Once in Check, Taggers Return to Central O.C.

After declining steadily for four years, graffiti vandalism is once again on the rise in parts of central Orange County, prompting cities to increase police patrols and organize extra cleanup crews.

Santa Ana and portions of Anaheim have been especially hard hit over the last few months, leading some investigators to suspect that new “tagging crews” are being formed at high schools.

“We are experiencing a definite and significant increase,” Santa Ana Police Sgt. Bob Clark said. “We are trying to prepare for an all-out graffiti campaign on the part of these taggers. We are cracking down as quickly as we can.”

Authorities have yet to calculate exactly how much more graffiti is out there. But Caltrans officials estimated that vandalism along a stretch of the Santa Ana Freeway between Buena Park and Santa Ana is up by about 20% over the last two months.

The surge comes after a 1993 tagging epidemic prompted Caltrans, cities and law enforcement agencies to form a countywide task force that successfully cut vandalism through a combination of police work and aggressive cleanup efforts.

“Since 1993, we had really gotten a handle on it,” said Bob Gates, an assistant administrator for Caltrans. “Now, all of a sudden, it’s picking up again.”

Cleaning up the graffiti has been hampered because vandals are increasingly leaving their tags in hard-to-reach areas, like freeway medians, on bridges and in flood-control channels.

Caltrans usually removes graffiti from sound walls and light poles within a three days. But it takes 10 days or move to remove it from freeway medians.

“The only way you can get to the center median is to close down the freeway. The public would go nuts if we did that all the time,” Gates said. “So the graffiti stays up there a little bit longer. I think the taggers like that.”

Police investigators said they are puzzled by rekindled interest in tagging. In Santa Ana, police fear that taggers are recruiting new crews that roam through the city at night defacing signs, buildings, lampposts and trees.

“There seems to be new interest in tagging,” Clark said. “It’s unfortunate if we might be facing a plague like we did a few years ago.”

Police are busy learning the new monikers and names of active taggers and trying to identify the crews and gangs responsible for the vandalism.

In Anaheim, police and code-enforcement officials have recently stepped up surveillance in an effort to nab the vandals.

“We have received some very good information about the people who are possibly doing this,” said Richard Poole, the city’s code enforcement manager. “We are taking it very seriously.”

So far, the graffiti upswing appears not to have reached other parts of the county. Officials in Orange, Newport Beach and several South County communities said tagging still appears to be declining.

Over the last four years, reports of graffiti vandalism have plunged by more than 50% in some areas, officials said.

Carole Graber, who coordinates graffiti cleanup of flood-control channels and the county’s unincorporated areas, said the only problem area is in Stanton and western Anaheim, where officials blame gang rivalries.

Stanton City Councilman Harry M. Dotson said the city does what it can to remove graffiti, even though the effort sometimes seems quixotic.

“We paint it over on Saturday, and it’s back up by next Friday,” Dotson said. “Some of these walls should be able to stand up because of the paint alone at this point.”