Graffiti Busters Make Their Mark : Operation Sparkle is a shining example of volunteerism at work, but there’s still much to do

As the third largest district within the Los Angeles Police Department, the Devonshire division is roughly the same size as the city of Washington, D.C. As such, it is large enough to provide a window on the costly aggravation of graffiti and what it takes to control the problem.

No one keeps precise figures on the amount of graffiti that accumulates in the San Fernando Valley in a year. But the good news is that the Devonshire division’s tagging reports are way down, from 211 locations in the third quarter of 1993 to just 76 during the same period this year. The caveat is that much of the decrease is attributable to the Northridge earthquake, which flattened many of the walls that taggers love to desecrate.

Even so, it’s still a major problem. Just ask Officer Larry Carmona, the Police Assisted Community Enhancement coordinator for Devonshire. Carmona keeps track of every square foot of tagging there that the police help to clean up, and the numbers are still huge at 27,700 square feet for the first six months of this year. That compares to 36,000 square feet during the same period last year.

As those walls are rebuilt, the tagging will increase, and that’s what makes volunteer cleanup programs such as Operation Sparkle so important. Last weekend, the anti-tagging program that originated in the Valley went citywide for the first time and attracted 6,000 volunteers.

“They make a tremendous difference,” said LAPD Deputy Chief Martin Pomeroy. “There are many city streets that you drive through that used to be covered in graffiti that are now graffiti-free.”

We have just one suggestion. With tagging reports to the Devonshire division alone commonly coming in at the rate of 20 to 25 a day, Operation Sparkle ought to occur a lot more frequently than once a year.