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i got respect for all yall and your opinions..no disrespect intended against anyone

i dont even know who im talking to , so that wouldnt be a smart move on my part ..

i just felt the need to step in for "boy" snow..truth be told..nobody ever had my back

nor do i think snow would ever jump in for me ..is he a snitch ?

well i ask ...whos in jail because of his testimony? who is eating pork and beans out of a can

in a homeless shelter because they got a felony on there record because of snow?

--- i dont fuckin know..i knew him in the 90s so maybe it was ill advised for me to vouch for him..

i only know the dude i used to paint/roll with ..

everyones got an opinion and your entitled to it..just be careful what you believe is the lesson here ...

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Graffiti convictions got Santiago fired from a public-works job and kicked

out of the police academy. Yet he has also been lauded for setting up

programs to help troubled youth and once led a group of convicted graffiti

vandals in a cleanup program.

 

The small "Mitch" -- his "tag" -- is one of the few remaining signs that this

33-year-old father of five was the city's graffiti king in the 1980s and early

1990s. But the telltale tag is also a sign of the struggle Santiago faces as he

makes the transition from a vandal and high school dropout to a city

inspector and school trustee with children whose ages range from 4 to 15.

 

 

u dumb niggaz cant even get your stories right. :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:

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Item 001

 

Monday, May 17, 1999

OWNTOWN -- The 11th Annual Great Graffiti Paint Out and Community

CLEAN Up Day took place Saturday. The event, sponsored by the Glendale

CLEAN Committee, the Glendale Glendale Association of Realtors and City of

Glendale-Neighborhood Services, involved community residents spending a few

hours painting out graffiti and picking up trash from the city's streets and alleys. The

clean up began after a 9:30 a.m. rally in Perkins Plaza, behind City Hall. Work teams

led by city staff were dispatched throughout the community. After the clean up,

participants came back to City Hall for a barbecue.

 

 

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

Item 002

 

School trustee wants to erase his

image as Paterson's grafitti king

 

Thursday, May 13, 1999

 

By MICHAEL CASEY

Staff Writer

 

Driving along Memorial Drive in Paterson, Juan "Mitch" Santiago pulls up

to an abandoned building and points to a battered doorway scarred by his

graffiti signature.

 

The small "Mitch" -- his "tag" -- is one of the few remaining signs that this

33-year-old father of five was the city's graffiti king in the 1980s and early

1990s. But the telltale tag is also a sign of the struggle Santiago faces as he

makes the transition from a vandal and high school dropout to a city

inspector and school trustee with children whose ages range from 4 to 15.

 

Despite his election to a three-year term on the school board this month,

Santiago said, many voters judged him by his graffiti exploits rather than on

his educational platform.

 

"I've changed, and all that garbage is behind me now," Santiago said. "When

I'm 50 years old, are they still going to call me a graffiti artist? People don't

forget. But I have better things to do than worry about people criticizing

me."

 

 

Item 001

 

Monday, May 17, 1999

OWNTOWN -- The 11th Annual Great Graffiti Paint Out and Community

CLEAN Up Day took place Saturday. The event, sponsored by the Glendale

CLEAN Committee, the Glendale Glendale Association of Realtors and City of

Glendale-Neighborhood Services, involved community residents spending a few

hours painting out graffiti and picking up trash from the city's streets and alleys. The

clean up began after a 9:30 a.m. rally in Perkins Plaza, behind City Hall. Work teams

led by city staff were dispatched throughout the community. After the clean up,

participants came back to City Hall for a barbecue.

 

 

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

Item 002

 

School trustee wants to erase his

image as Paterson's grafitti king

 

Thursday, May 13, 1999

 

By MICHAEL CASEY

Staff Writer

 

Driving along Memorial Drive in Paterson, Juan "Mitch" Santiago pulls up

to an abandoned building and points to a battered doorway scarred by his

graffiti signature.

 

The small "Mitch" -- his "tag" -- is one of the few remaining signs that this

33-year-old father of five was the city's graffiti king in the 1980s and early

1990s. But the telltale tag is also a sign of the struggle Santiago faces as he

makes the transition from a vandal and high school dropout to a city

inspector and school trustee with children whose ages range from 4 to 15.

 

Despite his election to a three-year term on the school board this month,

Santiago said, many voters judged him by his graffiti exploits rather than on

his educational platform.

 

"I've changed, and all that garbage is behind me now," Santiago said. "When

I'm 50 years old, are they still going to call me a graffiti artist? People don't

forget. But I have better things to do than worry about people criticizing

me."

 

Santiago's victory in the school board elections is the latest chapter in the life

of man who has been the city's version of Jekyll and Hyde for almost 20

years. To some, Santiago is a reformed criminal using past mistakes to help

others; to others, he's a flashy self-promoter who talks a good game but will

never change.

 

Local teens lionized him for his graffiti exploits; police and the late Mayor

Frank X. Graves Jr. reviled him.

 

Graffiti convictions got Santiago fired from a public-works job and kicked

out of the police academy. Yet he has also been lauded for setting up

programs to help troubled youth and once led a group of convicted graffiti

vandals in a cleanup program.

 

"Mitch is a renegade," said Mayor Martin G. Barnes, who endorsed

Santiago's election bid. "He's a street kid who lived the street life. He's

starting to see the error of his ways and really wants to do some good."

 

Councilman Thomas C. Rooney Jr., however, said Santiago's school board

victory cannot erase the damage he did to public buildings, highway

overpasses, and semi-trailer trucks.

 

"Mitch is still Mitch," said Rooney, one of numerous elected officials whom

Santiago unsuccessfully sued over the years for slander. "He is still the

graffiti king and all that implies. . . . It is shameful that this man is on the

school board. He's been arrested, tried, and has paid fines for spraying

paint on St. Joseph's Hospital and the Salvation Army."

 

Santiago, whom the city has since rehired as a public-works inspector, said

he is not hiding from his past.

 

He said people should be willing to consider his views about schools and

the reforms he wants to make in the next three years. He talks of cracking

down on speeders around schools, of involving more parents in the system,

and of serving as a role model for troubled youngsters.

 

"There are a lot of kids out there who are lost," said Santiago, whose

shaved head, icy glare, and tattooed forearms make him an imposing figure

still.

 

"I'll tell them, 'Fellas, you can change. You can become somebody.' "

 

Born in the Bronx, Santiago retains the accent and bravado from his days

on the streets. He said he joined a gang, the Fifth Dimension, when he was

13. He graduated to spray-painting subway trains.

 

At 15, Santiago said, he ran away from home after years of physical abuse

at the hands of his drunken father. He moved in with his mother in Paterson

and attended John F. Kennedy High School. He was forced to transfer to

Eastside High School after repeated fights with other students. He continued

his fighting ways at Eastside and then dropped out.

 

"When I was younger, I didn't care about anybody," Santiago said, showing

off scars on his lip, hand, and nose that he said are the results of numerous

fistfights. "I was a real wild guy. I had a fight almost every day."

 

Santiago's mother, Aida Ojeda, recalled how her boy's antics would make

her cry out of frustration. She said she tried to lecture him about setting a

good example for his four younger siblings. She also hauled him into church

in hopes of getting some divine intervention.

 

"He was a bad boy -- my goodness!" she said with a smile. "Every single

day, he gave me a headache. I really thought he would end up in jail, the

hospital, or be killed."

 

When Santiago wasn't fighting, he was spray-painting the city with his tag.

He also painted brightly colored abstract murals that featured his name in

bold three-dimensional letters. He did murals of dead friends and original

cartoon characters, such as one called "Bone Head," who looked like E.T.

 

Santiago said that at the height of his graffiti reign, in the early 1980s, his tag

was plastered in as many as 150 places around Paterson. His fame caught

the eye of other graffiti vandals and he started traveling with a gang known

as TMD, or Toys Must Die. He also gained national and international

recognition, painting murals as far away as Italy and Puerto Rico. He even

did the backdrop for the movie "Lean On Me," about former Eastside

Principal Joe Clark.

 

"When you heard about Mitch, you thought of Paterson's graffiti artists,"

said Jason Goyco, a former graffiti vandal who worked with Santiago in the

mid-Eighties. "Everything he did was original. He never copied other

people's artwork. . . . He made everything look so real."

 

With the fame came intense scrutiny, however, as local authorities stepped

up their war on graffiti.

 

Figuring that Santiago could be a negative influence on other graffiti vandals,

police and politicians implored him to stop. Santiago said he agreed and

took a job in the Department of Public Works in 1982. He then joined the

National Guard and, soon after, received his GED.

 

But in 1985, Santiago and some friends were caught painting graffiti in

Clifton -- the second of his three convictions. It cost him his public-works

job. It also led to a six-year battle in which he publicly portrayed himself as

a do-gooder but continued his spray-painting ways.

 

Finally, in 1992, Santiago announced in typical dramatic fashion that he was

going to retire for good and called on 80 other graffiti vandals to follow his

lead. Tired of being targeted every time graffiti appeared on buildings, he

turned his attention to more legitimate art forms. He organized graffiti art

shows and played host to "graffiti-thons," where students spray-painted

canvasses.

 

Nevertheless, his past continued to haunt him. In a highly publicized case,

Santiago was kicked out of the police academy in 1994 after he was found

guilty of five counts of criminal mischief for painting four buildings and a

statue.

 

To this day, Santiago insists the charges were trumped up. He has vowed to

get his record expunged and become a state prison guard in the future.

 

As Santiago drives along Paterson's streets, people seem to be impressed.

A crossing guard gushes with compliments about what the new board

member will do for young people. Santiago's DPW boss said he has

dubbed him "Top Gun," in part because Santiago writes 800 tickets a

month.

 

The former graffiti king's mother, sitting in the family's modest two-family

home on George Street, said her son is a changed man. Surrounded by a

roomful of family photos on the cramped living room wall, she said he finally

took her advice.

 

"I had faith that perhaps he would change, but I didn't think he would," she

said. "He is not the person he was before. He now works and talks to the

younger kids. He shaves, gets haircuts, and talks to people decently."

 

Santiago insists that the toned-down life suits him just fine. Talking like the

angry citizens who used to frown on his work, he calls graffiti "garbage" and

said it should be painted over.

 

"I've grown out of that stuff," Santiago said as he waded through piles of

newspapers glorifying his graffiti art. "You look at that now and it brings

back bad memories. I just wish I could erase all the bad things I've done."

 

 

what agraf crusader...we must defend him!! LOL

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Nevertheless, his past continued to haunt him. In a highly publicized case,

Santiago was kicked out of the police academy in 1994 after he was found

guilty of five counts of criminal mischief for painting four buildings and a

statue.

 

 

 

 

 

there's your outcome, based on the interaction of the 3 witnesses just sucks your boy was one of the witnesses who took the stand

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Juan Santiago, “Mitch,” E-mail:Mitch-world@hotmail.com; Employment: Passaic County Sheriff's Department Sheriff's Investigator and deputy chef inspector of Department of Public Works; Lived in Paterson: 27 years;

 

2nd link , pdf file ... employment status ..

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who got anger now, as soon as u dont like what u here, u start name callin...frankly, I respected ur intelligent agruments ....understandable that ur angry now....alotta fraudulent paperwork circulated in the BX a few years back as well...s all good tho, maybe niggas got guilty consciences thats why theyre on the attack...I got more 'paperwork' comin...not tryin to clog this thread ne more

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