Archive for the ‘Massachusetts Graffiti’ Category

Judge agrees to six-month jail term for graffiti artist

Monday, October 5th, 2009

A 27-year-old New York woman received an unusually tough sentence of six months in jail at her sentencing yesterday for spray-painting graffiti in the Back Bay and at the MBTA’s Orient Heights rail yard in East Boston.

Graffiti artist Danielle Bremner was also ordered to serve five years of probation that will be supervised by New York officials; to stay out of Boston during that period; to undergo a mental health evaluation and treatment, if necessary; and to pay restitution, with the amount to be determined at a Dec. 15 hearing.

Bremner pleaded guilty last week in Boston Municipal Court to 13 charges of tagging property for spray-painting her moniker, Utah, in alleys behind Newbury Street and on trains at the rail yard, in 2006 and 2007, prosecutors said.

Bremner had received a 2006 continuance without a finding on eight additional graffiti-related charges in Brighton District Court, prosecutors said. She was also recently released from Rikers Island after serving most of a six-month sentence for graffiti charges in New York.

Prosecutors have said the jail sentence, while unusual for such a case, was just. The sentence was warranted “in light of the extensive damage to personal and public property, the defendant’s extensive history with property damage, and her extensive involvement with the criminal justice system in this jurisdiction and others,’’ said Suffolk District Attorney Daniel F. Conley’s spokesman, Jake Wark.

“In most cases, we seek financial restitution as a deterrent to both the defendant and other potential defendants. In this case, however, the nature and extent of the damage was so egregious it required more than a simple financial resolution,’’ Wark said.

William Keefe, Bremner’s lawyer, said the sentence imposed by Judge Thomas Horgan was no surprise. He said that at one point during the case, the prosecution had asked for a two-year jail sentence, while he constantly advocated probation.

Keefe said Bremner had braced herself to spend time in jail. “She’s a very decent kid who has been working in the fashion industry and trying to get her bachelor’s degree and comes from a very good family,’’ he said.

Graffiti Artist Makes Public Apology to Boston

Tuesday, July 14th, 2009

A graffiti revolutionary just can’t get a break these days, even if his art does hang in Washington’s National Portrait Gallery.

Shepard Fairey, graffiti artist from California, is most famous for his 2008 depiction of President Obama in the popular “Hope” portrait. But apparently artistic expression using the occasional poster, sticker, and wheat paste is cause for two years probation and $2000 in fines in Boston. Stickers can be so dangerous.

But Fairey’s legal troubles do not end there. He is also involved in a suit with the Associated Press over a photograph that supposedly inspired the “Hope” portrait.

Fairey plead guilty to three charges of vandalism. In response to the guilty pleas, eleven additional charges were removed. According to LA Times, Fairey publicly apologized to Bostonians for “posting my art in unauthorized spaces without the consent of the owner.”

In Boston, the artist and his graffiti materials are now banned unless otherwise approved by notified authorities.

Via:cdinsight.com

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Shepard Fairey Gets Probation

Shepard Fairey, above, whose “Hope” poster for Barack Obama became an emblem of the 2008 presidential election, was sentenced to two years’ probation on Friday in Boston Municipal Court for charges stemming from images he posted on public and private property over the years, The Associated Press reported. Mr. Fairey pleaded guilty to three charges of vandalism, including defacing property and wanton destruction of property under $250; 11 other charges were dropped. He was also fined $2,000 to pay for graffiti removal. Mr. Fairey was arrested in Boston in February as he arrived at the Institute of Contemporary Art for the opening-night party for a retrospective of his work. “Freedom of expression is the bedrock of our democracy,” Mr. Fairey said in a statement on Friday. “However, I also believe it is important that people respect private property and do not use it without the authorization of the owner.” He is still involved in a separate dispute with The Associated Press over copyright and fair-use issues surrounding the photograph used in the “Hope” poster.
Via:NYTIMES

With guilty plea, Shepard Fairey agrees to ban himself in Boston

Friday, July 10th, 2009

Shepard Fairey, the street artist who for decades has plastered his stickers and posters on buildings and street signs, issued an apology today and agreed to ban himself in Boston. Fairey consented to a plea deal that will prohibit him from carrying stickers, posters, wheat paste, brushes, and other tools of the graffiti trade while in Suffolk County for the next two years. Under the arrangement, Fairey pleaded guilty to three vandalism charges and must pay a $2,000 fine to one of his adversaries, Graffiti NABBers for the Neighborhood Association of the Back Bay.

In a statement, Fairey apologized to the citizens of Boston for “posting my art in unauthorized spaces without the consent of the owner.”

“I believe in the importance of making art accessible through many avenues, and I will continue to advocate the use of legal public spaces for meaningful artistic expression and communication. Freedom expression is the bedrock of our democracy,” Fairey said. “However, I also believe it is important that people respect private property and do not use it without the authorization of the owner.

As part of the agreement, Suffolk Assistant District Attorney Adam Foss told the judge in Boston Municipal Court that they will dismiss 11 other outstanding vandalism charges against Fairey, who is best known for his “Hope” poster of President Obama, which was based on a news photograph.

Defense attorney Jeffrey Wiesner said in court that the “deal between the parties is one that serves everyone’s interest.”

Fairey at one time faced more than 30 charges in Brighton, Roxbury, and Boston municipal courts. Police arrested the 39-year-old Los Angeles resident in February minutes before he was scheduled to appear at a gala at the Institute of Contemporary Art, which is exhibiting his work.

In April, a Boston Municipal Court clerk-magistrate ruled that seven charges should not go forward because there was not enough evidence. Last month prosecutors threw out 14 of the other charges.

Fairey’s hallmark image is a black and white “Obey Giant” stencil, which is based on the likeness of professional wrestler Andre the Giant. The stencils began appearing on buildings and overpasses about two decades ago and one currently hangs on the outside of the Institute of Contemporary Art.

Fairey pleaded guilty plea today two vandalism charges from earlier this year. On Jan. 22, he put a sticker on the back of a traffic sign at Summer Street and Atlantic Avenue. Two days later he hung a poster on a condominium building at 86 Massachusetts Ave. The poster of his wife holding a gun was featured prominently in his show at the Institute of Contemporary Art. He had originally been charged with two counts of tagging, but prosecutors amended the complaint to wanton destruction of property. A guilty plea to tagging would have forced Fairey to lose his driver’s license for a year in California.

The third charge of defacing a building dated to 2000, when he hung a poster outside an Osco Pharmacy at 177 Brighton Ave.

Via:www.boston.com

Photo Via:www.lataco.com

Shepard Fairey could face new charges

Thursday, March 12th, 2009

Returning to Boston to face two graffiti charges, the Los Angeles-based artist who created the controversial “Hope” poster of Barack Obama may be facing a deluge of new charges.

During a closed-door hearing yesterday in Brighton District Court, Boston police applied for two additional vandalism charges against Shepard Fairey, and a detective working the case indicated that police plan to seek 29 more charges in Roxbury district and Boston municipal courts.

Fairey, wearing a charcoal suit and dark dress shirt, declined to comment after the hearing, and strode out of the courthouse with his lawyer, Jeffrey P. Wiesner, and several supporters. Hours later, Fairey released a statement that said he was not involved with “illegally posting” his artwork, which is widely available on the Internet.

“I can only assume that the gratuitous piling on of felony charges by the Boston police is related to my longstanding advocacy as an artist for the idea that public visual space should be filled with more than just commercial advertising,” the 39-year-old said.

Wiesner, in a telephone interview yesterday afternoon, said he has not seen “less evidence presented for a criminal charge.”

He said police acknowledged yesterday before the magistrate that they had no eyewitnesses or surveillance video of Fairey putting up posters.

“Their fundamental premise is that the posters are out there, and Mr. Fairey must have put them up because they’re his.”

It was not clear yesterday when court officials would decide on the application for new charges.

Elaine Driscoll, spokeswoman for the Boston Police Department, said yesterday that “investigators are confident that the evidence speaks for itself.”

According to a police report, Detective Bill Kelley “found at least 29 of suspect Fairey’s illegally placed monikers” on public and private property in the Back Bay. The report states that Fairey has admitted to placing the monikers, which Kelley noticed on Jan. 24.

Jake Wark, spokesman for Suffolk District Attorney Daniel F. Conley, said yesterday that “We have not yet had an opportunity to review any of the additional charges, but we will review the facts and circumstances of each one to determine their strength.”

Fairey’s “Hope” poster of Obama now hangs in the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C.

Boston police arrested him last month, pulling over his taxicab as the artist was on his way to the opening of his exhibit at the Institute of Contemporary Art on the South Boston Waterfront.

The two charges filed yesterday in Brighton stem from allegations that Fairey posted an Obey Giant poster on a railroad trestle over Storrow Drive and put up numerous Obama posters in Allston, near Brighton Avenue, from Nov. 25 to Dec. 25 of last year, according to Wiesner.

Fairey also had a hearing yesterday in Brighton that stemmed from a charge filed in September 2000, when he was accused of posting graffiti on an electrical box in Allston. That case was continued until April 14. He has another hearing on Wednesday for allegedly defacing Massachusetts Turnpike Authority property with posters at Massachusetts Avenue and Newbury Street on or about Jan. 24.

Chris Ott, spokesman for the American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts, said: “Police have the right to enforce the law, but they have to do it fairly and it has to be based on evidence that he actually did this. You don’t have to look very far in a city like Boston to find other posters put up advertising things like movies. It’s clear where those postings come from, but you don’t see people being prosecuted for those.”

Anne Swanson, who cochairs Graffiti NABBers, an offshoot of the Neighborhood Association of the Back Bay, said she and other residents have spent at least a thousand hours in the last three years taking down posters, stickers, and other types of graffiti in the community. She called it “visual litter that appears in vast quantities here.”

Aside from criminal charges in Boston, Fairey is also in a dispute over his image of President Obama. He acknowledges that the poster was based on an April 2006 photograph taken by Mannie Garcia, a freelance photographer who took the photo for the Associated Press.

The AP has accused Fairey of copyright infringement and wants compensation. Fairey filed a preemptive suit last month in federal court in New York.

Garcia, who no longer freelances for the AP, recently told the monthly magazine Photo District News that he did not want to fight Fairey over the image.

“I’m concerned about it, but this is a unique situation,” Garcia said. “This is not just some artist who ripped something off.”

Charges against graffiti artist include property damage in Brighton

Saturday, February 14th, 2009

Allston-Brighton – Shepard Fairey, a nationally recognized and controversial graffiti artist, was arrested on Feb. 6 while on his way to his own art show in downtown Boston.

Fairey had an outstanding warrant out of Brighton District Court for graffiti that dated back to 2000, and another warrant out of Roxbury District Court. Charges against Fairey include damage to real or personal property by paint (graffiti) in Brighton, and police said he would be charged in Boston courts for the appearance of the tag in three other locations.

Fairey is infamous in Boston and other cities around the country for his signature “Andre the Giant” tag that usually features the words “OBEY” or “OBEY The Giant.” Shepard was in Boston to promote his new guerilla-style graffiti art campaign which features photographs of his moniker that were spray-painted in U.S. cities both legally and illegally. The arrest has sparked a debate in Boston over where the line should be drawn between art and the law.

The moniker is a reference to the wrestler known as Andre the Giant, who competed in the 1980s. Fairey has been tagging buildings with the symbol since 1991. Police said Fairey has admitted in media interviews that he is responsible for the tagging of the image.

According to police, the tag most recently appeared in Boston on or around Jan. 24 of this year, when it was seen on the railroad trestle under the BU Bridge and over Storrow Drive in Allston. Police said Fairey did not have permission from the Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation to display his tag there.

Graffiti Warz.

Wednesday, December 3rd, 2008

Cops and taggers play a high-stakes game of cat and mouse

Even though he’s headed to prison, SPEK will still be visible in Massachusetts. The Reading-spawned graffiti icon, whose real name is Adam Brandt, has hundreds — if not thousands — of modest scribbles and ornate masterpieces spattered across the Commonwealth. In Salem, which is ground zero for the massive North Shore graf scene — and where he was recently sentenced to four months for tagging and vandalism — his tag is sprayed on dumpsters, brick walls, street signs, and every other type of flat surface imaginable. Barbed-wire fences hardly proved obstacles. As a teeming graffiti force, SPEK rarely encountered train yards and abandoned buildings that he couldn’t infiltrate.

For those reasons, he’s considered by both fellow taggers and law-enforcement officials as one of an elite bunch of exalted bombers — not all of whom are affiliated — who instigated an unusual police action this past December. A dozen town and city police departments joined forces to share information on the region’s heaviest graffiti hitters and hunt them down. While such police cooperation is de rigueur for more serious crimes, it is a brand-spanking-new strategy in the graffiti world. And whereas previously a captured artist/vandal usually faced community-service hours and fines, this new effort — spurred on by angry citizens in communities affected by the graffiti — is targeting an unprecedented number of taggers for jail time.

If SPEK was a Moby Dick of sorts for the consortium of Bay State vice squads, Boston Police Department (BPD) Detective William Kelley and MBTA Police Lieutenant Nancy O’Loughlin have been SPEK’s Ahabs, chasing the outlaw artist for a decade. But SPEK is far from the only big fish reeled in as authorities and community groups have cast a wide net from Marblehead to Dorchester. In October one of SPEK’s rivals, New York graffiti queen UTAH, was charged with 33 counts of tagging for her handiwork around Beantown. UTAH, born Danielle Bremner, is a member of the international crew Dirty 30, who from 2006 to 2007 heatedly competed for visibility with SPEK and his outfit, ITD (Illustrating Total Destruction). That same month, another veteran vandal, Tyson Andree Wells, who’s better known as CAYPE, was sentenced to one year in the South Bay House of Correction.

Exactly 12 months into this far-reaching regional law-enforcement campaign waged by the unofficially dubbed Greater Boston Area Graffiti Task Force, taggers are on the run, and at least five Krylon kings have been nabbed in the largest Bay State graffiti crackdown of this millennium.

After a nearly two-decade cat-and-mouse struggle, it appears that anti-graf cats have finally discovered how to reduce the amount of illegal street art in Eastern Massachusetts. While taggers have for years maintained the upper hand by relocating to neighboring locales when their own hoods got hot, authorities are now wising up. Highly visible taggers like SPEK and CAYPE have become trophy kills for the authorities, and their captures are being trumpeted as a warning to others. It’s a reality that both law-enforcement touts and taggers are willing to concede: for the first time since North Shore communities were overrun with graffiti in the early ’90s, the most prominent players in this local subculture now stand extraordinarily endangered.

[READ MORE]

Taggers: Writing is on wall

Thursday, May 22nd, 2008

Tough ordinance on graffiti enacted

By Katheleen Conti

For those whose calling card of choice is graffiti, the stakes of getting caught in Chelsea just got much higher. A tougher anti-graffiti ordinance was unanimously adopted by the City Council Monday night, after months of discussion and tweaks.

Chelsea teens protest the City Council’s rejection of a youth delegate on the council. Page 4

“The city has worked too hard to improve itself to allow this blight to take over the community,” said Councilor Marilyn Vega-Torres, who crafted the ordinance with other city and community officials, including Police Chief Brian Kyes.

Because the bulk of Chelsea “taggers,” according to police statistics, are boys between the ages of 12 and 15, the ordinance was also crafted to include restitution opportunities in lieu of prosecution. Local youth organizations, like Roca, have offered to step in and counsel young taggers.

The ordinance is scheduled to become effective June 20, just two days after the last day of school in Chelsea, when youngsters suddenly find themselves bored and with a lot of time on their hands, said City Solicitor Cheryl Anne Watson.

“This past year [graffiti] just rose,” Watson said. “It just kind of hit every city and town hard.”

It will be illegal for anyone younger than 18, while on any school property, park, playground, or property owned and operated by the city of Chelsea, to possess a “graffiti implement,” defined as an aerosol paint container, a broad-tipped marker, or “any other device capable of scarring or leaving a visible mark on any natural or manmade surface,” without the written consent of the School Department or the city.

Violators will be subject to fines ranging from $100 to $300 per offense, according to the ordinance. If the violator is a minor, the city will hold the parents or guardian liable for the payment of the fines. If the parents or guardians fail to pay, the city can put a lien on their property.

Watson said the city also took great care to merge existing state laws into the local ordinance, including the one-year suspension of a violator’s driver’s license if arrested and convicted. If a tagger is younger than 16, the city or Police Department can ask that the state delay that juvenile’s right to a license for one year.

The state’s Registry of Motor Vehicles charges a $100 fine to reinstate a license after a one-year suspension or delay.

Graffiti incidents reported to police rose from 38 in 2005 to 130 last year, according to police statistics. In a previous presentation to the council, Kyes said that investigations of and interviews with Chelsea taggers revealed that many go out in groups in what they call a “mischief night,” in which the object is to tag as much property as possible in one evening.

“The Chelsea City Council found and determined that graffiti on public and private walls and buildings is obnoxious and tends to remain on dilapidated buildings unless the city causes it to be removed,” reads the ordinance. “Other properties then become the target of graffiti, resulting in entire neighborhoods littered with graffiti and becoming less desirable places in which to be, and reside, all to the detriment of the city.”

Vega-Torres said she hopes that most juvenile taggers take advantage of the support being offered by volunteer teen peers and get involved in the community process to stop graffiti vandalism.

Instead of paying fines, for instance, Vega-Torres said taggers can make arrangements for restitution by way of community service. The ordinance states that the tagger may be required to perform at least 30 hours of community service, which may include graffiti removal. Violators, or their parents if they are minors, may also be asked to pay or reimburse the city or a property owner for the graffiti removal.

Vega-Torres herself was a victim of two dueling taggers who would take turns defacing her home almost as quickly as she painted over the graffiti.

“They’re young and they need some type of guidance that they don’t have, and that’s why they go out at night; most of them are minors,” she said. “The whole goal is educating them and making the youth aware that it’s fine to express yourself, but not at the expense of a landlord. . . . They need an outlet, and hopefully, with everyone working together, that will happen.”

[Via:www.boston.com]

Graffiti vandal arrested

Sunday, May 4th, 2008

[Via:www.provincetownbanner.com/]

PROVINCETOWN – Police brought a nine-month graffiti spree to an end Friday when they arrested the man suspected of “tagging” hundreds of local buildings and signs.

Arrested was Kevin Burke, 24, who police called a drifter who slept on various people’s couches in town. He was arrested around noon Friday after police executed a search warrant of his last known address, 49 Bayberry Ave., Thursday night. There they found numerous spray paint cans and journals containing the same type of graffiti that had been splashed over street signs, transformer boxes, rest rooms and store walls.

In addition, police also found post office priority mail labels, which the vandal had marked with graffiti and stuck on various locations around town.

“He’s very talented,” said Provincetown Police Officer Monica Himes, who led the investigation since the graffiti began showing up last summer. “It’s unfortunate he had to express that talent on other people’s and the town’s property.”

Burke was identified after a security camera at Tedeschi’s Market on Bradford Street caught him in the act. Burke was arrested as he walked down Commercial Street on Friday. He will be charged with numerous incidents of graffiti tagging, a misdemeanor that carries a maximum jail sentence of two years and requires the culprit to pay for removal and repair of the graffiti.

Graffiti writer’s bomb police station parking lot..Nice;)

Wednesday, April 23rd, 2008

Bold graffiti artists strike — in Brockton police parking lot

By Milton Valencia, [Via:www.boston.com]

BROCKTON – Graffiti artists went on a spree Monday night and early Tuesday, scrawling their “tags” in several locations — including a mobile command post parked in the police station lot.

Police arrested four people for vandalizing the van, and are investigating whether they are responsible for other graffiti throughout the city that could cost thousands of dollars to clean up.

“It’s destruction of property,” Police Chief William Conlon said. “It’s disheartening to residents and business owners and government leaders – anybody who’s got to look at it.”

Facing charges of vandalism and vandalism by tagging were: James Cook, 17; Duane Bailey, 20; Kent Coffey, 20; and Steven Gavazzi, 23.

Conlon said a passerby called police just before 3 a.m. Tuesday after seeing people painting the van, and officers who canvassed the area saw the four walking not far away.

One of the group had paint on his hand, and police searching them found spray paint cans of the same colors used in the graffiti, Conlon said. He said the four later confessed.

Later Tuesday, a construction worker renovating the Manning Pool, a $2 million project, found graffiti on the pool sides, the cement apron around it and on the walls of the pool house, the chief said.

Also, a local florist who had recently removed spray paint from his wall found that he had been hit again, the chief said.

He said it was the latest in a surge of graffiti vandalism that has given neighborhoods a bad image.

“Maybe it’s becoming more of a fad, but it’s a disheartening fad and it costs many thousand dollars to remove it,” the chief said. “These kids are so young that are doing it, I don’t think they can see beyond their noses to see the detrimental effect it has had on the community.”

Boston wages war on graffiti

Sunday, April 13th, 2008

Via:[www.bostonnow.com]

By Kristi Ceccarossi

As sure as spring approaches, Michael Bartosiak’s phone will be ringing more often.

Bartosiak heads the city’s Graffiti Busters team; he gets a call every time a new tag is reported to the mayor’s office. And the warmer weather means more vandals will be out, which means more work for his staff.

“We get called out nights and weekends,” he said. If the graffiti is particularly offensive, a clean up crew is dispatched immediately.

Taggers are responsible for almost $1 million in damage annually, officials say, and city taxpayers bear the brunt of it.

Bartosiak’s crew, which is part of the city’s property and construction management department, has a $500,000 budget. They scrub paint off residential or commercial buildings at no cost to the property owner. They clean graffiti sometimes as small as a tag on a streetlight or as large as a mural across an entire facade.

On top of that, crews from several city departments, such as Parks and Recreation, use additional taxpayer funds for graffiti removal.

The Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority also spends $60,000 to remove graffiti from subway cars. And every time graffiti is washed off Commuter Rail coaches – the most popular target, according to police – the Massachusetts Bay Commuter Railroad spends about $1,500 per hour of clean up work.

In Boston, graffiti is “a crime of privilege,” said Detective Bill Kelly. Of the 200 or so taggers the police have identified, most are “young, fairly educated, suburban white kids who hail from the suburbs,” Kelly said. “Few are actually from the city.

Even so, taggers work in “crews” that are based in Boston, Kelly said, such as the Nasty Vandal Squad and Illustrate Total Destruction. There’s a hierarchy in a crew, he said, and competition among them.

“It’s like the mafia,” he said. “You get credit for how you tag, and the more bizarre or dangerous a spot is, or how good it looks is what gets you respect. There are some kids who walk a 20 foot beam, 60 stories off the ground just to get on a roof top.”

In the last several years, graffiti vandalism has increased, Kelly said, because the Internet has provided a space for tagging crews to commune and get more attention. Flickr.com, for example, features a group called Boston and Massachusetts Graffiti Art with 88 contributors and 3,300 photos.

But the Internet has also helped with graffiti investigations, Kelly said. This February, police arrested Adam Brandt, a 27 year-old tagger from Salem called “Spek,” who they were tracking for a decade. If convicted, he could face up to three years in prison.

None of that matters, though, to Bartosiak over in City Hall, who is sending crews out to 1,000 sites a year.

“I like art just as much as everybody else, but we have no tolerance in Boston for graffiti,” he said.