Investigators Use MySpace, GPS To Track Taggers
From: KNBC - Los Angeles
LOS ANGELES -- Law enforcement has gone high-tech to fight graffiti, including the use of global positioning systems, mass data storage and digital photography to track vandalism.
Sheriff's detectives are also logging on to MySpace.com to catch vandals who use the social networking site to brag about their crimes.
"The technology five years ago wasn't what it is today," said Tim Kephart, founder of Graffiti Tracker Inc., which has contracts with 13 Southern California cities.
The system uses a camera fitted with a global positioning device to photograph and record the location of graffiti. A police officer or other city worker usually takes a picture of the vandalism and a Graffiti Tracker analyst reviews the markings and categorizes them based on whether they appear to come from a gang or an individual vandal.
The information is then uploaded into an Internet database that police can search to determine patterns of graffiti incidents.
After two months of tracking graffiti, sheriff's Detective Scott Wolf caught the tagger who called himself "Pakr," one of the area's leading graffiti vandals. The 15-year-old denied he was the culprit until he was confronted with graffiti images stored on Kephart's hand-held computer.
City crews removed 27 million square feet of graffiti last year, up from 21 million square feet in 2004. Elsewhere in Los Angeles County, public works officials removed 13 million square feet of graffiti, up from 9 million in 2005.
"As the gang problem seems to be increasing, so does the gang graffiti," said Paul Racs, director of the city's Office of Community Beautification. "These aren't kids that are coming from some other part of the city and coming out to the Palisades to tag. For the most part, people are staying in their own communities and tagging them up."
LOS ANGELES -- Law enforcement has gone high-tech to fight graffiti, including the use of global positioning systems, mass data storage and digital photography to track vandalism.
Sheriff's detectives are also logging on to MySpace.com to catch vandals who use the social networking site to brag about their crimes.
"The technology five years ago wasn't what it is today," said Tim Kephart, founder of Graffiti Tracker Inc., which has contracts with 13 Southern California cities.
The system uses a camera fitted with a global positioning device to photograph and record the location of graffiti. A police officer or other city worker usually takes a picture of the vandalism and a Graffiti Tracker analyst reviews the markings and categorizes them based on whether they appear to come from a gang or an individual vandal.
The information is then uploaded into an Internet database that police can search to determine patterns of graffiti incidents.
After two months of tracking graffiti, sheriff's Detective Scott Wolf caught the tagger who called himself "Pakr," one of the area's leading graffiti vandals. The 15-year-old denied he was the culprit until he was confronted with graffiti images stored on Kephart's hand-held computer.
City crews removed 27 million square feet of graffiti last year, up from 21 million square feet in 2004. Elsewhere in Los Angeles County, public works officials removed 13 million square feet of graffiti, up from 9 million in 2005.
"As the gang problem seems to be increasing, so does the gang graffiti," said Paul Racs, director of the city's Office of Community Beautification. "These aren't kids that are coming from some other part of the city and coming out to the Palisades to tag. For the most part, people are staying in their own communities and tagging them up."
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