November 21,
2002
Police Tell Teens, Tag, You’re
It Alleged graffiti vandals charged
By Lindsay Pollock
Lindsay Pollock is a freelance writer.
Maybe tagging a police trailer with graffiti wasn't so funny after
all.
Four Queens teenagers have been arrested and
charged in the spray-painting of a police trailer last month,
an action that angered cops. The arrests came last Friday, and
two of the teens, suspected members of a crew of graffiti vandals,
were hit with additional charges Tuesday.
The crew, whose tags, or graffiti names, are
"MOSS," "JUS," "GY5" and "KEA,"
is suspected of spreading graffiti across Ridgewood, Maspeth,
Middle Village and Glendale, as well as in Brooklyn, causing about
$500,000 in damage, Police Officer James Bogliole said.
"Everywhere you look, you see these names.
Roofs, subways, buildings. Some blocks were destroyed with it.
It looked like a cave of graffiti," said Bogliole, from the
city's Vandal Squad, a unit of the transit police that operates
as an anti-graffiti task force.
About 7 a.m. on Friday, police raided two
Ridgewood homes, confiscating five large garbage bags of evidence,
including cans of spray paint, stones that could be used to scratch
subway windows, subway maps decorated with graffiti tags, computer
hard drives with graffiti Web sites - and a videotape of nighttime
tagging expeditions.
At both homes, police roused sleeping suspects
from their beds. Juan Llerena, 17, who is believed to be "JUS,"
and a 14-year-old suspected of being "GY5" were taken
to the 104th Precinct in northwest Queens.
Within a half-hour of Llerena's arrest on
the misdemeanor criminal mischief and graffiti charges, he allegedly
used a shiny penny to carve a 4-inch "JUS" into the
painted door of his cell, police said. He was immediately re-arrested
and charged with possession of a graffiti instrument.
While Llerena was questioned by Bogliole and
Det. Keith Casey, the teen's uncle stood anxiously in the waiting
area.
"I keep telling him it's wrong. Stupid.
I told him this was going to happen," said Giovanni Arias,
33, an Ecuadoran immigrant who installs security windows. Arias
said his nephew stopped going to school two years ago when he
became involved with graffiti. "I told him, 'If you want
to do art, go to art school.'"
Later Friday afternoon, police arrested Brian
Esposito, 18, who is believed to be "KEA." Christopher
Fuller, 17, the suspected "MOSS," turned himself in
at the precinct. Esposito and Fuller were charged with misdemeanor
criminal mischief and making graffiti.
On Tuesday, felony criminal mischief charges
relating to vandalism on the subway's M line were filed against
Fuller and Llerena.
Esposito, Fuller and Llerena spent Friday
and Saturday night in jail awaiting arraignment. They were released
until their hearings. The minor was released to his parents and
sent home. He was scheduled to appear in family court this week
for a hearing.
Esposito's Legal Aid attorney, Gertrude Rosenfeld,
said her client has longtime roots in Queens. Rosenfeld, who has
defended more than 50 graffiti vandals in the past 10 years, said
most are arrested in subway stations. She said this raid was unusual
because police obtained search warrants and went to the suspects'
homes. "They usually don't go that far," she said.
Sentences for first-time graffiti offenders
usually combine a fine or restitution for damage and community
service, Rosenfeld said.
Queens police targeted the crew in October
after Fuller and Esposito allegedly tagged "MOSS" and
"KEA" on a $400,000 police trailer that serves as a
mobile headquarters. Each tag was the size of a vending machine.
Police brass were outraged and contacted the
transit bureau's Vandal Squad. With offices in Brooklyn and the
Bronx, the squad works with various precincts throughout the city
and is run by Lt. Steve Mona.
Squad members consider graffiti a serious
offense. Teenage graffiti vandals often move on to shoplifting
and robbery, Mona said. Neighborhoods with graffiti end up having
the highest crime rates and attract burglars who consider the
areas easy targets, he said.
Graffiti Web sites, informants and videotapes
led Det. Casey from the Queens North precinct and the Vandal Squad
to the suspects.
A video provided by a police source showed
teenagers dressed in hooded sweatshirts and baggy jeans spraying
mural-size tags in subway stations along the M line, scaling scaffolding
to paint over a billboard and using shoe polish to mark up a train's
interior.
In one scene, the crew even tagged a subway
token booth while the clerk inside waved his arms helplessly.
Arresting the suspected Queens crew was an
important step, police said, in curtailing graffiti's comeback.
Since Sept. 11, police have noticed an increase in graffiti citywide,
Bogliole said.
"The quality-of-life hotlines are pretty
hot with graffiti." |
