August 25th, 2009 by 
Celeste Fremon
Monday, the LA Times’ Scott Gold reported that, in an interview with new LA City Attorney Carmen Trutanich, Trutanich said that, through the use of a civil injunction similar to a gang injunction, he planned to give police the power to arrest and jail taggers just for hanging out together. Not for tagging. Or for planning to tag. But just for talking to each other. About whatever. School. The Dodgers. The merits of this spray paint over that one.
Now, just to be clear, with this new notion, Trutanich is not talking about gang members who tag, which is a whole different deal, and a provocative and dangerous business. The city attorney says he intends to aim his legal guns at graffiti crews: Guys (or young women) who spray paint their nicknames on walls, light posts, and freeway overpasses as a form of risk-courting, illegal sport.
He wants to slap those kids and young adults with the equivalent of a gang injunction, which means they can be arrested, in essence, just for being a tagger. Or, more specifically, for being a tagger who is standing with someone else who has been labeled a tagger, whether he or she is—in fact— a tagger or not..
(Functionally, a gang injunction works like a restraining order. But, instead of barring contact with an individual, it bans certain activities by purported members of a particular group named in the order.)
I am not, by the way, defending tagging. I hate that the proprietors of small, family-owned stores have to repaint their walls over and over, and that some of LA’s most beautiful murals have been repeatedly defaced by graffiti. I have often wished I could exchange more than a few terse words with the idiots who kept tagging up Frank Romero’s gorgeous “Going to the Olympics” mural that used to reside along the Hollywood Freeway. (Of course, it was CalTrans that actually managed to destroy the artwork. But that’s another topic altogether.)
I even pretty much buy the whole “broken windows” theory. (This is the theory of crime prevention popularized by criminologists, George L. Kelling and James Q. Wilson. The idea is that if one controls the small, quality-of-life crimes in any given neighborhood—the metaphorical broken windows—community members feel less helpless and more able to “reinforce the informal control mechanisms of the community itself.” When community members began exerting their own control, goes the theory, the big crimes will lessen as well. In many of LA’s communities, graffiti is the most obvious form of broken window to address.)
However we already have laws about spray-painting messages on property not your own. In fact, ever since that dream statute for the law-and-order obsessed, Proposition 21, passed in 2000—lowering the ceiling for felony vandalism from its former $50,000 threshold to $400—comparatively minor outings by the young and the foolish toting spray cans may be prosecuted as felonies with up to three years in prison.
One would think that would be enough.
But apparently one would be wrong.
“I’m going to put together an end-of-days scenario for these guys,” Trutanich said. “If you want to tag, be prepared to go to jail. And I don’t have to catch you tagging. I can just catch you . . . with your homeboys.”
Great.
In Sacramento, our legislators are battling desperately to find some way to cut California’s eat-everything corrections budget by incarcerating fewer people in this prison benighted state. And now our new city attorney wants criminalize and lock up taggers who hang out with each other—as part of some half-hatched scare-em-straight plot?
This is really, really not an encouraging omen.
When Gold questioned Trutanich about why he was “proposing to adopt the same tactics police use on the city’s toughest criminals against people who are typically viewed as more of an annoyance,” the city attorney had a ready answer.
“At the end of the day,” he said, “they are no less of a gang.”
To support that contention, he pointed to several incidents in which people have been shot and killed after confronting graffiti vandals in residential areas — a Valinda man in 2006, for instance, and a Pico Rivera woman a year later.
Yeah. Well. About that “no less than a gang” thing, Mr. City Attorney: At the end of the day, as you put it, with all due respect, that just isn’t the case.
Here’s the deal: When tagging crews start packing firearms and shooting at innocent people—or at each other— we no longer call them taggers. That’s banging, dude. One is no longer in outlaw graffiti artist territory; one has moved, by definition, into gangsterland.
Gold talked to the ACLU’s Peter Bibring who doesn’t think Trutanich can pull off this idea of a tagger injunction, that it will be found unconstitutional. I think Bibring is right. There is much about even the run-of-the mill gang injunction that skates perilously close to the edge of constitutionality. I suspect this tagger injunction plan will topple easily right off the edge. (See the article for more on that.) If all this goes forward, we will find out, I guess.
Right this minute, LA has 43—count em—43 injunctions against gangs.. When Trutanich was elected in many of us had hoped that he would start dialing back some of the injunctions as no longer needed, while keeping the most relevant ones and making sure that those were sharply targeted at the right people and gangs. This tagger idea is philosophically a huge step in the exact opposite direction. So what exactly is going on?
Mr. City Attorney…. um.. Nuch….. I met you a few months ago. Remember?
We had a nice chat. You seemed intelligent and sensible. (Not all power mad, or anything.)
Thus, I’m going to hope that you merely lost your head a little with this crazy tagger injunction idea.
Okay, fine. It can happen. You may have a Do-Over. No problem.
But just one.
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PS: The Daily News has a short editorial on the issue.
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REVOK can PAINT GRAFFITI ON MY HOUSE ON MY DOORS ON MY GARAGE ANYDAY!!!… some people actually wouldnt mind that…
LOOK UP YOUTUBE and SEARCH JERSEYJOE pimpin some ladies trailer in JERSEY …. MAKIN THE FAMILY AND LADY HAPPIER THAN CAN BE prob even made the value of the trailer prob value well over 100k i bet… give these artists a break… FREE REVOK… hes’ a legend he’s a king, BEFORE ANYBODY BASH HIS WORK or his ART and say its filth how about you GOOGLE REVOK look at his graffiti, and now you try to beat his style or his originality or his talent… until you can top him off w/ style, or talent HE”S AN ARTIST, and hes’ a WAY BETTER ARTIST THAN MOST OF YOU WILL EVER BE!!!… hes’ a nationwide, ARTIST, a CELEBRITY theyre right, hes like the MICHAEL JORDAN of GRAFFITI, one of the true legends that have been around for awhile, hes’ a professional… his profession is not a DRUG DEALER, making your children brain dumb, its not a GANGBANGER puttin bullets thru walls, hes’ simply an artist, with a talent and a great one may i say more, GRAFFITI will never die, it will never fade, it may slow down for a few weeks or a few years, but in time it all comes right back up…. no matter how much you battle it… “GOD MADE THIS PLANET FOR US” the WALLS THE CEMENT THE GROUND THE AIR THE TREES’ for us how is someone going to TAKE AWAY WHAT (GOD GAVE TO US) look at PROLIFIC GRAFFITI WRITER “JESUS SAVES” he writes graffiti for the SHEAR FACT OF glorifying gods’ name.. which alot of people dont do anymore alot of people lose faith which is fine.. but its not really, this country was founded on GOD… “GOD BLESS AMERICA” hmm(LETS REMOVE THE GOD PART) lets REMOVE GOD FROM THE PLEDGE ALLEGIANCE AND no longer say “UNDER GOD” lets REMOVE “IN GOD WE TRUST” off the DOLLAR bills which have been printed for decades!!
THE GOVT. IS SLOWLY REMOVING GOD REMOVING FREEDOM, REMOVING ARE RIGHTS!!!!!! STAND UP FOR WHAT YOU BELIEVE IN… DONT SIT BACK AND WATCH THIS NONSENSE HAPPEN… we are (FREE) THATS WHY I FIGHT FOR YOUR FREEDOM IN THE MILITARY.. thats why OTHER PEOPLE STAND AND FIGHT FOR YOUR FREEDOM overseas, WITH SWEAT BLOOD AND TEARS, so you can have your freedoms, we SACRIFICE HOLIDAYS OVERSEAS’ FIGHTING FOR FREEDOM FIGHTING FOR YOUR SAFETY, so you can GET DRUNK AND PARTY ON NEW YEARS, so you can SPEND YOUR HOLIDAYS w/ your families,
wake up AMERICA… i signed up for this war to support it but the way everything is going i begin to wonder, WHY I SUPPORT SOMETHING THATS NOT TRUE… WHY IS OUR FREEDOM BEING TAKEN AWAY! im most likely not going to RE-ENLIST BECAUSE OF THE FACTS THAT… WHAT PEOPLE FOUGHT for and died for is taken for granted
“FREEDOM OF SPEECH” IS EXACTLY WHAT ITS ABOUT
FREEDOM IS WHAT AMERICAS” NICKNAME IS? but where is the freedom…
that (GOD) provided for us???
the comment under me is my government teacher
on top
Yo Saber!
Thanks for posting that kind of infos… I am frequently on your block, and I really aprecciate your loyalty in the game… Being always smart with any topic, even if it was a personal attack to you by the law or whatever (Riverpiece-buff or the “healthy-flag-disaster”), finally made me leave a message for you. Guess you get tons of feedback each day on here, so I will put me in the line of peepz leaving respect and big ups for you… go on, homeboy!
Dj Rena LJDA-LS-UGA
As I’m sure you’re not suprised I completely agree with you. This is some crazy ass overreaction from the LA City Attorney. I mean seriously, taggers a freakin diverse lookin group. From the kids that started tag only to avoid/stop banging, the art student that just got his first real knowledge of color, to the suburban youth that escapes his beige colored stucko covered prison by spreading a little color and expression.
There’s no real way to spot a tagger, other than catching him in the act, or maybe the ones that are easily confused with gangbangers. Which in many cases is only because they focused on the art to escape the real heavy crime around them, or they just look like a bad ass.
Take for example, if you gathered everyone I’ve ever painted with or just knew and they happened to write, and you stuck them in a room. I doubt anyone without the ability to read minds would be able to guess what one thing we have in common. I’ll stake my entire future life earnings on it.
Seriously, is it gonna be illegal to wear clothes that would classify you as a hip hop or rap scene person, and what specific clothes would those be. I mean where do the shades of grey stop. “Looks like a tagger”….how bout “looks like a douch wasting a lot of peoples time and money with attempts for frivolous injuctions.
If you take a step back and look at what he’s really proposing, it’s slapping you with 1 out 3 strikes for thinking and talking, and without causing any harm to anyone.
Nuff said
FREE REVOK
Probs to all the writers keep doing what you doing..
Big up Saber AWR MSK
Keep them streets colourfull
Peace!!
what can i say graffity is a form of art its what im bout i live and ide 4r art i grew up in a fuk up town i was one of my only freinds that became great that knew what graff is bout free revok let him do what he does best i will never stop the world is my black book they could locked me up but i be bak theres more graffers graff will never die is are passion is are way of showing what we do i knoe people mix up bangging and graffing but its diffrent graffers have respect they have love there not bangeers fuk the law we have are rights we do what we do and they cant stop us next time u see exes i be at the top i be great i be shaking hands with revok with toomer me and my home boys understand was up we show love 2 every graff we dont dis we respect others graffer if u dont respect them whos going 2 respect ur art well im out this is exes uwk and starting now ods i will be great and never stop graffing its my world free revok free all the homies i am jesus morales i am a good graffer im young but i love graff and 2 all u graffers stay up live life and graff graffers will never die we always come bak with diffrent styles stay up free revok stay up uwk sok ods msk awr stay up everyone
what a bunch of bullshit. they threaten to arrest graffiti artists for hanging out together, meanwhile villaragosa and his real estate cronies rob the city of tax dollars so they can get richer by the minute. yo trutanich! you want to go after some criminals? start in city hall, you dumbass.
what the hell is wrong with this guy? going after graffiti artists for hanging out together meanwhile villaragosa and his real estate cronies are stealing tax dollars. trutanich! you want to arrest some criminals? start at city hall, einstein.
HMM……….. THIS MUST BE OBAMA’S FAULT
I appreciate you sharing this post.Thanks Again. Fantastic.