Gangbangers and Taggers turning violent, say it isn’t so? /Sarcasm
One man got stabbed. Another got shot in the chest. A 6-year-old boy was temporarily blinded when he was spray-painted in the face.
And they were the lucky ones among those who have had run-ins with graffiti “crews,” or gangs.
Over the past 2 1/2 years in Southern California, three people have been killed after trying to stop graffiti vandals in the act. A fourth died after being shot while watching a confrontation between crews in a park.
“We have seen a marked increase in these graffiti-tagging gangs taking to weapons and fighting to protect their walls, their territory, their name,” said Los Angeles County sheriff’s Lt. Robert Rifkin.
Los Angeles County has battled graffiti for decades, spending $30 million a year to paint over or clean up the emblems, names and other images spray-painted on stores, concrete-lined riverbeds, rail lines, phone booths, buses, even police cars. On Wednesday, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed a law requiring convicted graffiti vandals to remove their scrawl.
For some taggers, protecting their work is akin to defending their names and their honor.
“If we see someone calling the police, then we target them,” said Mario Garcia, 20, who describes himself as a former tagger trying to become a professional artist. “You are trying to stop me from what I live, what I believe in and what I breathe? We are not going to let no one get in the way.”
Oh and lets take a look at the perpetrators and the victims of the vandals:
In an attack last month, two youths spray-painted the face and body of the 6-year-old boy who spotted them scribbling gang signs on a wall near Compton. The boy recovered from chemical burns to his eyes.
On the same day, a 51-year-old auto mechanic was shot in the chest in Los Angeles when he confronted two suspected gang members painting the wall of his shop.
Another man, Michael Lartundo, 26, was stabbed in the hand and arm after yelling at a group of graffiti vandals scrawling on a wall in March behind his brother’s house in suburban Whittier.
“I just told them it ain’t right,” Lartundo recalled. “I said, ‘If you are going to write on the wall, write on your own wall.'”
The most recent attack occurred July 15, when a 16-year-old boy was shot and killed after rival graffiti crews converged on a Los Angeles park for a fight. The victim was in a crowd of onlookers. (This was a typical shooting into a crowd crime, that area gangs are known for)
Last August, Maria Hicks, 58, was shot in the head and died after flashing her headlights and honking at a teenager spray-painting a wall near her home in Pico Rivera, a blue-collar suburb east of Los Angeles. Four people have been charged with murder.
Ten days after Hicks died, Seutatia Tausili, 65, was fatally shot and her grandson wounded when he told taggers to stop vandalizing a trash can outside their home in Hesperia in San Bernardino County. Three men were charged with murder.
Robert Whitehead was shot to death in 2006 in the Los Angeles County area of Valinda when he tried to keep taggers from marking a neighbor’s garage. Investigators arrested one man with alleged ties to the Mexican Mafia, a prison gang.
Source
We see this graffiti shit all over the place in my area, We as a community are trying to keep it at a minimum by calling the police when we see something.I go the extra mile and so do several other community members.
I ride around my neighborhood late at night, I walk my neighborhood all hours of the day, I know my neighbors and I know where the trouble is coming from. I also know that when I confront the vandals, I do it with my safety at the forefront of my thoughts. (You be the judge of what that means.)
I have personally been responsible for 8 arrests in my area related to vandals/Burglary and theft and I don’t plan on stopping because of this report. I will not allow these thugs to run my hood, I run my hood, and I do it with the full co-operation of law enforcement I do it with folks that get involved and I do it with out fear because I fear no man on earth, I am old enough and wise enough that I am confident of my abilities and my preparation when I patrol my hood. I use very good judgment when I am out at night. I ASSESS the situation carefully, and I call the police FIRST, I follow, I watch, and I inform the dispatch operator EXACTLY what is going on where I am what I am wearing and what is going to happen if I get to where the vandals are before the cops do. AND I have only beat the cops there one time, since then they have been johnny on the spot.
This is not a war zone, there are GOOD folks here, the problem is the influx of assholes from LA/Pomona/OC as well as those that grew up here with gang ties. The problem is back to the parents, I don’t give a damn if they are poor, can’t afford to give their kids whatever, there are many programs for kids they chose to be vandals or gangbangers and they end up in prison or dead it is the parents fault. Our liberal laws in Cali our prison system and border policies are directly responsible for the continuing problem in our nation, this is not just a Los Angeles problem.
I think as long as the media, police and our culture is inclined to be afraid rather than fight for what’s right we will continue to see this type of activity. The media is enabling the “Violent vandals” IMO, the reason is simple: You very rarely see a report that praises the efforts of the community or persons responsible for catching “Taggers” or “Gangbangers”
I personally think once a gang has been ID’d and has more than 10 members, it should be handled by a military entity, rather than the local PD. Their members should be placed under surveilance and at the first crime, be incarserated at Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s place.
The issues of gangs needs to be addressed and with the funding the police get, the budget cuts and the society that allows criminals free reign, it is time for us able bodied individuals to stand up and shoot back so to speak. Unfortunately the laws are set up to benefit the criminal rather than society.
I have as much right not to look at someones “tag” as they have to put it on property that TAX PAYERS (of which I am one) pay for. The parents of MOST of these “taggers” or “Gangbangers”are being handed fines from between 5 and 10 thousand dollars when they are caught, BUT if they are unable to pay because they are on state assistance then what? NOTHING, its a damn slap in the face, the kid gets minimum time at which he meets more idiots like him and NOTHING changes.
The problem as I see it, is OUR laws. It’s the fact that these morons get street cred when caught, but that’s it, the parents don’t suffer, the kids don’t suffer everyone feels good about the arrest but there is NO fear of getting caught again. I would like to see the parents serve a day in jail for every 10 bucks in damage their kid caused. Then I bet we’d get some kids with a different outlook.
I feel sorry for the victims of the “taggers” and “Gangbangers” and they should be held up as fallen hero’s because they stood for something. The media portrays them as the ones at fault. THAT’S WRONG!
