Have you ever driven by an overpass, wall or train car and wondered just what the story was behind the graffiti covering an otherwise mundane surface?

King County Sheriff’s Office Detective Joe “I’ve been working nothing but street gangs for the last ten years of my career” Gagliardi has been studying the illegal paint jobs – from scrawls to argumentative artwork - in depth and recently provided some answers on different kinds of graffiti in West Seattle and White Center.

Please click the image above for more.

Gagliardi spoke at the North Highline Unincorporated Area Council Public Safety Forum in February, talking about gang populations and territory (facts from that discussion can be found here) in addition to graffiti. The detective spent six years combating southern California gang activity before moving to King County four years ago with the same beat.

Telling the difference between gang and tagger graffiti
“Gang graffiti is the easiest way to recognize you have a gang problem,” in a neighborhood, Gagliardi said, but in recent years he has seen the occurrences drop off significantly as gang members shift to “cyberbanging,” which is basically using social media platforms like Facebook or technology like texting to talk “trash” about rival gangs or represent their own crew. The drop in gang-related graffiti on walls is “good for neighborhoods,” he said, but bad for policing as the tags provide invaluable intelligence on where gangs operate and their territorial lines.

Giving a specific example, Gagliardi said 10 percent of the graffiti on the walls of White Center is not gang related.

When gang-related vandalism does appear, he said, “It is meant to be seen and understood – to instill a challenge and fear in the neighborhood.” Therefore, gang tags are generally basic and legible because the members want it to be clear who is representing in that given area.

Gagliardi said gang graffiti falls into a number of categories including sympathy (RIP [fallen gang), roll calls (naming the members of a gang), disrespect towards a rival gang, territory markers and “cross outs” (crossing out a rival gangs tag and replacing with your own) which can lead to quick retribution.

“In the gang culture a cross out is a sign of disrespect, and in gang culture any act of disrespect, whether real or perceived, has to be immediately retaliated,” often times with violence, he said.

Tagger graffiti
On the flipside is tagger graffiti. “You will not see a gang member tagging bubble letters,” Gagliardi said, highlighting the difference. Taggers, whether part of a crew or working solo, take a more artistic approach to graffiti with multiple colors and the complex intermingling of letters in a style that is generally much harder to decipher.

He said tagger crews are technically gangs (defined by the Sheriff’s Office as a group of three or more people who engage in illegal activity), but their illegal offense is misdemeanor vandalism, so police do not spend a lot of time going after them. “The problem is we just do not have the resources; we have to focus on the ones who are shooting, not the ones committing misdemeanor property crimes.”

Meanwhile, in Seattle, the police department recently issued a press release stating they are going after taggers, and highlighted the arrest of a 20-year-old Shoreline man who tags the name “ABYS” across the city.

According to that press release, SPD have a detective devoted to graffiti cases full time. Additionally, a city auditor report from 2010 found Seattle “spends $1.8 million a year on graffiti abatement, and that’s just what it costs the city to clean up tagging left on public property. Nine hundred Seattle residents surveyed … said they collectively spent nearly a quarter million dollars cleaning up tags left on private homes and businesses every year.”

What to do when you see graffiti in your neighborhood or on your property
Whether you live in Seattle proper or unincorporated King County, both law enforcement agencies appreciate a heads up when you locate graffiti. If you are in King County, Gagliardi asked the public to take a photo and email it, along with location information, to KCSO.gangunit@kingcounty.gov. In Seattle you can call the city’s graffiti hotline at (206) 684-7587 or report it online to Seattle Public Utilities.

Speaking of removal or covering it up, Gagliardi said doing so with quickness is a great idea on two fronts.

“The quicker we cover this stuff up, especially if it is gang graffiti, the less likelihood there is for a cross out leading to violent acts,” he said.

Gagliardi also cited a study that found if you cover up graffiti on your property within 24 hours there is an 85 to 90 percent chance taggers or gang members will not come back.

When asked whether covering up gang graffiti could lead to retaliation, Gagliardi said, “My answer to that is no, in a general sense, no.”

He warned that covering it up is the best policy as opposed to inflaming the situation by tagging back something like, “We called 911 you idiots,” ... something Gagliardi has actually seen in his time on the gang beat.