It may not be thumbscrews, but tagger penalties in works

By Mark Hansel

Friday, March 16, 2007 | 6:54 a.m.

While still not ready to give a thumbs up to Mayor Oscar Goodman's thumbs-off plan for graffiti taggers, many Las Vegas City Council members support the harsher penalties for graffiti crimes being considered in the Legislature.

Although Goodman's radical suggestions of digit-clipping and putting offenders in stocks have drawn nationwide attention, the more conventional ideas being considered by state lawmakers are what council members believe will stem the growing graffiti problem in the valley.

Councilman Larry Brown said while many believe graffiti crimes occur mostly in the urban core, nearly every neighborhood in the valley has been victimized to some degree.

"We've seen it proliferate in exclusive neighborhoods," Brown said. "Unless we get out in front and take it more seriously, we can't catch up."

Taking it more seriously is exactly what Assemblyman John Oceguera, D-Las Vegas, had in mind when he introduced Assembly Bill 14.

Oceguera, a battalion chief with the North Las Vegas Fire Department, hopes the stiffer penalties in the bill, which include mandatory community service and suspension of driver's licenses, would stem what is becoming a very expensive problem throughout the state.

In fiscal 2006 there were 59,093 reported incidents of graffiti within the Las Vegas city limits, an increase of more than 30 percent from the previous year. The city spent more than $100,000 on paint alone to cover the graffiti, and that doesn't include the money spent by Clark County and Nevada Transportation Department for incidents in unincorporated areas or on highways.

Part of the prestige of "tagging" is spray painting one's mark in difficult-to-reach spots such as highway overpasses.

Capt. Al Salinas of Metro's gang crimes bureau said the danger involved in doing so extends beyond what is being tagged to where the tagging occurs. Several weeks ago, a man was shot in the neck as the result of a tagging turf war.

"Taggers, by definition, are a gang," Salinas said. "If a gang puts its mark in another gang's territory, it can get ugly."

Local taggers, who prefer the term graffiti artists, contend most taggers consider themselves serious artists and that only a small percentage are gang members.

"Most just care about getting their name out there," said one tagger who did not want to be identified. "This (tougher penalties) is not going to stop them."

A provision in Oceguera's bill would combine crimes committed in different locations for the purpose of determining a penalty. Because a tagger's mark is as distinctive as an artist's signature, it would not be difficult to link offenders to all of their crimes to reach the $5,000 threshold that would make the crime a felony under the bill. (Oceguera's bill originally would have lowered the damage amount that constituted a felony to only $400, but that figure was amended during a committee hearing.)

Salinas said the 76 people arrested on graffiti-related charges so far this year in Clark County have caused more than $200,000 in property damage.

Councilwoman Lois Tarkanian, who also supports the tougher penalties, said the graffiti problem in her district is out of control.

"It just keeps getting worse," she said. "It's not just kids doing this anymore. The age (of offenders) is getting higher, and we have to do something different to stop it."