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San Jose's graffiti enforcement team


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By Janice Rombeck

 

 

SAN JOSE -- San Jose's graffiti enforcement team has a message for vandals at frequently tagged spots: We are watching you and we have the pictures to prove it.

 

Anti-graffiti efforts have gone high-tech with motion-sensitive devices that trigger cameras to photograph vandals in the act. First, a warning light flashes to get the violator's attention. Then a taped recording warns, "Stop. You're trespassing. Your photo has been taken and will be used to prosecute you. Leave now."

 

Then it quickly shoots three photos. The unit can also be programmed to shoot the photos while, or even before, the warning is played.

 

The city also has a video camera that films vandals and sends a warning signal to police. It was used in an arrest of graffiti vandals who routinely covered the 13th Street bridge over Highway 10l.

 

San Jose's anti-graffiti program reduced the number of tags from 70,000 to 5,000 in two years. The city started trying out a few cameras a year ago. "Now there are six installed with four more to go," said Sgt. Paul Spagnoli of the police department's graffiti-enforcement team. "Los Angeles and San Francisco also are using the cameras," he said.

 

The cameras, which the city moves around according to need, have been installed on the back walls of buildings that face highways, railroad bridges, freeway overpasses, and other areas where people aren't supposed to be.

 

One is perched high on a pole near the Tamien light-rail station in an area owned by Caltrans and the owner of a distribution warehouse. The building is surrounded by a chain-link fence topped with barbed wire, but taggers continued to break in. For graffiti vandals, it's an excellent location with the wall in clear view of Highway 87 motorists.

 

"The wall was repeatedly covered with graffiti until the camera was installed in March," Spagnoli said. The telltale signs of city paint used to cover the graffiti is clearly visible, but no graffiti.

 

"There hasn't been any tagging where the cameras are," said Rick Stanton, the city's anti-graffiti and anti-litter program coordinator. "That means the cameras, which cost $2,500 each, are working as a deterrent," he said.

 

"The word spreads pretty fast" among taggers, Spagnoli said.

 

None of the cameras, which are installed in hard-to-get-to places, have been vandalized.

 

Stanton says he usually sees a jump in tagging this time of year when the weather is warm and school lets out. "All of a sudden, they have a lot of time on their hands that they didn't have when they were in school," he said.

 

"The cameras might also be used in places where trash is dumped illegally," Stanton said.

 

"The graffiti-enforcement team, a special unit of three officers assigned only to graffiti, arrested 116 people last year," Spagnoli said, an average of about 10 a month.

 

San Jose credits its remarkable graffiti turnaround to such useful tools as the cameras, graffiti removal by 2,000 volunteers, more enforcement, and stiffer penalties.

 

For the first offense, a juvenile caught tagging is assigned to a minimum of 66 hours cleaning up graffiti and must attend a four-hour graffiti awareness class with a parent or guardian. The cleanup time will be doubled with a second offense. The vandal also has to pay for damage. Adult taggers can be sentenced to jail time.

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haha...the wall that they say that keeps getting tagged is near my casa. mostly tags from aot. they hit the same wall like every damn night. when im out, i see their shit on wall after wall for a couple of miles.

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