Azusa Gangs, Cleanup Crews Engage in Daily ‘Graffiti War’

Surveying the damage has almost become a morning ritual for Alice Santallan.

“When we wake up everything is painted,” said Santallan, pointing to the graffiti-splattered garage doors, walls and rooftops of her Azusa neighborhood.

“You can see the wall now and it’s clean,” she said, motioning to another area that a few hours before had been covered with cryptic gang slogans in fluorescent blue spray paint. City workers had already painted over that area. “But we’ll wake up tomorrow and it’ll be painted.”

A city block has become the focus of what Azusa officials call a “graffiti war” between city maintenance crews and a local gang. The area, a mishmash of about 24 lots of duplexes, fourplexes and mid-sized apartments, is bordered by Alameda and Dalton avenues and 2nd and 3rd streets.

“That area right in there is just getting blitzed,” said Robert DeLoach, assistant director of public works. “We’ll take it off today, and they’ll put it back tomorrow.”

Buildings Condemned

Neighbors said the first shot was apparently fired when the city condemned a number of buildings in the neighborhood, forcing out some gang members in early November. The residents claim the graffiti are in retaliation for those condemnations.

The battle has reached a deadlock with gang members painting the neighborhood by night and city crews painting it by day. The area was hit on successive nights in early December and at least 15 times in November.

“Everyone’s scared and fed up with it,” said one angry resident, who declined to give his name because he feared more graffiti on his apartment. “Something has got to be done.”

The Azusa City Council, realizing that the cleanup effort is becoming costly and time-consuming for the city, early this month proposed offering a $500 reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of those responsible for the graffiti.

In proposing the reward, which will be voted on Monday, Councilman Tony D. Naranjo noted that the city will only prevent graffiti if residents inform police as incidents occur.

“The problem right now is we’re getting to this after the fact,” he said.

Councilman Harry L. Stemrich offered an unusual suggestion for punishment. He asked the city attorney if the city could publish the pictures and names of those caught. “If we apprehend someone, we should let people know who it is because they do it at 3 o’clock in the morning,” he said.

City Atty. Peter M. Thorson said he would have to review the law to determine if that plan is feasible and would give a report when he submits the proposed reward ordinance.

During the graffiti outbreak, residents have identified individual gang members as being responsible for the graffiti, but no resident has been willing to make a formal complaint, said Dave Rudisel, city code enforcement officer. Identifications alone, he said, do not allow the city to prosecute anyone.

Rudisel said he is not sure that the residents were correct in saying the recent condemnations led to the escalation in graffiti.

“That may or may not be true, but this is what we’ve been told by some residents,” Rudisel said. “It could be retaliation for that.”

Rudisel said that 10 condemnation proceedings were started in the area in October and November. Ironically for the gangs, he said, the increased city attention on the area has caused more code enforcement.

“The guys that are doing that are the people who are living in the shacks,” he said.

Earlier this month, Christopher James Martinez, 21, was arrested on a count of malicious mischief for allegedly writing graffiti with a marking pen, said Capt. John Broderick. Martinez, whom police suspect of being a gang member, was arrested by officers patrolling the area. The maximum penalty for the misdemeanor is a year in jail and $1,000 fine.

Aside from catching the culprit in the act, DeLoach said, the most effective way to combat graffiti is to paint them over as quickly as possible.

DeLoach estimated that graffiti removal costs the city between $75,000 and $80,000 annually in salary and resources diverted from other projects. City crews consist of a park employee and workers from the East San Gabriel Valley Consortium, which has a city contract for graffiti removal.

Because the houses on the besieged block are almost completely rentals, Rudisel said, Azusa may eventually follow the lead of other cities and start charging landlords for the cleanup. The resulting higher rents have prodded landlords and tenants in other cities to clamp down on graffiti, he said.

Resident Jimmie Montoya said the graffiti are a symptom of a deeper gang infestation of his block, which the teen-agers have claimed as their turf.

“They’re out here every night, harassing everybody,” he said of the gang members, who he said drink and urinate in the alley that bisects the block. “My wife doesn’t want to stay here anymore. We’re thinking about selling.”

Several weeks ago, gang members painted obscure slogans on a woodpile on Montoya’s property. “It must mean something to them because they put it everywhere,” he said.