SALT LAKE CITY (ABC 4 News) – Summer is here. The “taggers” are back.
Already in June, many Salt Lake County communities are reporting double the number of graffiti incidents over all of last month.
“The tagger himself is out to provide art, or at least his form of it,” says Frank Zeibert, a retired Salt Lake County Sheriff’s detective.
Zeibert spent 15 years working the streets of the Salt Lake Valley, busting drug dealers and gang bangers and commanding scores of deputies to do the same. In many cases, Zeibert says, graffiti was the criminal’s calling card of choice.
“This is how they identify themselves,” he says. “They don’t want to be known as individuals but they want to be known in the gang culture as members, as part of that gang.”
What we see as an ugly nuisance, Zeibert sees as evidence. As we take to the streets of the Salt Lake Valley, Zeibert keeps eyes peeled for graffiti.
“There’s one,” he says from his passenger seat.
“Where?” I ask, swiveling my head and scanning the street corners.
“Too late,” He says.
“There’s another one,” he says flatly. I miss it again.
Not only does this former law enforcer know how to spot graffiti, he knows how to read it. As we go from tag to tag, Zeibert explains what the wording likely says – it can be extremely obscure – and also gives me background into how it got there and why the vandals picked the spot.
“There’s a difference between the artists and the gang members,” he says. “Make no mistake about it, the artists are breaking the law but they’re doing it to spread their art. The gang bangers are simply staking out a territory, sending a warning to other gangs or to the public or just trying to get attention. It’s a form of code people put out there to either mark their territory, or challenge somebody or it’s some form of tribal communication,” he says, squinting and peering through his sunglasses.
We drive east bound along 3300 South, along the order between Salt Lake City and a Salt Lake County island. Graffiti litters buildings, fences, and benches on both sides of the street. While I interview a few local merchants about the eyesore around their shops and stores, Zeibert goes for a walk. After finishing my interviews, I have to go looking for my passenger. I find him, on the other side of 3300 South and half a block away, standing on the side of an abandoned gas station, studying a wall marked with graffiti, taking pictures of it. He snapped several shots of what looked to me like shapeless, formless, senseless smears of spray paint on a wall.
This career law enforcer saw things I didn’t see and read messages I couldn’t comprehend.
I waited patiently, eager to hear what he would report when he returned. Zeibert hustled across four lanes of traffic moving along 3300 South, directly to a bus stop bench. Then he spoke.
“The same tagger that hit that old gas station wall came here and tagged this bench,” he said, without moving his gaze from it. “Both are versions of the same message.” He goes on to tell me he's sending the pictures to a Salt Lake County detective he knows, just to give his former colleague a heads-up that there may be criminal activity in this area.
I’m not reporting what the vandal’s message was. That gives him what he wants and encourages him to do more destruction.
“We don’t want to advertise these people or their gangs,” Zeibert warns.
Zeibert understands how tough it is for police to stop the flood of illegal spray paint.
"There just aren’t enough patrol cars out there to stop this kind of stuff,” he says, sneering as he speaks the word “stuff,” almost saying another word that begins with “s” and that wouldn’t be fit for publication.
He shakes his head as we tour neighborhoods, walking outside an apartment house near 3900 South and 900 East, studying the graffiti smeared on a dumpster in the front parking lot.
“The landlord here is looking for trouble,” he says. “I don’t see surveillance lighting anywhere.”
A dark lot. No security cameras. No security patrols. Zeibert says he doubts the owner of this property knows the police officer who patrols this street at night.
"These people are products of the darkness,” he says, referring to the taggers. They operate by the ability to work under cover.”
The only deterrent that’s even moderately effective, says Zeibert, is immediate eradication.
“The sooner you get this stuff covered up, the less likely it is the taggers will return. They’ll give up and go away,” he says.
That may be the motive behind a new Salt Lake County ordinance that, to the frustration and outrage of many pro0perty owners, requires crime victims to be responsible for cleaning up the mess and even fines those who don’t.
Under the new policy, Salt Lake County property owners will get two warnings within the first two weeks of someone spreading graffiti on their buildings or property. Those who don’t get it cleaned up will be slapped with a $250 citation.
Police around the Salt Lake Valley say while they feel for the crime victims, they hope the new policy will motivate people to take action against the graffiti vandals.
“The more information that’s given to us as law enforcement department, says Sandy Sergeant Justin Chapman, we can share that throughout the city, the valley, and the state to help us identify these individuals and hopefully make arrests that way.”
