Graffiti Warriors : Small Caltrans Crew Battles to Keep Writing Off Freeway Walls

It is a war pitting an army of several thousand against a crew of three.

The army of graffiti writers and taggers has youth and numbers on its side. The crew, which cleans up after them on Orange County freeways, has experience and technology.

“It’s not even close, they don’t stand a chance,” said crew leader Ed Henderson, 57, of his opponents as he loaded his equipment for another day of battle. Henderson and his 8-month-old graffiti removal crew from the California Department of Transportation erase the handiwork of gang members on more than 400 miles of freeways and roads stretching from Buena Park to San Onofre.

Every weekday, the team surveys the walls, pillars and bridges looking for spray-painted lettering. Henderson knows exactly how many days will pass before a certain wall will be hit again with graffiti.

“I just keep plugging along armed with my Kraco 5000,” Henderson says defiantly about his power spray gun. “They can’t beat this.”

For more than two decades Caltrans was forced to send out large numbers of workers armed with rollers and dishes of paint to try conquer the visual blight. “It was useless, but it was all they could do back then,” Henderson said. “In one hour I can do what it would take nine men with paint rollers to do in a day.”

Even though Henderson acknowledges they are winning the battle against graffiti in his area, he said it still upsets him that so much money and time is spent by the state.

Al Gallegos, the anti-graffiti team supervisor, said more than $200,000 will be spent this year by taxpayers for equipment such as spray guns and paint and for manpower to keep the walls clean. He said it makes him even more upset when they get complaints for not doing a good enough job.

“Sometimes we take off graffiti and no sooner than an hour it’s back on,” Gallegos said, shaking his head. “And people call in and ask why aren’t we doing something about it.”

Aside from the regular hazards of the occupation such as looking out for drugged, drunk or sleepy drivers bearing down on them, the team now has to deal with threats from irate taggers and gang members who spray-paint threatening messages on the walls.

“We must be doing a good job cause now we’re seeing gang members saying they are going to get us,” Gallegos said with ambivalence. “But now I have to assign a two-man crew for certain bad areas.”

Although none of the crew has ever spotted someone spraying graffiti on the walls, they all said they wouldn’t do anything to stop the culprit. Instead, they would call the police via their radios to apprehend the criminals even though they think police do not want to waste their time on something as insignificant as spray-painting a wall.

“There should be a stiff penalty for these guys,” Gallegos said. “Something to make them think before they start destroying the walls.”

News of the crew’s effectiveness has reached other parts of Southern California, where graffiti problems have equaled or surpassed Orange County’s. Just recently Henderson was sent to San Diego to help the Caltrans district office there set up its own graffiti-removal crew.

“Hoo, you should have seen how it was in Chula Vista,” Henderson said of the graffiti problem that used to exist there. “They went through 50 gallons of paint in a relatively small area.”

Henderson said the San Diego crew is now able to cut the paint usage to a mere 15 gallons in some of the previous trouble spots and has adopted the same colors of paint used in Orange County as well.

Each member of the crew carries approximately nine five-gallon containers of paint in their trucks. They use three standard colors--dusty gray, cream ivory and light brown. They also have the old-fashioned roller for those hard-to-get places.

As the graffiti crew drives along the freeways each morning inspecting their areas, they look for the telltale signs of their victories--almost invisible blotches of gray or brown paint.

One recent morning, Henderson drove along one of his “trouble spots” and smiled with pride at the blank walls.

“It looks pretty good right now, but summer is here and that’s when they (taggers) really come out,” said Henderson, who is retiring in November.

Henderson stopped the truck and found a small area where someone had painted almost undecipherable initials on a brown wall near an overpass. Henderson slapped on his plastic gloves and seemed to gauge the wind before he lifted the spray gun from the back of his truck. In 10 seconds the blue painted initials were gone.

“This place used to be filled with graffiti,” Henderson said as he looked around for more. “I own this area now.”

Henderson explains that he never gives up a wall regardless of how quick someone destroys the cleanliness. He further explains that persistence is what beats his adversaries.

“I used to spend 40 to 50 gallons of paint a week in this area,” he said of one of the major freeways near Anaheim Stadium. “Now I’m down to 10 gallons.” There are plans for Caltrans to implement other high-tech weapons to their arsenal--video cameras and paint-proof signs and walls.

“Sometimes I say to myself what’s the use, but it’s my job,” Henderson said. “I know if I continue, I can wear them out.”