Graffiti, Perps and Helicopters

So, how’s this for an eventful evening?

I’m driving along Osborn Rd., near my home near 7th Ave and Osborn Road. Heading east. It’s dark. Last Thursday evening.

Got the setting in your head?

I pass this guy on the south side of the street (so, on my right for the directionally-challenged). He is just finishing tagging a large apartment building sign with green paint.

My jaw drops as I think, “Really, right out here where we can all see you? Really?”

I slow down to get a look. He sees me. I drive ahead a little to pull over on the north side of the street to call Crimestop, police non-emergency. (That’s 602-262-6151, in case you ever need it.)

I’m sitting in the parking lot of Superstar Video fighting with my iPhone to find the number, and he is moving east at a good pace. You have to keep a good pace up while tagging, you know. It’s just part of the mystique, I guess.

I look over my shoulder while the phone is dialing and he is crossing over the street to my side, right toward me. This is not a little kid. He’s no Andre the Giant either, but I’m guessing that he did not spend much time in the library over lunch hours. He is somewhere in his late teens or early twenties, I figure.

I’m on the phone with Crimestop trying to tell her two things at the same time: 1) I just saw this guy tag a sign and I’m watching him. I need to get cops here before I lose him; and 2) this guy is approaching my car, looking right at me with that arms-spread-out, hands-up, “wha’s up”, “you better move along” look.

She’s a little disbelieving for a second because police non-emergency normally expects to get calls about neighbors who won’t stop dumping yard waste in each other’s ally space. I’m sure it didn’t help that I was talking so quickly that she probably thought I was a Russian immigrant.

So, I’m staring at him and talking to her, not letting up. He’s giving me his best, “I’ll cut you” look.

I should mention at this point that I REALLY HATE TAGGERS. I mean with a passion. People work their butts off for their property, and these guys not only deface somebody else’s work, but they also make all of our lives just a little harder with every paint spray and pen stroke.

Don’t tell me its art. Don’t tell me its culture.

Tag up a piece of canvass that you paid for yourself and then I’ll believe you.

I guess he figured that he had successfully intimidated me, or that he better move on because I was still on the phone with somebody at this point.

He moves off ahead of me to the east and then easily, lightly reaches his arm out to a car parked 20 feet in front of me and sprays across the front hood.

I’m telling this to the Dispatch and I think she was taken aback by the gall of it as well, by the tone in her voice.

She say’s, “hold on, I’m trying to get some officers to you.” It goes  quiet and tagger guy is moving east more quickly now, crossing 7th Ave.

I’m not about to lose this guy. My first perp, man! Are you kidding?

A tricked-out Prius, but not mine...

So, I swing my turbo-charged Toyota Pious out on to the street and hang back to watch were he is going. It was amazing that this guy had gotten himself up to the pace of an Olympic speed walker, but still kept that arms-swinging-across-the-butt, chest-high swagger that said, “Don’t cross me, man! I’ll paint you green!”

A few steps later, I see the a white spinning paint can leave his hand and disappear behind  bush in front of Safeway and what used to be the old Furr’s Cafeteria (the octogenarians who used to hold up there would have been aghast at the sight).

So, I drive ahead of him so it looks like I gave up and I circled around in the Safeway parking lot, the whole time talking to Dispatch. I keep telling her where he is, even as he crosses back to the south side of the street and continues east.

Then a major development in the world of Ken, the Perp Tracker: the suspect takes off his dark shirt to reveal a white undershirt. Dark shirt thrown aside, he is starting to lose his swagger in favor of a faster gait.

This guy is a master of disguises. Not only did he ditch the paint can, but he changed clothes and now he’s running. Surely nobody will recognize him!

I swing out past the shoppers; open trunks, canvass reusable shopping bags in mid-pack, and on to the street again. Now he is on my right, but ahead of me by about 50 feet. He ducks in to one of the long, low-slung apartment buildings to my right and I pass as I watch him move down the breezeway, as if he just got back home from a light jog around the block.

I’m trying to describe this to Dispatch, who is intermittently leaving my company. She is trying to try to patch me in directly to the police line so I can talk to the officers in the cars and in the helicopter, which is on its way.

It did not work, unfortunately. VERY unfortunately. Because, admit it folks, how cool would THAT have been?!

So, I’m sitting on Osborn with my hazard lights on where I last saw him and I’m thinking I’d better move. If the cars going around me don’t take off a rear view mirror, then the police who are on their way are likely to think my dinky little car is an old plastic bag on the side of the road and drive over it.

So, I go back over to the Safeway parking lot and park closest to where I lost him. Dispatch (I’m great friends with her by now, so I can call her “Dispatch.” We’ve been through a lot together, don’t you know.), is asking me whether the officers are there yet.

By now two police SUVs are pulling up; one down the ally around where he went and another searching the street. The helicopter (yes, a helicopter for a tagger) is over head looking for him. I distinctly remember saying to Dispatch, “Wow, they got here fast! I love you guys! Great job!”

Yep. Adrenaline makes you say stupid things.

A third SUV enters Osborn further to the east as I see Perpie (I can call him “Perpie” now. We’ve been through a lot together, don’t you know.) walk out of the apartment buildings and back to Osborn. His entire demeanor is as if to say, “Me? I’m just out for a stroll while I compose some poetry about dandelions.”

I’m telling Dispatch, “That’s him, you’ve got him in the helicopter spotlight”, as if her desk is in the helicopter and she can see any of this. The officers just pull him aside and detain him. No running. No “Cops” Reggae music soundtrack.

Dispatch, being the experienced and busy woman that she is gets my digits, asks me to stay put and hangs up.

So, to speed up this story (because I know that you probably have work that you should be doing right now, rather than reading this), I talk to the officer, identify Perp, take the officers to the can of paint, show them where he spray painted the car, which is now gone (poor people), and point out the tagged apartment building sign.

I was especially proud when one cop, after the officers had hauled Perp away and we were all talking in front of Superstar Video, gives me the best complement I’d ever heard. He said, “Man, I’ve never seen a civilian tail a suspect like that. You should have heard the play-by-play on the radio. We knew just where to get him.”

Now, this is just a tagging. I know. It seems silly in some ways to detail this chase. We are not talking about armed robbery here.

But I am simultaneously proud of being a part of catching Perp and cognizant of the comedy of a guy like me driving around in a little Toyota Prius with police and a helicopter tracking a small time crook.

It makes me realize what our officers go through night after night and how happy I am that I don’t have to do it.

Epilogue:

The next day I went out to my car and found that he tagged my driver’s side headlight while he was crossing in front of my car, trying to intimidate me.

I took pictures and let the reporting officer know.

In re-reading this story, it is neither as funny or as exciting as it was when it happened. Again, its the adrenaline.

I am also reflecting on the fact that a kid like this, whom I learned is 17 years old, probably has nobody to take him aside and tell him, “This is not the route you want to take for your life. Divert now and let me tell you how.” That makes me deeply sad.

However, I still feel that we should not back down from people like this out of fear. That is when we lose our neighborhoods again.