Mayor’s Official Residence Tagged by Graffiti Vandals

A day after Mayor Richard Riordan proposed a tough crackdown on the 18th Street gang, the mayor’s official residence was tagged with graffiti, a move that angered and concerned some top city officials.

Riordan was not at the Getty House when the tagging took place; in fact, the mayor does not live at the mansion. But word of the vandalism quickly reached his office, and the Police Department notified other city officials as well.

“It’s sad and frustrating any time public or private property is defaced in our city,” Riordan said in a statement. “Any incident of violence or mischief reminds us that we must continue to seek comprehensive solutions in our communities.”

Officials said they did not know whether the graffiti were in any way connected to Riordan’s proposal for taking tougher action against the gang, and neighbors stressed that graffiti has been found in the area before. Nevertheless, police said they will investigate the possibility that the vandalism was intended to retaliate, at least indirectly, against the mayor.

In a letter sent this week to City Atty. James K. Hahn, Riordan called for a court injunction against the 18th Street gang.

News of that request was reported Friday morning by The Times, and Hancock Park residents who live near the mayor’s mansion awoke to find new graffiti on the grounds of the historic home.

Early risers in the upscale neighborhood noticed graffiti markings Friday at two locations along a side wall and rear gate of the Tudor-style mansion grounds. The scrawls were several inches wide and about 18 inches tall, said one neighbor who saw them. One included what appeared to be an “18” and they looked as if they had been made with blue marker pens, the neighbor said.

The house was not defaced.

Also on Friday, City Councilman Mark Ridley-Thomas said he would reconvene the city’s committee on gangs and juvenile justice in the next few weeks to consider the proposed court injunction against 18th Street.

Ridley-Thomas said he wants to be sure that support for such an action is strong in the Pico-Union community, and that the effort is coordinated with the Hollenbeck police station’s other programs targeting teenagers, such as curfew enforcement, as well as the city’s new school-based gang-prevention project, L.A. Bridges.

“We have to look at all the things that are going on in that area so that you get a bigger bang for the public buck,” he said.

Times staff writers Rich Connell, Robert J. Lopez and Jodi Wilgoren contributed to this article.