Playing Paint Tag With Taggers : Tired of Reading the Writing on the Wall, Residents Attack Graffiti

It is a simple philosophy: anything that can be defaced with graffiti can be covered over with paint.

So in what has become a neck-and-neck race, taggers spray their demands for recognition by night and Harbor area residents smother the scrawl by day.

Homeowners and business people call the city Department of Public Works daily to ask for the free paint and rollers, and on Saturday mornings, bucket-toting volunteers in San Pedro and Wilmington work along city streets in groups.

“Graffiti has increased dramatically in the last year. However, we’re fighting back now--we’re basically doing battle with these kids now to keep the main arteries clean,” said Gordon Teuber of San Pedro. “We don’t have an open warfare yet, but we’re having an impact on what they’re doing.”

Graffiti, of course, has been a problem for years in the Harbor area--as it has throughout Los Angeles and in cities across the nation. But people in San Pedro, Harbor City and Wilmington say they are at a crossroads: Either they reclaim their walls or risk seeing their communities defined by the senseless scribbles blighting them.

The painting effort is only one step in what has become an areawide effort to blot out graffiti. Other anti-graffiti moves under discussion were aired last week at an unprecedented meeting of about 400 Harbor residents at the Los Angeles Police Department’s San Pedro pistol range.

At the meeting, an anti-graffiti seminar that included city and law enforcement officials, speakers said repeatedly that to defeat graffiti, more has to be done than to repaint walls.

“We’ve spent a half a million dollars in six years painting out graffiti, and what do I have to show for it?” asked Ernie Paculba, the director of the Gang Alternatives Program in the Harbor area. His voice rising and falling in the cadences of a preacher, Paculba stirred the crowd, tapping into residents’ frustration by voicing his own anger and resolve.

“We have to have zero tolerance,” he said. “Who are the perpetrators? Where do they come from? They come from right here! They’re the kids down the street, the next-door neighbor.

“But now the Harbor area is finally going to get ahead of it,” he said.

Among the anti-graffiti steps discussed were nighttime patrols by residents, stepped-up police surveillance and legislation that would make parents of taggers liable for the damage done by their children.

Plans are also in the works for an all-day seminar at Harbor College, said Lew Prulitzky, who heads up the paint-out effort in Wilmington.

“It’ll be more like a classroom setting where we can invite the district attorney, the city attorney and politicians who can train us and educate us as to what we can do to combat graffiti,” Prulitzky said.

“We’re really going to kick this thing into overdrive.”

Many in the audience said graffiti at first seemed a childish prank. But now, they said, it has come to symbolize the breakdown of society.

Graffiti, they said, is a sign that some parents don’t know or care whether their children go to school, don’t care whether their children go to bed at night, or--at best--cannot control their children.

Officials said there is worse to come if the problem is not dealt with now.

“I’ve seen a trend in the last six or seven months that is shocking and alarming,” said Judge Peter Mirich. “That’s the propensity of individual taggers and crews to become violent.”

Mirich, a judge in the Catalina Judicial District Juvenile Court, pointed to the example of the recent murder of a Reseda High School student who police said was a tagger. The youngster was allegedly killed by a member of a rival tagging gang.

Mirich said that of his first five graffiti cases--tried about four years ago--four of the youths are now in custody on murder or attempted murder charges. The fifth is in custody for robbery, he said.

One case he thought would be a success story concerned a tagger who came to court polite and contrite.

“He was a B-minus student; he wrote apology letters and did 400 hours of community service,” Mirich said. “Today he has three charges of assault with a deadly weapon and three attempted murder charges stemming from a drive-by where he was the driver. Gangs and taggers are interwoven.”

Many at the meeting said taggers should spend time in jail--whether they are violent or not.

“And most taggers are not given jail time initially, and I think they should be given a minimum sentence--just as Mothers Against Drunk Driving got laws passed so there’s a minimum for being caught driving drunk,” Teuber said.

And residents repeatedly called for laws to make parents responsible for their children. Said Teuber: “The parents of these kids don’t care as much. But worse than that, some of the parents were gang members themselves and it’s now generational. That’s part of the problem.”