posted 07/17/10 02:27 AM | updated 07/19/10 09:21 AM
Views: 2944 | Comments : 23 | Crime

Cops may have nailed ZEB: Tags appear from Capitol Hill to Belltown and beyond

By jseattle
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The City of Seattle recently released a report featuring nine recommendations for dealing with graffiti. We'd like to propose a tenth. Throw the book at ZEB. According to SeattleCrime, the City's prosecutors might have the chance.

Police say they may have nabbed three people connected to a group responsible for spray painting buildings across the city and on Capitol Hill with the three-letter tag:

Police first arrested two 17-year-old boys from Everett in Belltown June 11th after a neighbor callled 911 around 9:00am and reported that the two teens were spraypainting buildings on 4th and Bell and taking photos of the graffiti.

Officer stopped the boys in an alley at 2nd and Lenora, where they told police they were only taking pictures of the graffiti. However one of the teens had spray paint stains on his hands which matched the "Zeb" tags near the scene. He was also in possession of a number of cans of paint, paint markers, stencils, and three grams of marijuana.

Police arrested the teens, but the Youth Service Center declined to book the boys.

Three days later, a patrol officer working near Western and Blanchard spotted a man with a cloth shopping back standing in a doorway around 4:30am.

A recent crop of the  tags can be found from one side of the Hill to the other -- we took this picture of a crew covering up ZEB's fine work near the corner of 19th and Aloha on Friday -- and are infesting other areas of the city. Hideous Belltown wants your head, too, ZEB.

The ZEB tags go into the same category as the Syrup vandalism that became so widespread that it graduated to a whole new level of damage. We never found out what finally stopped Syrup.

As for the "don't give it the attention it craves" comments, ZEB's gotten out of hand without any encouragement from us. It's time to haul these spray cans in.

SeattleCrime reports that detectives are looking for more evidence. If you have some ZEB information that you'd like to share, contact Detective Friesen at Wesley.Friesen@seattle.gov.

UPDATE 7/19/10 9:22 AM:
Regardless of progress on these three, the tagging continues. ZEB showed up in Ballard this weekend.

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What?
Declined to book them? What's that all about? I'm normally a pretty low-key person, but in this case I feel we ought to declare these fine young men enemy combatants so we can give them a thorough torturing.
Comment by Bcampbell
July 17, 2010
Requirements necessary to be "charged"??
I understand Bcambell's conserns, and wonder if we know what would have been necessary for these individuals to have been charged? If I understand the article correctly, the tagging was witnessed, as was the resulting property damage. If we are descourage such tagging, then we need to understand what evidence is considered to be sufficient to file charges.


In my case, I found my fence tagged, and though it took several coats of paint, I covered the damage promptly. My neighbor originally had decided to ignore her tags, but it seemed to encourage additional tagging. Once we finally cleaned up all the tags, and kept ahead of them, we noticed a dramatic decline in tagging.
Comment by David
July 17, 2010
Sentencing
Community service? No, if they get spraying a tag, they should be made to clean the tag up everywhere it occurs in the city.
Comment by seandr
July 17, 2010
Ballard too
ZEB just hit about a dozen buildings on Market between 15th and Leary last night, apparently. Strong candidates for the MCM Memorial Needledick Award.
Comment by 14limes
July 17, 2010
FREE WALL
Seattle cant stop it, his crew will all tag "FREE ZEB" 1000 times more if he gets arrested... did you see what happened after Kerse passed?

Seattle cant stop it, they need to channel it...

create a FREE WALL, other cities do so successfully,

pushing taggers to a legal art area, they can express themselves, come together as community, work in day light with no fear of arrest, allowing more amazing art to be created..

don't hate, participate, stay up
Comment by H Millionzaire
July 17, 2010
RE: FREE WALL
The wall is a nice idea for people who are skilled in art/graffiti. We have all see some expressive amazing public art. Tagging is not it. Taggers are the scratch ass one feels after a poor effort at wiping. The letters ZEB are in no way intended as art and should not be interpreted as such. ZEB here, ZEB there, ZEB a ZEB a ZEB everywhere. What a boring existence. Get creative or go home with your stolen paint. *yawn*
Comment by Tim
July 17, 2010
RE: FREE WALL
Uh, taggers don't do graf to express themselves, they do it to mark territory and get their name out.
Comment by maus
July 17, 2010
RE: FREE WALL
You are very naive if you really think a "free wall" would have a significant impact on tagging...real, beautiful street art...yes...but very little of what we see on the streets is in this category.

Taggers are losers with nothing better to do than vandalize public/private property. They do it as a pathetic effort to be noticed, and to "stick it to adults," and they would not use a "free wall."
Comment by calhoun
July 18, 2010
Pointless and uncreative vandalism
Why should the city provide a free tagging wall, why don't tagger put up their own art shows in their own spaces? They won't because they don't have enough talent to warrent a crowd of anyone other than their own peers. NO ONE WOULD ATTEND. because tags are BORING and POINTLESS.

This sense of self entitlement is faulty. Do you know what it's like to be someone who doesn't have a lot of money and time because they work a lot to support themselves and have to deal with this? I get to spend more than my budget allows to cover this up or I'll get a fine. Do you know what it's like spending time in the hot sun scrubbing until your arms don't work anymore because some boring talentless kid decided to have a joy night out?
Comment by Astyteroid
July 17, 2010
RE: Pointless and uncreative vandalism
Your pure ignorance on the subject is overwhelming. By immediately lumping all "graffiti" artists and "taggers" into one group, you have shown that you will never take the time to understand the difference. Our city has a wealth of beautiful ILLEGAL art as well as legal. A few examples below:

http://baldmanwatching.com/2010/07/13/tired-of-being-tired/ (Legal)

http://www.flickr.com/photos/gabemeier/4738860725/ (Illegal)

http://baldmanwatching.com/2010/06/24/bisexual-bridal-shower (Illegal)

Get the point? By lumping every person who does not place their art on what you/the city believe is a reasonable canvass, you are dismissing an entire rich artform based on an ignorance and lack of understanding that I find dumbfounding.
Comment by Gabe
July 18, 2010
RE: Pointless and uncreative vandalism
All of the media attention surrounding ZEB is only encouraging future behavior. The ZEB crew tagged everywhere, thus receiving attention across many Seattle media outlets. Positive press or not, all press is good press in the mindset of a 17 year old. This 'nobody' band of disenfranchised youth now has a name for themselves. At 17, it's like winning the lottery. The sky's the limit. I'm all for street art and writers of all styles. My only beef is the lack of discretion when choosing locations. When you write on the side of a 100 year old building with the intention of 'getting up' I think it shows an overall lack of respect for our local history and the artisans that came before us. Choose better spots then I have no problem.
Comment by Joe
July 18, 2010
RE: Pointless and uncreative vandalism
"By immediately lumping all "graffiti" artists and "taggers" into one group, you have shown that you will never take the time to understand the difference."

I think he understands the difference, but he seems to think that taggers consider their "work" art.
Comment by maus
July 18, 2010
No Good Punks
We already have a generously sized "free wall" in SoDo. I am also pretty sure that there are other places to express yourself with spray paint. Taggers and graffiti artists are very different.

Graffiti artists don't ruin the sides of buildings or mar public murals. They show respect.
Taggers are vile degenerates which find this a more permanent way of marking their spots. They can't achieve anything worthwhile, but they still want to leave their mark. They're the equivalent of dogs pissing on your fence.

I'm with making taggers clean the graffiti with tiny brushes. Or we can subject them to public humiliation like in Singapore, without the whipping/caning.

Here's another thought though, how could these two teens cover the city alone with their stupid ZEB? They must have had help.
Obviously, THEY ARE WITCHES. Burn them! Burn 'em all!
Comment by Ale
July 18, 2010
RE: No Good Punks
*Taggers are vile degenerates who find this a permanent way of marking their spots.
Comment by Ale
July 18, 2010
RE: No Good Punks
"Here's another thought though, how could these two teens cover the city alone with their stupid ZEB? They must have had help."

Why? It takes no time at all to spray.
Comment by maus
July 18, 2010
RE: No Good Punks
Woops. I was kidding about that part. That's why I followed it with the bit about witches.
Sorry, I didn't think that the set-up was unclear.
Comment by Ale
July 18, 2010
Restitution
Zeb has even tagged trees. I estimate he/they have done tens of thousands of dollars in damage around the city. He/they needs to pay restitution in full for repairing the damage done.
Comment by Ralph Wooster
July 18, 2010
lol
As a fellow tagger, I'm disgusted. There's a point where self expression and a little delinquency become straight up disrespect. But in all reality, the odds of finding the dude(s) is real low. Whoever did this knows what they're doing, they took all the precautions.
Comment by Anon
July 19, 2010
Taggers are selfish
I am so sick of people defending taggers. Taggers destroy private property hurtinh local businesses and harming homes. They cost tax payers money when they tag public property. Taggers are so selfish they think there tags (I refuse to call them artists and what they do art.) are more important than anything else. I have to deal with it. It costs money to fix and if it is not fixed then money is lost due to business loss and yes it causes people to not use a business. I see you tagging I call the cops.
Comment by Mathew
July 19, 2010
RE: Taggers are selfish
What is your definition of "tagging"? Do you consider all unsanctioned art on public or private property to be vandalism?

What about something like this?

http://www.flickr.com/photos/true2death/4575086892/in/pool-6
Comment by Gabe
July 20, 2010
zeb tags
Yesterday, i went on a side street to the fredmeyer in ballard and, jeez, that stupid thing was plastered all over everything! probably 50 times in less than a city block.
Comment by christine h
July 20, 2010
Zeb
Needs an ass whupping, then a big ass ZEB tattooed across his forehead. Maybe then he'll understand.
Comment by ltrain
July 20, 2010
Re:Re: Taggers are selfish
To answer your question Gabe: Yes. Taggers are destroying property for there selfish acts. They should go to jail.
Comment by Mathew
July 20, 2010
RE: Re:Re: Taggers are selfish
I completely understand with your saying and agree with you. The majority of taggers have poor judgement in placement and cost private property owners tens of thousands of dollars. All I'm trying to do is differentiate between gang/territory tagging and true graffiti/street art. This is a distinction that needs to be made and unfortunately, when someone like ZEB is brought up in the news, too often street artists are lumped in the same category.

At the same time, I'm trying to start a discourse on the cities spending on graffiti cleanup. We spend $1.8 million a year on cleanup of graffiti. Large amounts of that money are spent on cleaning up areas under freeways, walls along traintracks, etc. This is a massive misappropriation of money that could go to a far better cause.
Comment by Gabe
July 22, 2010