DANBURY — Downtown property owners are offering a $2,000 reward for information leading to the arrest of the vandal plaguing the city with a new form of graffiti.
Some 30 properties on Main Street, West Street, Ives Street and Elm Street, to name a few, have been hit with graffiti in recent weeks, according to Andrea Gartner, CityCenter Danbury manager.
Downtown experienced a similar rash of graffiti in the fall. Publicity from The News-Times drove the tagger away, authorities said.
This time the vandals are leaving their mark on doors and windows using an acid-based product that permanently scars the glass.
Products such as “Etch Bath” and “Armor Etch-All,” corrodes glass, making removal impossible. The products are intended for crafts people wanting to make their own glass etched creations.
Vandals mix the acid-based product with water, shoe polish or paint to create an easily applicable solution. The new graffiti — and its impact on New York City subway cars — was noted in a 2006 article in the New York Times.
Property owners are left with a milky-white stain on their windows. Cleaning the glass is tough, Gartner said, and some property owners are being forced to replace the glass entirely.
“This kind of graffiti tagging is not artistic. It is criminal,” Gartner said. “Generally, the only way to deal with it is to replace the window. There aren’t any products that can get it off.”
Many of the marks read “Rize.”Police may be closing in.
“We will find him and we will prosecute him,” said Ken Utter, a police officer with the Danbury Police Department who is an expert on the graffiti subculture.
If police gather evidence to charge one person with the crime, the suspect could be charged with first-degree criminal mischief, a felony, because the sum total of the damage to the properties could exceed $1,500.
Multiple charges of second-degree criminal mischief, a misdemeanor where the damage exceeds $250, is another possibility.
The fall tagging spree, coupled with the acid-graffiti now plaguing the city, is the worst graffiti Danbury has seen in at least a decade.
Utter theorizes that now that graffiti has gone mainstream and is accepted as an art form, young people are trying to emulate the artists.
However, the vandals are giving the art a bad name.
Six downtown property owners contributed money for the reward, including attorney Auggie Ribeiro, Union Savings Bank, property owner Mark Nolan, property owner Joseph DaSilva, Two-Steps owner Tom Devine and CityCenter.
Via:www.newstimes.com