Santa Clarita / Antelope Valley : Anti-Gang Unit Hopes T-Shirt Will Make Taggers Think Twice

The city’s Anti-Gang Task Force, which successfully pulled T-shirts promoting illegal activities from store shelves last August, is now selling a T-shirt of its own.

The black shirts being sold for $5 on school campuses and at city offices depict two wolves urinating on a rock. The adjacent panel shows two youths spray-painting graffiti onto a wall. The caption reads: “What’s the diff?” The panels are in white, with yellow illustrating both the paint and urine.

“We wanted to figure out a way to appeal to the teens and make tagging uncool,” said Gail Foy, city public information officer.

The illustration by political cartoonist Randy Wicks of Newhall originally ran in The Signal newspaper six months ago.

“I didn’t see a whole lot of difference between the wolves and the graffiti-ists marking their territory,” said Wicks, who gave permission to the task force to use the cartoon at no cost.

Wicks acknowledged some may find the picture offensive. That, he said, is part of the message.

“I did it because I feel strongly about it,” said Wicks. “I’m just glad to be a small part of helping fight a growing problem.”

Graffiti incidents have tapered off in Santa Clarita in recent months. About 40 to 50 monthly calls have come in to the city’s phone line to graffiti-removal volunteers since August, down from about 120 a month during the same time period last year.

“I’m hoping with my fingers crossed the kids won’t take it as a challenge to go out and do more graffiti,” said Sgt. Lee White, head of the anti-gang unit of the Santa Clarita Valley Sheriff’s Station. “I hope the shirt catches on. I know the taggers won’t buy any.”

The city task force had 500 of the shirts printed, and will make more if they sell out.

“All we want to do is cover the cost of the shirt,” Foy said.

The shirts will be sold for $5 each at student stores on Santa Clarita’s public junior high and high school campuses beginning next week, Foy said. They are also available at Santa Clarita’s temporary city offices.

In August, the group had three T-shirt styles pulled from the shelves of the Hot Topic store in the Valencia Town Center, fearing the shirts suggested criminal behavior was acceptable.

One recalled style featured a man with a bottle of white-out correction fluid, with the applicator brush removed and the word “Rave” above it. Authorities were concerned the image encouraged sniffing the fluid to get high.