Taggers

Want to stop graffiti ("Taggers Leaving Marks on O.C. Consciousness," May 16)? Arrest both parents of any minor caught in the act of doing graffiti, (sentence them to) an automatic jail sentence of 30 days and remove their child or children to the care of protective services for the same 30 days. A stringent measure, but it would put the blame on the parents who, in my estimation, are the ones most responsible for the graffiti. Obviously, the parents never instilled respect for law and order in their children.

I am a 17-year-old tagger. I attend Reid High School in Long Beach. What Long Beach really needs are more programs to hire youths for jobs so that they could get off the streets. Another good reason is that it costs more money to remove graffiti people like me do than to hire them and pay them for actual work. WILLIAM CHAVEZ Long Beach

Bob Sipchen's column on taggers nearly made me lose my breakfast ("Two Taggers Leave Their Mark," L.A. Stories, June 8). Does he really think "nobody cares enough about us to make us behave" is the message left by all the graffiti? That sounds very much like the ridiculous radio and TV pleas that were ubiquitous some years ago: "Don't leave your keys in your car; don't make a good boy go bad." I can't speak for other citizens who don't smack tagger kids silly, but the reason I don't do it is because kids who are so brazenly disrespectful of other people's property are probably carrying weapons.

The case of an alleged "tagger" who was "tagged" ended in a mistrial Thursday when a Van Nuys Municipal Court jury was unable to reach a verdict on vandalism charges against him. Jurors split 7 to 4 in favor of a verdict of not guilty, with one juror undecided, in the trial of Walter Castro. Police said Castro, 19-year-old Los Angeles man, was putting his initials on light poles on Santa Monica Boulevard in east Hollywood on July 15 when two rivals accosted him.

After Greg Harty rolls out of bed in his Sherman Oaks apartment, he grabs a cup of coffee and starts his work day at a desk in the corner of his living room. His assignment: Watch three episodes of "Modern Family. " As the hit sitcom plays, the aspiring screenwriter opens another window on his laptop and pulls up a spreadsheet. He begins picking labels - his employer, Netflix, calls them tags - to describe what he sees. The comedy: "quirky. " The humor: "light dark. " The tone: "humorous," "irreverent" and "heartfelt.

The death in Sun Valley last week of an 18-year-old tagger, Cesar Rene Arce, has catalyzed a powerful undercurrent of anger and loathing toward the ubiquitous kids who seem to have the run of desolate blocks of Los Angeles. Those blocks, in turn, have become their canvas for the weird and wildly variant collection of symbols, names, acronyms, gang rosters and genuine art collectively known as graffiti. Since Roman times, people have called it garbage, and they hate the sight of it.

Responding to a surge in graffiti, L.A. County prosecutors, Caltrans and the CHP are teaming up to target what officials say has become the prime canvas for taggers: freeways. Prosecutors have lowered the amount of monetary damages that must be committed by a tagger to warrant felony charges, saying the change will make it easier to prosecute vandals.

When taggers spray-painted the windows of Rosa Bobbio's tiny upholstery shop in Anaheim, she called the police, who told her it was the city's responsibility. But the city told her she owed it $466.66 in fines and fees for not replacing her defaced windows at Century Custom Upholstery. Bobbio's experience is similar to that of other business owners in Southern California who find themselves caught between the zero-tolerance policies of municipal governments and the persistent destruction of taggers.