The Fight Against Crime Notes From The Battlefront : Man, 77, With an Attitude Stops Taggers

The two teen-age taggers hardly noticed the 77-year-old man shuffling toward them on the city bus.

They should have.

B. R. Chavez was their worst nightmare--a senior citizen with an attitude. Chavez had been riding city buses in the San Fernando Valley for 12 years and hated “those brats” who wantonly mark public property with spray-paint. Before the bus that day had traveled even a block, this diminutive retiree would make a citizen’s arrest of the 18- and 15-year-old boys.

“I remember how the buses used to look in the morning, all clean and nice,” said Chavez in a reflective moment. “Now it’s just terrible! You can’t even see out the windows, the buses are so marked up! The kids are out of control! I can’t stand it!”

Chavez calmed himself and paused to eat a bite of lunch. He was recalling the day he got so fed up, he couldn’t take it anymore.

“I had seen lots of kids doing these things on the bus. I never had the guts to do something about it.

“That day, I just snapped.”

It was on a Saturday morning that Chavez, after a late breakfast in a Van Nuys restaurant, got on a half-filled bus along Sepulveda Boulevard, heading out to see some buddies at a bowling alley.

He made his way down the aisle, spotting the teen-agers leaning over the long seat at the very back.

“At first, I thought it was a couple of guys on pot,” Chavez said. “Then I saw them scribbling.”

It ruined what until then had been a great morning.

“I had a good breakfast, I was so happy,” he said. “Then I saw them and it made me so mad. I leaned over and said, ‘What the hell are you guys doing?’ ”

One of the teen-agers looked at him, sneered and mumbled something in Spanish. The only word Chavez could make out was “viejo,” which means “old man.”

Being ignored is what upset Chavez the most. “What made me really mad was that they knew I was looking and they didn’t care.”

The situation called for drastic measures. Chavez took out his wallet and held up a card. “All right, boys,” he told them sternly, “I’m from city and county. I am going to have you arrested.”

The taggers paid attention this time. Chavez put the card back in his wallet before they noticed that it was his 1985 sustaining membership in the Republican Party.

“It’s got an eagle on it,” he confided. “From a ways back, it looks official.”

Chavez had another trick up his sleeve. He had noticed a police car up ahead stopping a motorist.

“The police are waiting right up ahead,” he announced. Chavez called to the bus driver, “Please stop the bus, I am going to make a citizen’s arrest.” The driver double-parked next to the police car.

Chavez got off the bus and talked to the officers. They searched the boys, finding the markers and formalizing the arrests.

One of the passengers turned to Chavez and said, “You shouldn’t do that, you could get shot.”

Chavez answered, “That’s all right ma’am, I’m a veteran, Army airborne. I’m living on borrowed time.”

This was just a bit of a bluff too. Chavez never left the states during his time in the service.

Still and all, Chavez is a hero in the city attorney’s office, where they issued a press release about his heroic act. The 18-year-old was sentenced in Municipal Court to three days in jail, 30 days of graffiti removal and two years probation. He was also banned from riding city buses, except to and from school, and from possessing any markers or spray-paint. The 15-year-old was released to his parents.

Chavez praised the police, courts and bus company for how the matter was handled. But that doesn’t mean they are off the hook forever. Chavez said he gets along well with most of the bus drivers, but he has noticed that they sometimes speed away from the bus stop without letting senior citizens take their seats.

“One of these days I will see one of them fall,” Chavez said, “and that day, I will report the driver.”