From Make It Rain, a Seattle Graffiti Documentary cited in the investigation
The King County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office is touting the filing of “34 felony criminal cases against 17 defendants” for tagging calling the crime “acts of vandalism that have causes thousands of dollars in damages across King County.”
Officials said this week the charges come after “a months-long effort” from the Seattle City Attorney’s Office, Seattle Police, the King County Sheriff’s Office and the Washington State Patrol to crack down on taggers and the MSP and BTM graffiti crews that work up and down the I-5 corridor. Police say the taggers behind marks including GRIDE, WESH, and DOTCOM are part of the investigation.
The Seattle Times reported here on some of the charges and details of the investigations authorities used to identify the defendants.
Graffiti artist Joseph Johnson known by his tag GRIDE died in April sparking a surge of tribute tags in his honor.
Seattle Mayor Bruce Harrell has been obsessed with vandalism since his days on the council and has frequently spoke out against graffiti and tagging over the years.
“Tagging hurts our small businesses and neighborhoods. There must be appropriate accountability for those who engage in this unlawful, destructive behavior that costs thousands of dollars in damage to public and private property,” Harrell said about the crackdown. “I’m pleased to stand with partners across local government to show how we are working together to take action and make our communities safer, cleaner, and more welcoming to all.”
“The combined total of the damage estimates in these cases is nearly $100,000. In Seattle alone, the cost of public graffiti remediation is more than $6 million annually. The annual cost to private businesses in King County is millions more,” the county prosecutor’s office said.
Officials say they intend to seek restitution for the damages.
Defendants are expected to have arraignment hearings to enter initial pleas in early January in King County Superior Court.
Screenshot
The Harrell administration has taken his war on the artform so seriously, the City of Seattle included graffiti abatement in its 2024 priorities for lawmakers in Olympia along with affordable housing and police accountability reform legislation.
The crackdown comes as a new report (PDF) part of a $1 million effort from the state transportation department to find new ways to stop graffiti shows that a pilot program utilizing a $86,000 drone to spray over highway tagging was successful. “The Maintenance Operations program recommends continuing the drone program, purchasing additional drones and providing training for drone pilots to perform this work,” the report concluded about the use of the anti-graffiti drones.
HELP KEEP CHS PAYWALL-FREE
Subscribe to CHS to help us hire writers and photographers to cover the neighborhood. CHS is a pay what you can community news site with no required sign-in or paywall. To stay that way, we need you.
Become a subscriber to help us cover the neighborhood for as little as $5 a month.
Love it, throw the book at them
That’s kind of you? How about paint and feather them?…lol
If we want people doing this, repeal any laws against it. Until then, aggressively enforce the law. Our scattershot approach to enforcing laws is what causes inequitable results.
Cracking down on anarchy huh?
Good.
Take these 17, give them some paint, a brush and have them paint the I-90 tunnel, the mercer tunnel and the I-5 to 520 tunnel, once that’s done, we’ll have paint over the rest of the graffiti that covers I-5, and the major arteries of Seattle.
Well, of course the job you describe should be done by WSDOT, because that’s why we pay taxes, but it seems like their policy is just to ignore it. I read that WSDOT is trying out drones to paint over graffiti….maybe that’s the answer!
And they won’t talk about how much they spent on this either.
why should they? It’s already done. Anyone can look at the balance sheets and go to council meetings.
We all carry phones with excellent cameras and instant connection to APPs for reporting mis-deeds. Did these reprobates think that no one would notice, when their only goal was to be noticed?
People do that man. I see it allll the time…lol (meaning a lot of reasons to call…lol).
It’s true though. So many people are fed up. That they’ve turned narc. The dudes building across the street has a wall around it. He was out there daily during Covid. He finally slowly started every other day…2ce a week, once a week. Now? It’s every couple weeks. There was so much paint that you could peel it off. After a good rain storm? It’s peeling from the top…lol Just kinda flops over.
But yes…I even seen a cop with a very expensive camera taking pictures of the wall. I asked him “Are you taking pictures of the grafiti?” Big ol black dude…Huge, like 6’5″ 300 lbs. says “Just artistic photography” which translated to “I am a detective undercover, go away kid, ya bother me.”…lol
So that was about a year ago. That’s about the timeline of the investigation. I bet money that was the guy who was assigned to grafiti duty and photographs it all. I’ll be looking for my friend in pics. in the future to see if he gets an credit.
It’s happnin’ though brother. It IS happnin’.
No talent in that graffiti – BORING
Time to grow up and get a real job!
I get that what they’re doing is illegal but a Metro driver just got stabbed to death and our city is funneling resources into people painting on walls…I could care less about these kids. We’ve got bigger problems but I’m sure people in Magnolia and Madrona are very excited to see these “degenerates” behind bars.
Yes let’s leave all other neighborhoods in squalor
Now wait a minute!
These people are Seattle elites! They pay more taxes than us. Therefore they are first and last if we run out of money and motivation.
It’s a sick bunch. I have relatives. Wonderful people *rolls eyes*. Deeply religious and even more deeply hypocritical. “ME” is the subject. The only subject when it comes down to cases. Dang near everything has been about them. They focus on money a lot. They focus on their happiness and nobody else’s.
All crime somewhere else is? A way to disparage ‘the poor’s’. A way to “other” the entire rest of the city.
However! If it’s THEIR neighborhood? It’s the poor’s seeping into their law abiding mansion land. NOT because they suck. In other werdz? We are the problem. They think it exclusively. It’s NEVER them. “Get your own” is the final answer.
Right back to “me first” again. It’s sacking. Having money does not allow you to be a jerk w/o consequences. I prefer to keep my money on the down low. Help where I can. Be a part, as opposed to apart.
the murderer got caught earlier this morning and is sitting in jail.
They found him amongst all the other free riders who use the busses as mobile flop houses.
The bus drivers have been complaining for years about this, it should have never been allowed to get this bad in the first place.
The busses? The libraries? These spaces to be used for their intended purposes. We aren’t doing anyone a favor.
What if we had housing for them?
We just traded housing and clean air, for cops and pet projects for the new council.
You COULD care less?!?! How much less is a lot more less? Not much less at all.
If you consider that only 5 of the “kids” were 18-25 and that 7 were over 30.. with the in-between should have known better. When I was 25 and above I wasn’t destroying public property because I had an actual job that I don’t think would look fondly if I missed work due to graffiti. I don’t think jail time and working with sensitive data would have meshed.
didn’t huff paint of do meth/fenty?
What a boring life you must lead…lol
I am stunned they made it to 30
Of course more serious crimes should be a priority (and they are), but that doesn’t mean the City can’t “walk and chew gum at the same time.”
we can do both… It’s not an either/or.
It’s almost as if the city can concentrate on more than one thing at a time!
The Mayor is not obsessed, as you quietly editorialize, but legitimately concerned about the burden this so called “art form” (more editorializing) places on businesses, property owners, local governments, and citizens generally. Writing a stupid phrase over and over again on someone else’s property, public or private, does not elevate our community. I applaud the so called crackdown. Long overdue, very much appreciated, and hopefully successful at discouraging such behavior in the future.
I used to think “whatever” about graffiti, but after owning a business on Rainier Ave, I can tell you that the burden is extreme in some areas. Every two to three weeks I was busting out the paint roller. We moved, and it’s better here, but still, etching in our mirrors, paint on unfinished concrete walls that will never be fixable … it is a constant pain in the ass, so disrespectful, and hard to control. I’m fine with a strong punishment for these pricks. Felony seems harsh, but I think they should be on the hook to paint over graffiti for the next 5 years on weekends.
do not think this a minor thing. At first blush? It seems low priority.
It’s a felony for a reason. To detour people from sayyyy? Doing donuts on the public golf course for example. Taking sledge hammers to decorative rocks in the park. Or painting and etching buildings. It degrades the entire region. It makes everything look dystopian.
The idiots complain about dystopia. Tag it to mark the spots. And are creating the dystopia themselves. Hey…It keeps them fight motivated though! It’s insane.
The issue? There’s not enough jails on Earth to jail folks.
I absolutely think that putting them to work painting over their pals “art” is very effective. Fining them and jailing them only makes things more expensive and difficult. They need to do some public service work. A LOT of work.
Artists make murals and not scribbles and blight all over windows and viaducts like these no good narcissists.
It’s about damn time that some graffiti vandals were held accountable. They have done huge damage to private businesses and public places (costing millions$ to clean up), and have degraded our city to a significant extent.
I just got back from Chicago and Milwaukee and I was shocked at how far less graffiti there was even in similar areas.
you also forgot to mention private residential property. The condo that I reside at gets tagged a few times a year. We quickly clean it up but it’s not cheap constantly having to get additional buckets of paint to have on-hand.
I’ve seen meth addicts tag buildings as if it’s some code-sign for other street addicts to use.
Great. Every single time my small Capitol Hill building gets tagged, that costs another $100+ to remove. That adds up fast, and is coming out of my ability to afford basics like groceries and health insurance.
I wouldn’t shed a tear for some Singaporean justice here.
what is a “small capitol hill building?” Anyone owning a building on the hill has no financial issues.
Go wrap a present or something Butch.
riiight…at least I have people to give gifts to.
The Tragedy of the Commons. These so-called ‘artists’ use as their canvas public and private property that does not belong to them. And when I make it obvious that I have taken their picture whilst they are vandalizing my buidings, they threaten me and want to fight me. Warhol? Klee? Pollack? I think not. I keep hearing the ‘we could use those law enforcement resources in better ways’ crowd say this is a waste of money. The fact is this: grafitti sends a message that nobody cares, and anything goes. Criminals know this, the rest of us feel it. Grafitti creates its own ecosystem where crime can and does flourish. Grafitti, if left unchecked, generates an ecosystem of lawlessness. As I remove grafitti from my buildings several times a week, people often walk by and comment, mostly ‘thank you’, often a chuckle on what a never ending task it must be. Most notably, the older people in the neighborhood, and there are more than a few, say ‘oh my gosh, the grafitti makes me feel so unsafe’. Guess what? Older people are a part of the community too, and they deserve to feel safe, just as queer kids, lesbians, and poc do.
You perfectly describe the “broken windows theory,” which is a very real thing.
Broken windows theory was debunked when researchers accounted for income levels. Poverty is much more strongly correlated to crime than disorder.
https://news.northeastern.edu/2019/05/15/northeastern-university-researchers-find-little-evidence-for-broken-windows-theory-say-neighborhood-disorder-doesnt-cause-crime/
Lol, I knew that documentary was going to get people caught. Horrible OPSEC
Incidentally, my own work has been featured in a piece published in the Stranger several years back. In an attempt to appear both arty and relevant, they published a cute piece titled ‘The Subconscious Art of Graffiti Removal’, which referred to a documentary film shown at the 2022 Sundance Film Festival. The Stranger piece penned by Chase Burns also featured grafitti removal methods seen at different places around Seattle. Imagine my surprise to see my own work juried and featured! And with a stinging rebuke to my efforts by Mr. Burns no less – he called my work ‘lazy’.
Artist response: ‘My work reflects a minimalist response to graffiti street and hiphop youth culture, which has become trite and hackneyed. Ive always been interested in the subjective and the unfulfilling, the evanescent and the indefinable. I dont want to be a comedian, I want to be an artist. I don’t want to be a painter, I want to be a poet. I want to be a painter of beauty. I want to be a painter of life. This exhibition consisted of twelve paintings. The first painting, The House of Anger, 2022, is the most recent, and the most powerful.’
Destruction of property both public and private should have consequences. For too long there have been no consequences in Seattle. How has that worked out? Make an example of these losers with financial penalties and jail sentences equivalent to the damage they have inflicted. Enough.
I encourage folks to watch the Make it Rain video tribute to Josh GRide Johnson that was a central part of this case. I have mixed feelings about graffiti, but to think you’re going to eliminate an art form as old as human civilization is just silly. If you watch the video, several of these guys were former addicts that formed a community of friends interested in developing their art and sharing that message with others. Imagine all of the time and effort spent criminalizing this instead put towards uplifting that community and helping them find better places for them to do this.
Graffiti is an art style. Tagging is vandalism. Taggers should be arrested and prosecuted. Fuck all of them.
If the city wants to limit graffiti, it needs to think proactively about it. Graffiti often appears on blank spaces that could use some life and art. Graffiti is very analogous to weeds. Weeds appear where you leave a vacuum. If that spot isn’t planted with a groundcover or mulch, weeds will spring up. You can either reactively pull and poison your weeds, or you can proactively prevent the conditions in which they sprout. In other words, why aren’t we doing a mass beautification/art campaign to bring life to drab infrastructure? Are the grants to help small biz owners put up murals? This city is full of artists, how can we deploy that talent for public works instead of public nuisance?
If only there was a way not to spend all this money cleaning up the vandalism of public and private property, and prosecuting the vandals so they don’t re-vandalize, the bare canvas we call our home, or the compost heap I call my home.
This has is already happening extensively throughout the city. You can look into the grant programs, I’m sure they can be improved. I agree it’s a good idea but much of the problem areas are places like freeways and infrastructure that aren’t good candidates for these programs. Ultimately it’s naive to think we can stop taggers without actively targeting them for violating the law.
It’s pretty simple to square the circle once you put “taggers” and “graffiti artists” into two distinct categories. Yeah many taggers go on to be artists. Others, don’t.
G-RIDE is dead. He OD’d a couple of months back. There was a go-fund-me. He was 30 yrs old, I believe.