A phone tipster helped police nail two men allegedly tagging multiple buildings along Bellevue Ave with blue and pink paint last weekend. Police and a K9 unit cornered the two men early Sunday morning after a chase through the streets and bike paths of I-5 Shores. Here’s a tip and a picture from above we received about the incident from neighbor S:
I haven’t seen this turn up anywhere on the crime blogs yet, but there was an incident involving the arrest of a tagger Saturday night. Remember the story about the potential taggers and the reporter getting hit by a car? Oddly enough, this took place at the same building (Velo Apartments on 301 E. Roy St). I was coming home for the evening around 12:30 and multiple cops were circling my block, obviously looking for someone. Right out side the front lobby one of the cops on foot asked me “which way he went”. “Wha? Who?! What are you looking for??” He just said “a tagger”. About 10 minutes later there were three cop cars in the parking lot below arresting a man, all I could see was he had a skateboard. (Attached a photo I took from my 5th floor window, in which you pretty much can’t see anything :P ). Just wanted to let you know since I hadn’t heard anything about it yet!
CHS has reviewed police radio transmissions from the incident but the official SPD report has not yet been released. According to the radio reports, two men were taken into custody after police conducted an area search along Bellevue Ave following a trail of pink and blue tags. Police found the suspects on the Lakeview overpass of I-5 where the men ran in different directions. Police captured one man in a parking lot near Bellevue and Roy and the other a short time later after he jumped into the park above I-5 near Bellevue Place. Both men were described as in their 20s.
Damage included tags on several buildings in the area including the Avante Apartments at 525 Bellevue Ave E, according to the radio reports. According to an SPD document related to the incident, the case has been referred to the City Attorney’s office.
Radio reports also indicate that the tipster who made the call was transported to the scene where one man was taken into custody to identify the suspect. CHS recently reported on another tagging phone tip-related incident in the area of Bellevue and Roy in late May in which police say a tipster calling 911 to report vandalism was assaulted by the alleged taggers. The trial for those taggers is scheduled for July. It is not known if the tipster in the most recent incident is the same man who says he was assaulted after calling police in May.
A lot of hippie types (I’m talking to you Dominic) think it’s cool to let the taggers do whatever they want, but that shit just ain’t right, dudes! These are our homes. It’s a proven fact that the more tagging that is allowed unabated in a neighborhood, the more the other petty crimes like vandalism and broken windows follow. Then come the thieves and the crackheads and there goes the neighborhood.
So GOOD JOB mr or ms citizen who called SPD, and THANK YOU SPD for the responsiveness!
Last week when I got back from vacation I noticed that the sidewalk of Bellevue Ave (near Denny) was tagged as well as some poles and walls. There is a huge difference in being creative/artistic and a vandal. These people should be prosecuted! This is a great neighborhood with a lot of history and we must preserve it. I’ve only been living in the Hill for 6 months now, and I fell in love w/ the area and it really shock me how some empty-minded people enjoy damaging the visual appereance of our urban area.
Thanks for posting this article.
They also tagged the Dumar Building, at 520 Bellevue Ave. Do they use the fines associated with these crimes to remove the paint? That would be nice…
They should fine them and give them community service hours to paint over graffiti in the ‘hood. These are probably the same a-holes who painted over the wall across from St. Marks on 10th and Garfield
I noticed that too! And they even have cameras there! What happens to that footage?
“God is watching!” “and they have video, too!”
Good, so sick of this crap, they hit a ton of apartment buildings all the way down Bellevue Ave. They hit my building, got the front door area, the side of the building and the back garage door and I noticed the building next to us got hit all over also (and every sign post & pole out front of our building.
CHS blog needs to stop deleting comments. Censorship isn’t cool.
It’s not censorship. We moderate comments to keep the conversation useful. I can point you to 1,000 other places to make your point if you want to use hate or abusive language, launch personal attacks or cause disruption.
Also, by the way, there has been no moderation on this post so it’s possible you had some kind of technical issue that kept your comment from going through.
Glad to help.
I was walking home from work and noticed tags all the way from downtime (some on pine, up Olive Way and all the way down Bellevue Ave). They not only tagged buildings and signs but also some vehicles. It’s clearly not art as they can’t even spell a standard curse word correctly. This person/people should definitely get probation as well as some serious community service to clean up the neighborhood.
Awesome that the community is on the lookout for this type of thing!