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ARTICLE

 

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TAGGED OUT

Seattle Graffiti Artist Jailed

by Ben Jacklet

 

 

 

*** ***** ********, THE 18-YEAR-OLD GRAFFITI tagger sentenced last week to a year in jail for "property damage" and "obstructing justice," lopes into the visiting room with sloped shoulders and a neck straight out of an El Greco painting. One of Seattle's most prolific taggers--he's known as "Flare" to businesses all over the city--******** has been held at the North Rehabilitation Facility for almost two months, as part of a sentence handed down by King County Judge Theresa Doyle. "It's obvious you have some artistic abilities," she told him, "but you cannot go around imposing your art on the community."

 

********'s been painting his tag across town since being thrown out of Garfield High in 1996 for repeated graffiti offenses. Either solo or with members of his crew, he traveled day and night from one end of Seattle to the other, spray cans and markers in tow, leaving his signature on any surface he thought was asking for it: buildings, signs, fire escapes, rooftops. He's not good at explaining why he does it. When he delves deeper than your basic "it's cool" or "it looks good," he stumbles on his words. "I grew up with it and I thought it looked cool," he says. "Every day when I was walking to school I'd see graffiti all over the place and I'd like it. It represented--just people--I don't know. It's complicated, I guess."

 

The tag that landed him in jail seems petty. He was arrested in November for writing on a wall in the parking lot behind Pistil Books, on Pine Street in Capitol Hill. "It was just an ugly parking lot," he says. "It looked way better with graffiti than with gray walls." When the police showed up at the scene, ******** ran west on Pike, making it as far as Harvard before being caught, cuffed, and transported downtown. He pled guilty to the misdemeanor charges in March. And thanks in part to prodding from the city's Anti-Graffiti Coalition, he received a stiff sentence.

 

But his tag, Flare--which stands for Fuck the Law and its Representatives--hasn't disappeared as friends and supporters continue to paint it. And since he was jailed, a second tagger, called Metroe, has also been arrested, leading to an anonymous call to action via the Internet. "Let's show these All City Bombers some love and see some FREE METROE and FREE FLARE up around the city," wrote John Doe at the Seattle Graffitiwebsite(www.afterlyfe.com/graffiti). "These kids have been bombing your streets for years, so all you kings, piecers, bombers, and tags show them the respect they deserve!!!!"

 

The city's response to graffiti has become more stringent and more ridiculous over the years. Even businesses that don't mind a tag or mural are forced to paint over them or risk being cited under the Seattle Graffiti Nuisance Ordinance. The city's Anti-Graffiti Program hands out free paint and rollers to business owners hit by taggers, and coordinates volunteer "paint-outs." The Downtown Seattle Association does its part as well, hiring work crews to sweep through the retail core each morning and paint over all unauthorized markings. The DSA even offers rewards to snitches who help arrest taggers.

 

Anne Michaelson, who used to run Cafe Paradiso, recalls that just a couple of years ago the wall behind the cafe was considered a "free wall," meaning you could write or paint or draw there without getting into trouble. There used to be free walls throughout the city--on businesses like the Comet Tavern and the Vogue--but those days are gone, and not likely to return anytime soon. Michaelson owns property in the heavily tagged neighborhood around the Comet, and spends her share of time repainting walls. But, she says, "For some reason graffiti has never really bothered me. I don't take it personally the way a lot of people do. I certainly don't want to see a kid sentenced to a year in jail for graffiti. That's ridiculous. It's like throwing skateboarders in jail."

 

Clamping down on graffiti artists just makes some of them want to do it more. Though it's hard to drag any sort of overt political philosophy out of the group of taggers that make up ********'s circle--they praise him as a "tagging animal" with a "phat savage bomber style," and consider graffiti "the best thing ever," the perfect way to "put your name up in lights"--they unwittingly reveal their motives. Napalm, a 17-year-old from ********'s KFM crew (for Kung Fu Masters), laments, "They took away the Comet wall, they took away the Vogue, the wall by the Greyhound station.... It makes it worse. It makes kids just want to destroy shit."

 

But the truth is, even if there were free walls, kids with markers and spray cans would want to hit non-designated surfaces. "You're not a writer if you don't go out and bomb," says Metroe, another of ********'s pals.

 

"It's natural to want to write on things," Napalm adds.

 

********, who was raised in a middle-class white family, has been in trouble with the law before, having spent six months in a juvenile detention center for petty theft, vandalism, and graffiti. He admits that he likes running from the law: "I've run through people's yards for miles," he says. "It's fun. It feels like you're a kid again. I guess I never really stopped behaving like one."

 

Statements like that worry his mother, who argues that her son is no folk hero. "This is no cool, counter-culture artist, okay? This is a fragile life, an 18-year-old kid who is in deep trouble. He has hurt himself grievously. He has no future--none--if he doesn't make some changes." She places much of the blame for tagging on a society and school system too busy punishing and vilifying teens to offer them any real help. "Teens know they're generally not wanted," she says. "They know there are a lot of people who feel threatened by them. They respond to that in destructive ways."

 

******** is being held at the North Rehabilitation Facility rather than King County Jail because he's being treated for a marijuana addiction he says he doesn't have. "Drugs have nothing to do with my crime," he says. In addition to the one-year sentence, he'll have to put in 120 hours of community service, painting over graffiti for the Downtown Seattle Association. He doesn't look forward to the task. "I don't want to do that shit," he says. "I don't want to go around with some jerks who obviously hate me. I seen them in court, laughing at me when I got a year."

 

He says he has no desire to write graffiti right now either. He just wants to get out of jail and see his friends, munch some edible food, and listen to some good music. He says he's not mad at the people who put him away. In a way, he sees where they're coming from. "They think that Seattle can be this perfect city, where nobody smokes crack or shoots up or writes graffiti. So they're trying to control everything. They're going too far. Maybe they need to find out what the cause of it is instead."

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ARTICLE

 

Thursday, December 13, 2001 - 12:04 a.m. Pacific

 

Seattle gets tough on graffiti; $1,000 offered for tips that lead to arrests

 

By Dave Birkland

Seattle Times staff reporter

 

 

The writing is on the wall for spray-painting vandals: The city of Seattle is cracking down on graffiti. Public officials and business owners yesterday announced a campaign to combat graffiti by offering up to $1,000 for tips that lead to arrests or filing of charges against vandals responsible for up to $4 million damage each year to Seattle businesses and public property.

 

"We're going to stop this crime, but it takes a partnership (with the public)," said Len Carver, a police officer who patrols Capitol Hill, an area hard hit by graffiti.

 

Seattle Public Utilities, which removes graffiti from public property, is funding the rewards.

 

Carver encouraged people to call 911 if they see taggers at work. He asked witnesses to note the vandals' clothing, sex and race, and in which direction they leave. The license number and color of a car also helps, he said.

 

Graffiti is especially expensive for business owners such as Barry Rogel, owner of Capitol Hill's Deluxe Bar & Grill, which has been "tagged" dozens of times.

 

Rogel tries to immediately paint over or remove the offending daubs. "If you let it go, it just proliferates," he said.

 

The effect can go beyond property damage. "It leads to the perception that it (the neighborhood) is not safe, which is not true," Rogel said.

 

Several weeks ago, he said, a vandal was tagging the front door of the Deluxe while customers were coming through it. "It can be very, very brazen," he said.

 

A new twist in graffiti is "acid etching" of windows. Vandals use shoe-polish daubers to etch glass with some sort of acid. The markings can become permanent if allowed to dry.

 

Jay Kim, owner of Princess Market on Capitol Hill, said he will have to replace a window that was recently etched.

 

There have been more than 4,000 reports of graffiti on public and private property in Seattle in each of the past two years, according to Seattle Public Utilities.

 

Most graffiti is a misdemeanor that carries a maximum of a year in jail and/or a $5,000 fine, according to the City Attorney's Office. If the damage exceeds $250, it can be prosecuted as a felony.

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ANOTHER ARTICLE

 

Graffiti vandals go on a spraying spree in Seattle

 

George Erb Staff Writer

 

When they aren't taking tickets or selling popcorn, employees of the Cinerama movie theater in downtown Seattle are sometimes outside, scrubbing the wall that faces Fourth Avenue.

 

A vandal wielding a can of black spray paint recently scrawled an indecipherable message in big, swooping letters across the blue tiles, and employees are still trying to clean up the mess. Leaving the graffiti is not an option for theater manager Peter Ingram. "It's not good for business," he said.

 

When night falls in Seattle, out come the spray cans. Graffiti vandals have become increasingly busy in recent weeks, tagging everything from downtown office buildings to neighborhood stores, according to the city and business groups.

 

"There's been a large increase in graffiti all over the city," said Marget Chappel, program manager of graffiti prevention with Seattle Public Utilities. The department's graffiti hotline logged 151 complaints of tags on private property in April, up from 104 complaints in January.

 

Part of the increase is seasonal. Chappel says taggers get busier in the spring, with the arrival of warm, dry weather - a scenario that is more pronounced this year because of the drought. Also, taggers who are students recently had spare time on their hands because of spring break.

 

Graffiti vandals have been especially active in downtown Seattle, the Sodo business district, Belltown and West Seattle.

 

For the moment, taggers may be busier in Seattle than other Puget Sound cities. Tagging in Tacoma is waning, for example. "There has been a dramatic decline on how many calls we get," said Loni Kaleiwahea, who handles graffiti removal as a Pierce County diversion coordinator.

 

In contrast, the Sodo business district south of downtown Seattle last month experienced a dramatic increase in graffiti vandalism - so much so that Mike Peringer, head of the Sodo Business Association, recently issued a graffiti alert.

 

Sodo buildings that were severely damaged in the Feb. 28 earthquake are especially vulnerable to taggers because many of them are still unoccupied. Nonetheless, Peringer has been urging Sodo property owners to clean up the mess.

 

The reason: Many people associate graffiti with urban decay and crime, and Peringer doesn't want the Sodo district to get a reputation as an unsavory area. "It doesn't hurt businesses per se, but it makes the area look bad," Peringer said.

 

His sense of urgency is heightened by the prospect of thousands of baseball fans passing through the neighborhood July 10 for the All-Star Game at nearby Safeco Field.

 

Owners of tagged buildings certainly have to be vigilant - and persistent. Tres Bonne, a contract-sewing company that leases a building on First Avenue South in the Sodo district, has been skirmishing for more than a year with an unknown graffiti vandal.

 

The tagger repeatedly paints clusters of squared, hieroglyphic figures in the same locations on one wall that faces a back parking lot and a front wall that faces First Avenue South. The company painted over the graffiti, only to have the tagger leave his or her mark on top of the new paint.

 

Tres Bonne's out-of-state landlord has not responded to the latest tag, which has remained undisturbed for months. "I guess they figured it's just going to happen again," said Virginia Walton, Tres Bonne's owner. "It's just the way it is, I guess."

 

City officials and business associations prefer to remove graffiti as soon as possible. Quick cleanups deny taggers the visibility they crave and restore a sense of order among neighborhood residents, said Chappel, Seattle's graffiti-prevention manager.

 

Ingram, the Cinerama manager, insisted on cleaning up the building's graffiti right away because he didn't want consumers to get the impression that the inside of the theater is unkempt. "A good outside appearance means a good inside appearance," he said.

 

 

Seattle is relying on several anti-graffiti strategies.

 

The city has a special truck and four full-time "graffiti rangers" who remove tags from public property within 10 working days. However, only two of the workers are permanent employees.

 

Cleaning up graffiti on private property is largely the responsibility of property owners. Seattle can threaten owners with a $100-a-day fine if they repeatedly refuse to remove tags. In extreme cases, the city can clean up the mess and send the owner the bill.

 

But the city would rather work with neighborhood groups on graffiti problems than wave the municipal code at uncooperative property owners, Chappel said.

 

Seattle provides cash grants, often $1,000, to nonprofit organizations that mobilize neighborhood residents and businesses for such projects as cleaning up graffiti, litter and illegal dumps. In South Park, dozens of volunteers on two occasions removed graffiti and several thousand pounds of garbage.

 

Neighborhood and business organizations may be the most effective weapon against graffiti, if only because the city does not have enough resources to tackle the problem alone, Chappel said. "We're running as fast as we can, and we're not making a dent."

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hey socrates, I'll go back and erase the names myself, but just to let you know why I didn't in the first place. These were published articles, where the names were given to the public prior to them being posted on here. Furthermore, the main reason for not giving names on this site is to hide peoples names from law enforcement, which in the case of these articles, is where the journalists got the names from in the first place.

 

Anyway, I'll erase the names on here anyway, just because I understand where your coming from, and it makes sence.

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Re: ANOTHER ARTICLE

 

Originally posted by trew

 

Neighborhood and business organizations may be the most effective weapon against graffiti, if only because the city does not have enough resources to tackle the problem alone, Chappel said. "We're running as fast as we can, and we're not making a dent."

 

things like this make me smile.....the other thing that i found to be hilarious was calling 911....."uhhhh yes, 911...come quick, i just witnessed a tagging"...hahaha...

 

nice flicks by the way....HOD roller, kady,metroe, and the rest...

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Re: ARTICLE

 

Originally posted by trew

 

TAGGED OUT

Seattle Graffiti Artist Jailed

by Ben Jacklet

 

 

 

Anne Michaelson, who used to run Cafe Paradiso, recalls that just a couple of years ago the wall behind the cafe was considered a "free wall," meaning you could write or paint or draw there without getting into trouble. Michaelson owns property in the heavily tagged neighborhood around the Comet, and spends her share of time repainting walls. But, she says, "For some reason graffiti has never really bothered me. I don't take it personally the way a lot of people do. I certainly don't want to see a kid sentenced to a year in jail for graffiti. That's ridiculous. It's like throwing skateboarders in jail."

 

 

if only there were more people like this lady in the world. props to her for being open minded

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