 "Photo: Photos by Philip J. Perez")
 "Photo: Photo by Philip J. Perez")
Concerned citizens crowded the room as Corpus Christi District 5 City Councilman representative John Marez held the city’s second Graffiti Summit last Thursday at the DMC Center for Economic Development during which Community leaders, public servants and members of the city’s Graffiti Cleanup Task Force joined Marez on a panel to address a growing epidemic in Corpus Christi.
According to Marez, this summit was held to update citizens of the progress resulting from the first summit held in 2008.
“I feel that the summit (in 2008) really started a lot of dialog that we’re seeing with success from agencies working together,” said Marez.
“We’re giving people the opportunity to see a presentation from the Police Department to find out about the number of arrests, amount of graffiti removed and about how everything is becoming more of a partnership as opposed to two years ago,” he said.
Members of the panel included State Representative Todd Hunter, District Attorney Carlos Valdez, Nueces County Judge Marisela Saldana, Corpus Christi Mayor Joe Adame, Nueces County Sheriff Jim Kaelin, CCPD Chief Troy Riggs and City Council members and other community leaders.
The presentation included statistics compiled by the Graffiti Task Force, a collective effort of the CCPD, the Corpus Christi Crime Control and Prevention district and the City of Corpus Christi Solid Waste Operations.
According to statistics, there were 72 graffiti arrests in 2009 as opposed to 85 in 2008, a decrease of 15.89 percent. Twenty-four of those arrests were adults and 48 were juveniles.
In 2009, the Graffiti Removal Team removed graffiti at 2,584 locations totaling 158,338 square feet, an increase from 2008 of 882 locations and over 12,500 square feet.
“We saw a dramatic increase last summer when school was out. There is a decrease now,” said CCPD Commander Mark Schauer. “I don’t think we have hundreds and hundreds of people doing this, but we have a small number of people creating a large amount of damage.”
Schauer said that although there may be a direct link to gang activity, there is a difference from years past.
“Tagging of neighborhoods used to occur with gangs marking their territory,” said Schauer. “Now they’re not marking territory like its theirs; they are marking items to make themselves more notorious, like it’s a competition to see who can tag what.”
According to Schauer, “Taggers” commit these crimes as a way to obtain a status of sorts in the tagger community.
“Individual people leave a ‘tag’ name for themselves and then a name for their crew,” said Schauer. “They will usually leave both at the scene. Some days they will change, but if they keep changing, then nobody knows who they are and they don’t get credit for it.”
Recently, 18-year-old Sebastion Perez was sentenced to eight years in prison after being found guilty for three graffiti charges along with possession of marijuana. Saldana handed down the maximum sentence of two years per count.
Just two weeks ago, 18-year-old Dillon White was given jail time after pleading guilty to graffiti after defacing the boys bathroom at King High School. Judge Sandra Watts sentenced him to 90 days in jail, four years of deferred adjudication and 150 years of community service.
“It’s a very serious offense,” said Valdez. “We don’t think there is any rehabilitation for them. We have to go with the most serious punishment available.”
In 2006, Texas legislatures made graffiti an offense punishable from 5-99 years to life and a $10,000 fine for a first-degree felony.
“Our policy in our office is there will be no plea bargaining,” said Valdez. “If you’re arrested for graffiti, we’re going to prosecute you and ask for the full range of punishment.”
According to Valdez, some of the factors once considered during punishment are the damage caused, criminal history and whether or not the offender could be rehabilitated.
“Now, any type of graffiti crime faces the maximum,” said Valdez. “Our office recommends the punishment; we don’t have the final say,” he said.
“Not all judges follow our recommendations,” said Valdez, “and here in South Texas, we have some of the most lenient juries. Sometimes it’s hard to convince juries to sentence the maximum.”
Residents are encouraged to take an active part in helping to control the problem. To report activity, residents are asked to call 911 or Metro-com if witnessing an offense in progress
Be the first to comment on this article!