On Friday, May 18, at 3:05 p.m. officers of the Santa Monica Police Department went to the 500 block of Wilshire Boulevard in response to an act of “vandalism being performed on the wall of a market” report.
Upon arrival, the officers spoke with the security guard at the market and he said that a citizen had approached him inside the store to inform him that a man was spray painting (tagging) the wall of the market.
The security guard then walked outside and witnessed the man in the act of tagging the wall. The guard asked him what he was doing, to which he replied, “I am spray-painting the wall!” After hearing this man state the obvious the guard told the tagger not to move and that he was going to call the police. The officers then spoke with the suspect who was incidentally wearing a backpack.
The officers asked if they could take a look in the backpack and he agreed.
The officers looked inside and found a trio of three ounce spray cans of Krylon brand spray paint, and a pair of Gardencraft brand Terra-Cotta markers (possibly the brands that two out of three taggers prefer?).
The officer then asked this man if he was a tagger and he said that he was. He added that he had a certain penchant for spray-painting the word “dream” on walls, and that he had been pursuing this interest for about three years. He said that although he hails from the (mean?) streets of Malibu and he had in fact sprayed many other walls in the city of Santa Monica.
The management of the market desired a prosecution and so the officers arrested this man and took him off to jail.
This 23-year-old Malibu resident was charged with graffiti and possession of vandalism tools.
Editor’s Note: These reports are part of a regular police coverage series entitled “Alert Police Blotter” (APB), which injects some minor editorial into certain police activities in Santa Monica. Not all of the Mirror’s coverage of incidents involving police are portrayed in this manner. More serious crimes and police-related activities are regularly reported without editorial in the pages of the Santa Monica Mirror and its website, smmirror.com.
