War of the Walls : THE TAGGED: SERGIO PALOS : ‘They are tearing up our community.’

Everywhere you turn, it’s in your face: on street signs, garage doors, freeway overpasses.

Tagging--destructive scrawling on public and private property--is also on our lips. It’s a hot topic, from the inner city to the outer suburbs.

Just last week, Mayor Richard Riordan signed into law a $1,000 penalty for graffiti taggers. And the deaths of seven taggers in a freeway crash July 2 brought the human side of the issue to the forefront.

Why do teen-agers tag? To find out, staff writer Michael Quintanilla explores the secret life of a 13-year-old who “bombs,” or scribbles, his tag name Creator (CRE8) throughout Southeast Los Angeles.

And how does the community cope? With anger and plenty of paint, says Sergio Palos, 39, whose print shop in Creator’s neighborhood gets sprayed every week.

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“I try not to think about the graffiti until my drive to work in the morning. As I make the turn, my eye always draws to the corner where the taggers do their graffiti. It’s just a habit now: ‘Did they hit me?’

When I see that crap splattered on my building at 8 in the morning, it just gets me angry. I seriously believe they have no respect for anything, themselves, their parents.

This graffiti thing is not about pride. For taggers to show pride in a form that defaces property is probably the lowest form of manhood.

I’ve lived in this area for 20 years. I’ve been in the printing business for 15 and have been at this location for four months. In these past 4 months I have spent $500 painting the graffiti. I constantly stock paint on the shelves for the cover-ups. I use at least five or six gallons at a whack.

The bricks on my building are another story. You can’t paint on them. I’ve got to get water or a sandblaster, and that equipment is expensive.

This tagging--three, four initials--is just junk. Chicken scratch.

Once I got hit four times in one day. Early in the morning a crew from Cudahy hit me. I painted over that. It took two coats of paint. Then the Maywood guys came over and did it. I went out to lunch and saw it when I got back. I painted over that. And somebody else came around that same day. Finally, I painted over that, went home--and when I came back in the morning it was there again.

When it happens to you so often and so quickly, it drives you nuts. You get very, very angry and you are thinking of all these things that you would do to these guys if you could catch them.

I did catch a tagger once. The kid must have been no more than 12 years old. We were going to call the cops, but he just stood there. He was gonna take it. I said, ‘You know what, I’m going to let you go. But you have to promise me you are never going to do it (again).’

He wouldn’t apologize. He wouldn’t promise. He had this chip on his shoulder a mile long. Honestly, I didn’t want to get the kid in trouble. I thought, ‘I’ll just scare him some,’ but you see the arrogance that some of these kids have, and again it boils down to respect.

I let him go, and then I thought about it: I’m not going to give these kids any slack from now on. I will press charges if I do catch the guy and will physically hold him for the police. This is my turf, my territory, my property.

The absolute worst kind of graffiti is when they tear up your windows. That’s really big-time vandalism. They actually etch their tags on the windows. I’m not really sure how they do it, but this has got to be done with a diamond drill bit. I have great big windows, and each costs $600. I can’t afford to replace them.

I don’t think any of the graffiti guys would like for their first car--that maybe costs $1,000--to get ripped off, stolen and cut to bits. But that window cost as much as having a good used car. And for it to be torn up like that is destructive.

The thing that gets me is that guys who do this probably live in the area. They are tearing up our community. But they don’t realize that when they are doing it to the businesses or homes, they are doing it to the community.

Not every kid is doing this, and those who do are probably in the minority. But the minority reflects upon the majority of us. We Hispanics are now stereotyped as a raza who doesn’t know any better but to go around and do the graffiti.

Have you heard the jokes? ‘Why can’t a Mexican sign a check? Because it’s not big enough to spray-paint his name on.’ It’s hurtful. Hispanics want to provide the best for ourselves and our community, and for it to be cheapened up this way is bad.

I have five children. My oldest is 15, and he thinks tagging is really cool. I talk to him, so I know he is not doing graffiti out in the streets, and if he did, he would pay the price for it. I think the kids do it for peer appreciation. For instant gratification. Our kids are living the moment, and (they) have a perverted sense of values.

Someday they are going to be grown up, and when that day comes they are not going to be prepared for anything. They have lost time in school. They don’t know how to work or care much about working. All of a sudden, when reality hits them in the face, they’re going to be crying that they are discriminated against because ‘I didn’t get the chance.’ Now is the time to grasp the chance, not when they are in their mid-20s.

I’m Hispanic, and I know how hard it is to build a good future. No one gave me this business or my house. I had to earn them. The future looks bleak for our kids, and that’s what upsets me more about this tagging thing than anything else: These kids have no future.”