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im from philly but i thought you guys might be intrested in this article...

 

 

Police use Internet as tool in hunt for graffiti Ape

By Laura Barnhardt

Sun Staff

Originally published November 18, 2004

For two years, city work crews have been buffing away

graffiti from

bridges, overpasses and sound barriers, suspecting it

was the work of

one vandal. The ubiquitous scribbling was even named

best graffiti of

2004 by a city weekly.

 

And after it showed up along Interstate 95 late last

month, state

police joined the search for whoever was marking the

concrete with the

word "Apes."

 

Yesterday, state police said they had arrested a

Hampden man and had

seized, in an early morning raid of his van and

rowhouse, 2,000 cans

of spray paint and a half-dozen photo albums with

pictures of

graffiti.

 

They said they also seized an ape suit.

 

+++++++++++++++++ Apes,

according to state

police - was charged with several counts of malicious

destruction of

property in connection with graffiti on highway

overpasses in Harford

County. ++++++++++++++++++++++

was being held

yesterday at the Harford County Detention Center.

 

+++++++++became a suspect, police said yesterday, when a

state trooper

searching the Internet found references to the

distinctive markings,

and an article featuring an interview with +++++++++

about a 1997

graffiti spree in Milwaukee.

 

Police said that removing "Apes" graffiti in the

Baltimore area has

cost taxpayers thousands of dollars. Baltimore

Detective Larry

Holland, of the city Police Department's environmental

crimes section,

estimated the damage from the hundreds of "Apes"

paintings around the

city at $150,000.

 

They said they've been looking for the person

responsible for two

years.

 

"We had an idea what crew he ran with, but never

caught him. It was

basically a 'catch me if you can' kind of thing,"

Holland said.

 

In its "Best of" issue this year, the City Paper named

"Apes" best

graffiti.

 

On Halloween weekend, similar graffiti was found on

seven overpasses

on I-95 north of Baltimore, police said. Police said

the graffiti

typically included a combination of "FCR," apparently

meaning "Fat

Chicks Rule," and "SEB," for "Straight Edge Bomber,"

an apparent

tribute to a graffiti artist who died in 1997 after a

40-foot fall

while spray-painting.

 

Wisconsin ties

 

State Trooper Glen Peterson found references to the

"Apes" graffiti on

the Internet and discovered a 1999 article in an

alternative weekly in

Wisconsin featuring an interview with +++++

 

After exchanging information with Milwaukee police

about their "Apes"

graffiti cases in 1997, state police requested a

search warrant for

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++, which

still has

Wisconsin tags, police said.

 

In addition to the furry costume and the cans of spray

paint, police

said they found several fire extinguishers filled with

paint and

five-gallon paint buckets during the search of++++++++ house.

 

Newspaper interview

 

+++++++++ was released in 1998 after serving 20 months in

jail in

Wisconsin for a vandalism conviction, but was to have

remained on

probation until next year, according to a 1999 article

in the Shepherd

Express of Milwaukee.

 

In that article, +++++++ is quoted as saying the threat

of prison

doesn't deter graffiti artists who are motivated by

ego to put their

names in public places.

 

But, according to the article,+++++++++ said he was

worried about being

connected with graffiti artists known as "taggers"

after his

conviction, and he was quoted as saying, "I'm worrying

every day the

cops are going to come in through the door and haul me

back."

 

 

 

 

i know it's public record, but have some respect for what little privacy dude has left....edited for names

 

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