Van Nuys : 2 Rewarded for Tips on Suspected Taggers

The stories of Stephanie Sheppard and Larry Hanna seem simple enough on the surface. The two San Fernando Valley residents will soon receive $500 each from the city for helping the Los Angeles Police Department nab two suspected graffiti vandals four months ago.

But their story is actually several interlocking stories about crime in the Valley and the lives of the people who have battled it. Take the alleged graffiti vandal whom Hanna, a Van Nuys lawyer, told police he saw deface a light pole in Van Nuys. David Hillo, 20, was the surviving member of the graffiti duo shot by William Masters last January.

Hanna and Sheppard will get their rewards for telling the police about observing taggers at a mini-mall at the corner of Sherman Way and Kester Avenue on June 15.

Police say the alleged graffiti vandals were the friends and family members of three teen-agers who were killed at the intersection two days earlier. In a case that made headlines at the time, the teen-agers died after their car was broadsided by a suspected burglar fleeing police.

The taggers were memorializing their friends through their symbols and squiggles, according to Shelley Gale, senior lead officer for Van Nuys. Two days after the car crash, police and a citizens surveillance team--which included Hanna and Sheppard--moved in to arrest a number of taggers who had descended upon the mini-mall.

Sheppard, who identified another tagging suspect at the scene, has a separate crime story of her own. In 1990, the Sherman Oaks resident received a hero award from the city Fire Commission for helping authorities capture an arsonist responsible for several fires in North Hollywood.

Since January, 1990, when the reward program was started, the department has approved monetary awards to 121 tipsters.

“I don’t do it for the money,” said Sheppard, a free-lance artist. “I do it because I believe in a certain amount of law and order and justice.”