Benicia PD Nabs Taggers - Great Job!!

Kudos to Lt. Mike Daley, Officer Sergio Cruz, and the entire Benicia Police Department for a fine job in nabbing these taggers. I hope that all available resources, including taking away the taggers driving privileges and stiff penalties, are sought for these delinquents that have striven to blight our community. We need to demonstrate to other potential vandals that we are serious about enforcement.

Benicia needs a ZERO TOLERANCE policy against graffiti.

My congratulations and thanks to Lt. Daley and his team.

..Ross Sagun


>>> Lt. Mike Daley 4/15/2009 10:49 AM >>>

Following a variety of leads, Benicia Police detectives have identified and interviewed a graffiti "tagger" who has been active in Benicia for over a year. The suspect is a 19 year old Benicia youth. In addition, a 15 year old Benicia youth and another 14 year old Benicia youth have been issued misdemeanor citations for vandalism for separate incidents.

"We have seen graffiti around the city over the past year," Lt. Mike Daley said. "Hopefully this investigation and the arrests we anticipate making will significantly decrease this problem."

Tagging is when an individual marks a particular name or symbol on property. Graffiti is when the suspect draws or paints a design on property.

School Resource Officer Sergio Cruz, who oversees graffiti investigations for the department, developed a lead on the 19 year old suspect and Benicia resident in early March. Based on SRO Cruz's investigation and interviews, it was determined that the this subject had at least two "tags" seen around town - PEWK and GURP along with a "Hard Times", or HT, graffiti marking. It is suspected that this subject has been tagging certain areas of Benicia since the beginning of 2008. "We will be pursuing felony vandalism charges from the District Attorney's Office due to the amount of damage caused by this one person," Lt. Daley said.

"Taggers target certain areas of our town like parks, a tunnel that runs under highway 780, and some of our shopping centers, " Lt. Daley added. "In addition, taggers will mark roadway signs, utility boxes, or anything else they can put their tag or sign on. We think these latest investigations will put a stop to some of the tagging and markings taking place."

The City of Benicia has a pro-active stance in the immediate removal of graffiti. The City has one full time civilian Community Preservation Officer, Roger Core, who works for the Fire Department. However, this officer has worked directly with the police department in documenting graffiti incidents and gaining the cooperation of businesses in its immediate removal. "Roger has done an excellent job in assisting our department with these graffiti investigations," Daley said. "His work with Detective Cruz should lead to the arrest of others committing these crimes."

According to Daley, there are a couple of groups of taggers they would like to obtain information on relative to graffiti crimes. "We are in the process of trying to identity additional groups and taggers around town. We encourage anyone with information on graffiti crimes to contact us and help curtail this problem."

For information on this press release, contact Lt. Mike Daley at (707)590-4259. Anyone with information on graffiti vandals or taggers are asked to contact School Resource Officer Sergio Cruz at (707)746-4253 or Crime Stoppers at (707)644-STOP (7867)