"inkie" Posted October 17, 2006 Author Share Posted October 17, 2006 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
"inkie" Posted October 17, 2006 Author Share Posted October 17, 2006 Graffiti gang wars Taggers face steep charges after months of police surveillance. By George Schulz AT A RECENT meeting of San Francisco's Graffiti Advisory Board, president Marc Bruno suggested inviting a graffiti artist or academic with expertise on the subject to speak to the group. Bruno figured an expert could offer new insight into the culture of and motivation behind graffiti. Members of the 14-seat board, which includes a cross-section of city workers and concerned citizens, swiftly rejected the idea. One member said he didn't want vandals to be given a "platform." Another said she'd just as soon invite a drug dealer to speak to the board. There's nothing to understand about graffiti but how to stop it, they argued. While the clash was little more than a footnote in the city's ongoing war against graffiti, it was telling. Call it art, call it crime, call it a sociological phenomenon, but the bottom line is that graffiti drives a lot of people nuts. The city responds to more than 4,000 complaints about graffiti a year and spends $2 million to remove it from public and private property. City workers sandblast and paint over spray paint, fix windows defaced with glass-etching cream or cutters, and replace street signs marred by stickers and tags. BART alone has a budget of more than $1.5 million a year for graffiti cleanup. Now District Attorney Terence Hallinan is mounting a landmark legal assault on those who wield Krylon and permanent markers. The D.A.'s Office is pursuing a raft of felony charges – conspiracy, gang membership, and vandalism – against eight alleged graffitists, five of whom are purported members of a gang called Kill Until Killed (the name is slang for "paint until painted over"). If found guilty, the alleged taggers, who are looking at a total of 24 charges, could end up doing between 18 and 21 months in state prison for spray painting – which would be the longest sentences ever for graffiti in San Francisco. "I think that there's a strong community interest to hold accountable an organized group of graffiti taggers who think that the city is their playground," assistant district attorney Harry Dorfman says. "We also want to let the other taggers in town know there's a consequence for what they do.... Even though I can't get all of them, the word will get out in the tagging community." The case is a product of the kind of multi-agency police probe usually reserved for Mafia families and hard-core drug rings. Over a six-month span, the San Francisco Police Department and its partner agencies, including the Oakland Police Department and BART police, placed members of KUK under surveillance, staking out their homes, tracking their cars, and even eating next to them in restaurants. The graffiti trail led cops up and down the West Coast and across the country to Minnesota and New York. Early on Oct. 28, 2002, San Francisco police finally concluded their investigation with the arrests of and. The police had received a call from a witness who saw and tagging. Police say the suspects were in possession of spray-paint cans and wide-tipped permanent markers at the time of their arrests. Patrol officers later found the men's purported "tags" – "Abhor" and "Dels," respectively – on 10 Market Street businesses and Muni bus stop shelters, according to police reports. On the day of and arrests, police from BART's Together Against Graffiti unit raided residence in San Francisco. BART police next served a warrant to alleged KUK member at his Oakland home. Shortly afterward, more residences in San Francisco and Oakland were hit with search warrants based on evidence gathered from the two initial raids and photos of graffiti from around the city believed to be the work of KUK. During the raids, police retrieved sketchbooks, photos, spray-paint cans, markers, and "other items that fill boxes of evidence," according to police reports. Police allege that tags and throw-ups (larger, full-color tags) found in the seized sketchbooks appear to match graffiti found everywhere from mailboxes near home to the sign over a teller window at the city's auto impound office. Investigators are convinced they can identify the work of KUK, citing as evidence their own photos of graffiti throughout the Mission District depicting a cat with Xs for eyes and a KUK logo, as well as "Abhor," "Vic20," and "Sleaze" throw-ups in vacant lots, desolate alleys, and on the sides of delivery trucks. Based on evidence gathered in the raids and police photos, eight suspects were hit with indictments, including five alleged members of KUK as well as the crew's supposed "associates." . , tall and slender with a boyish face, would fit nicely in a Norman Rockwell painting if it weren't for the tattoos snaking up his arms to his neck. It would be difficult to peg him as a stereotypical gang member. He admits he's been busted for graffiti before but says that generally the charges have been dropped or he's gotten "a slap on the wrist." The severe charges he faces now are shocking to him. "As a whole in San Francisco, I've never really been prosecuted like this," he says. "It's a pretty artistic city." All of the suspects have been hit with felony conspiracy and felony graffiti vandalism charges. Dorfman estimates the property damage at close to $20,000, and each individual will be charged on the basis of how much property damage he or she allegedly perpetrated. Dorfman is also charging five defendants – the supposed KUKers – with gang membership, which could stiffen sentences dramatically. But the prosecutor may have some legal difficulty when it comes to defining KUK as a gang. The California Penal Code defines criminal street gang as a group of three or more people, whether formal or informal, that commits one or more criminal acts from a list of 25 activities including felony vandalism (one of the least-threatening activities on the list, depending on your point of view). Gang charges pass muster when suspects engage in a "pattern of criminal gang activity," defined as two or more activities from the list, or are convicted of a felony "for the benefit of any criminal street gang." Dorfman can argue the latter as long as he proves individual charges exceeded $400 in damage or proves conspiracy to commit felony vandalism. Dorfman sees no problem in applying the penal code's gang definition to KUK. He says there's nothing in the code that says groups must commit violent crimes along with vandalism in order to be defined as a gang. attorney Maitryea Badami disagrees. She insists the penal code was specifically designed to target gangs that engage in vandalism among a variety of illegal activities. "The statute was defined to control violence in turf warfare in street gangs," Badami says. "The fact that graffiti was included in that list was because some street gangs used graffiti to establish their turf. Our issue is that this doesn't meet the original intent of the statute." If Badami is right, all or at least a significant portion of the charges could be dropped when she heads to state court in November to file a motion to dismiss the trial. Even without new graffiti coming from and the others, there's no doubt it's still ubiquitous in the Mission and other parts of the city – even beyond the commissioned Altoids billboards depicting urban art that run along Mission Street. What kind of example and his friends will become to taggers everywhere is partly up to the Oakland and San Francisco judges who will determine their fate in coming months. Names of crew members removed Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
"inkie" Posted October 17, 2006 Author Share Posted October 17, 2006 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
"inkie" Posted October 17, 2006 Author Share Posted October 17, 2006 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
oc80 Posted December 8, 2006 Share Posted December 8, 2006 Is that dude bane really in KUK? Ive never heard of him before, but ill check it out no, he is not. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
oc80 Posted December 8, 2006 Share Posted December 8, 2006 Who was the person who did the cats? deadcats/iwantapony Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
oc80 Posted December 8, 2006 Share Posted December 8, 2006 Maybe I'm remembering wrong, but didn't a bunch of photos on this very forum get used against them in their court case? yes. pretty much all these ones except the wash dc did. end result = 1yr. in santa rita Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WorldBench Posted December 13, 2006 Share Posted December 13, 2006 i remember when every graff forum deleted the KUK threads because the Popo's were grabbing photos for cases against them i saw KUK stuff in Ann Arbor Michigan and New York, KUK is everywhere bump Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
oc80 Posted December 13, 2006 Share Posted December 13, 2006 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DeweyVonGumpsteinAndTheWiz Posted December 14, 2006 Share Posted December 14, 2006 2002 was a sick year... i miss it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tronraised Posted December 30, 2006 Share Posted December 30, 2006 stolen Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bigbadassbilly Posted December 31, 2006 Share Posted December 31, 2006 huge abhor wwl... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
*katusha* Posted December 31, 2006 Share Posted December 31, 2006 VICDUB! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
obscurecelebrity... Posted January 18, 2007 Share Posted January 18, 2007 more sleazer Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rebsBK Posted January 18, 2007 Share Posted January 18, 2007 was that article up there the one that was in punk planet? good shit in here Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Barry Bonds Posted January 18, 2007 Share Posted January 18, 2007 anyone got a flick of that vic 20 freight where the "I" was a cock? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tuckyourchains. Posted January 18, 2007 Share Posted January 18, 2007 these guys held it down. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
oc80 Posted January 18, 2007 Share Posted January 18, 2007 i know all those flicks that were up on this shit back in 02 got pulled cause of all the cases gettin slammed... is that what you "know"? this crew has been dead now, more time than it was ever alive.. that's what i know. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
oc80 Posted January 18, 2007 Share Posted January 18, 2007 Early on Oct. 28, 2002, San Francisco police finally concluded their investigation with the arrests of and. The police had received a call from a witness who saw and tagging. Police say the suspects were in possession of spray-paint cans and wide-tipped permanent markers at the time of their arrests. Patrol officers later found the men's purported "tags" – "Abhor" and "Dels," respectively – on 10 Market Street businesses and Muni bus stop shelters, according to police reports. that shit was so sad.. that dude dels moved down from portland like the day before, and the first night writing this poor dude gets wrapped up in this huge mess, fool had $1,000,000 bail, no joke. poor fucking dels, had to change his word, and rot in jail till they figured out dude wasn't even in KUK.. dels.. poor bastard.. hahaha.. and abhor was out like weeks before dels.. those cops were so funny, it took them so long to build a case, and these kids were the easiest people to find.. the police even had the dog ugly lesbian transit cop call up cobra and ask him out on a date.. they were keystone like you wouldn't believe.. with all the money they spend on this case, how many textbooks could they have bought? how many single mom;s could buy food and clothes for kids? and what did SF get out of it? the city is easily AS crushed, maybe not by kuk, but look at the frisco thread.. shit is rocked! ok, not by KUK, but by US, PCF, TKO, PIGS, MSK.. people who aren't one time writers.. so whatever the police were trying to prove going after KUK, the message was lost on the writers of SF/Oakland.. haha.. shiiiiit. some flicks... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
youhate2luvme Posted January 18, 2007 Share Posted January 18, 2007 kukkk Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tuckyourchains. Posted January 20, 2007 Share Posted January 20, 2007 stolen. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NormanR1985 Posted January 20, 2007 Share Posted January 20, 2007 kuk! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
showski Posted January 20, 2007 Share Posted January 20, 2007 its funny to see people flip out over graff..... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rainforrest Posted January 20, 2007 Share Posted January 20, 2007 this may not be the best idea. if anyone doesn't want these up, let me know. BANE!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
oc80 Posted January 20, 2007 Share Posted January 20, 2007 ^ remove this shit. read the title of the thread. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
c. clarence Posted January 21, 2007 Share Posted January 21, 2007 pretty sure this thread will get shut down like the last kuk thread... bump anyways. wanna see more cutty memberrs like jade, msa, jenks, wwl, thous.... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SkeetSkeetSkeet Posted February 6, 2007 Share Posted February 6, 2007 Kuk! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WorldBench Posted February 6, 2007 Share Posted February 6, 2007 bump for KUK, destroying the world Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
IROCKHOES Posted February 7, 2007 Share Posted February 7, 2007 These guys apparently werent very discreet! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
"inkie" Posted April 27, 2009 Author Share Posted April 27, 2009 All stolen from Flickr: Dagmar, 2KILLAMOCKINGBIRD, etc. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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