Accused Graffiti Vandal Ruled to Be Danger to Self; Trial Setting Delayed

An 18-year-old graffiti artist accused of spray-painting the moniker “Chaka” on property stretching from Los Angeles to San Francisco was ruled to be a danger to himself Thursday by a Los Angeles Municipal Court commissioner.

Acting upon the recommendations of doctors at Metropolitan State Hospital in Norwalk, where the teen-ager is being housed, Commissioner Barry Kohn ruled Daniel Ramos to be “gravely disabled and a danger to himself,” said Ted Goldstein, a spokesman for the Los Angeles city attorney’s office.

Kohn subsequently postponed the setting of a date for Ramos’ trial on 48 counts of vandalism and trespassing, said Goldstein.

Ramos did not attend the hearing. His attorney, Deputy Public Defender Yvonne Velazquez, would not comment on the case or the condition of her client.

Hospital officials refused to release information about the teen-ager, citing confidentiality.

Goldstein did not know the reasons for the doctor’s recommendations, but said an updated medical progress report will be reviewed at a hearing scheduled for Wednesday.

Ramos, who was placed on probation as a juvenile for similar crimes of vandalism, faces as much as 24 years in jail and a $24,000 fine if convicted, according to officials.

He was arrested Nov. 28, after police say they spotted him writing “Chaka” with a marking pen on a traffic light pole in Lincoln Heights.

The teen-ager pleaded not guilty but, according to police, privately admitted to being the elusive tagger known as “Chaka,” who has splashed his signature in places as varied as a concrete median on the Santa Ana Freeway and a water tank in Coalinga.

Called the most prolific tagger ever by Los Angeles prosecutors, Ramos is believed to have sprayed his graffiti in at least 10,000 places in the Los Angeles area alone, and to have defaced more than $500,000 in property stretching from Orange County to San Francisco.