally he implies the truth. THEY ARE AFRAID TO GO OUT AND RECREATE IN THEIR FRONT YARDS.
"But Mary is afraid of the consequences and doubtful much can be accomplished without far greater muscle from the city, Caltrans and the police."
"It's everywhere," Frederick said of tags and the long, cold-blooded reach of gangs."
Still, the Distorter has to add, for political correctness, "Even then it would be tough. The problem is also about education. It's about parenting. It's about the culture of violence. Los Angeles has never found the right combination of law enforcement and prevention, and Mary is tired of standing in the dark with a can of paint, waiting for the infantry. She looked at Bob when I asked if they had talked of leaving, and the answer was clear in her eyes." YOU PUTZ, YOU HAVE NO IDEA WHAT IS GOING ON.
And why do they say that Pasadena may be better? Maybe the Pasadena Police Department has the will to stop the tagging, and the Los Angeles Police Department really does not (ie. Sanctuary City).
The solution is so simple do NOT sell spray paint cans to any mexicans, we all know who is doing 99% of the the tagging.
The hell with being politically correct, lets start by deporting the illegal aliens then putting the kids and parents of the young thugs in jail.
Sanctuary city means slum city, we can all see this as plain as day.
LAPD does have survillance units made up of volunteers who lie in wait and catch the kids tagging. I think the fine now is up to $1,000 but again if you start with the responsibility of the parents and punish them as well it would stop. Maybe Rocky should make an ordinance for parents.
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Just a tidbit on the efficacy of the Mayor's something Million dollar graffiti removal program, they WON'T REMOVE GRAFFITI FROM U.S. POST OFFICE MAILBOXES. You know the blue U.S. Mailboxes on residential corners or the green U.S. Mailbox collectors? When calling 311 and indicating the location and that the graffiti is on the U.S. Mailbox, they'll tell you that they can't service it, it's federal property, and that you need to call the U.S. Postal Service.
Call the U.S. Post Office number and report the graffiti, you'll discover after a week or so that they've ignored you.
Call the U.S. Post Office number and report the graffiti, you'll discover after a week or so that they've ignored you.
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This is just the type of service I like best, call and then be ignored. I am going to call and then be ignored, hell I may even write and the be ignored. Does the U.S. Post office have an e-mail address?
Did the Mayor ever get to mentor the kid who tagged the Mayor's bus?
That was a "classic" moment caught on camera.
Why does the City let the freeways get so tagged up? All the murals are messed up. I thought they just spent a bunch of money to restore and coat the murals.
Taggers are plain and simple disgusting.
The parents of these human pigs should be punished and should be forced to clean our streets along with their pig children.
As a parent I take full responsibility of my three boys.
The upbringing starts right at home.
PARENTS IF YOU CAN NOT TAKE CARE OF YOUR CHILDREN THEN STOP PRODUCING.
8:39, to answer your question, "no."
MAV would have had to have filled out forms and gotten fingerprinted and the family would have had to have given their approval for the "mentoring."
To date, it doesn't appear that any of that has happened.
Regarding Villar's comment about mentoring the "Notorious Tagger Kid": Once again, Villar shot from the lip.
Doesn't Villar realize that if he were in charge of a major-league baseball team, he would be close to being fired for his win-loss record?
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