ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Monday, March 25, 1996 TAG: 9603250092
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: LAURENCE HAMMACK STAFF WRITER
ARTWORK OR EYESORE? Either way, graffiti is illegal, and Roanoke police are cracking down.
Late at night, when the bars in downtown Roanoke go dark and the City Market sits dormant, vandals roam the streets.
For months, their identity was unknown. Frustrated merchants and police could only trace their routes by the light of day - after graffiti appeared overnight on the sides of buildings, telephone booths, street signs, railroad tankers, roofs, and almost any other flat surface within spray-painting range.
To people who do business downtown and in the City Market, the graffiti is a blemish on one of Roanoke's showplaces.
But to others, painting distinctive symbols on the walls - or "tagging," as they call it - is a way to leave their personal mark in an area that has become a hangout for the city's youths.
"When I was doing it, it did get addictive," 21-year-old Jason P. Atkins said.
"I had to have [my tag] here, and I had to have it there," he said, gesturing with his hand as if it still held a can of spray paint. "It was like a drug."
Last week, Atkins pleaded guilty to 10 counts of defacing property. He and two others face 45 misdemeanor charges in Roanoke's largest graffiti prosecution in recent years.
William R. Firebaugh, 18, and Michael M. Zimmerman, 19, will be tried later in Roanoke Circuit Court. All three are accused of leaving their ``tags" throughout the downtown area - interlocking letters that spell "Jay" for Atkins; a face with what appears to be a lighted cigar for Zimmerman; and an "Acid" logo for Firebaugh.
The symbols are not immediate attention-grabbers; some are small and tucked into corners and alleys. But once you start to notice them, "it seems like you see them every time you turn a corner," said Assistant Commonwealth's Attorney Gerald Teaster.
Authorities consider the case so serious that Teaster took the rare step of bringing misdemeanor charges in Circuit Court, where felonies are usually tried, so the defendants would face a jury if they chose to contest the allegations.
"We felt like the citizens ought to be able to decide this," he said, "because it's an affront to the people of Roanoke."
While graffiti often is associated with gangs and hate crimes, Teaster said there is nothing to suggest that was the case in Roanoke. When asked to explain how the trend got started, Atkins shrugged.
"I really don't know," he said. Enhanced by alcohol, tagging is a youthful pastime that defies logical explanation, he said. "We just did it to do it."
Name recognition
The writing on the walls is not necessarily a sign of something sinister, according to Dan Okada, a criminology professor at Marist College in New York and a national expert on graffiti. "It's mostly youthful exuberance."
Young people see tagging as a way to get recognition among their peers while living on the edge, he said. "Part of the attraction of doing that kind of art is the thrill of almost getting caught."
For true graffiti artists, their work is a form of self-expression. For instance, the late artist Keith Haring, whose primitive "radioactive" drawings are still seen in commercials, first achieved fame in the early 1980s painting graffiti on New York City subway trains and billboards.
"People have been doing this forever," Okada said. "I don't want to get too philosophical, but I would guess that's what the wall paintings on caves were all about. There's really not much difference between that and what's going on today."
But for downtown merchants, the graffiti is an unsightly and expensive problem.
After her Paper Alley gift store was hit by spray-painting vandals last year, co-owner Gale Sowers paid more than $3,000 to have the building painted. "My husband and I both feel very strongly that the Market is a showplace, and we wanted our building to look nice," she said.
But the fresh coat of burgundy paint created a tempting canvas. By Christmas, the graffiti was back.
"It's a sad situation, if that's all they can do to get recognition," Sowers said. "I'm sorry they chose to express themselves that way - at someone else's expense."
A number of business people have expressed concerns with a graffiti problem that seems to be growing, according to Rob Callahan, owner of 309 First Street Fine Food and Drink and head of the Market Area Committee of Downtown Roanoke Inc.
"It's not what I would call a big problem, but it's a problem that needs to be addressed before it gets bigger," he said.
Acknowledging that some people may find artistic value in the graffiti, Callahan said one idea being discussed is designating a certain wall downtown for that purpose.
Other cities have tried different approaches. Last year, a U.S. Supreme Court justice allowed Chicago to enforce a ban on spray paint to curb graffiti. In Virginia Beach, city officials considered, but did not impose, an age restriction on the sale of spray paint. In California, state lawmakers are pondering legislation that would allow judges to have minors paddled for graffiti crimes.
But crackdowns on graffiti can backfire, Okada warned. "If you have some really serious taggers, they kind of look at it as a challenge and say, 'If people are cracking down, let's get really clever with it.'''
In Roanoke, graffiti is one source of tension between some merchants and young people who congregate on the Market. While business owners complain that the teen-agers cause problems and sometimes intimidate shoppers, the youths say they are being targeted unfairly.
Callahan is careful not to attribute all of the graffiti to young people. "For all I know," he said, "it could be a 70-year-old homeless guy with a Magic Marker."
Caught red-handed
About 2 a.m. Feb. 8, a Mountain Avenue Southwest resident was roused by noises outside her home, Teaster said in court last week. Looking outside, she saw three young men painting something on a nearby Fourth Street Southwest business.
Police were called to the scene, and found the three men with paint on their hands. One was carrying a paper bag filled with paint cans. Atkins, Firebaugh and Zimmerman were charged with five counts of defacing property.
As police began to investigate, all it took was a walk through downtown to appreciate the scope of the vandalism.
By choosing to personalize their abundant work, Atkins and others had essentially signed their own arrest warrants - making it easy for police to bring additional charges as they found more and more of the incriminating tags.
"We've gotten calls from other people who have said the emblems are on their property, and we're chasing it down," Teaster said. But at this point, authorities have decided that piling more charges on the three men would be meaningless.
Atkins is scheduled to be sentenced in June, and faces up to 10 years in jail and a $25,000 fine. His attorney, Melissa Giles of Roanoke, said Atkins is willing to paint over the graffiti as a form of community service.
Atkins has no prior record, Giles said, and has apologized to many of the vandalism victims. "I think it would do more harm than good if he's put into jail and is around people with serious criminal histories," she said.
"Clearly, he's got to make up for what he did to the Roanoke community, but we would like to do that in a way that will benefit Roanoke and will also benefit him."
Meanwhile, police are continuing to investigate and could charge more people. Although Atkins says he has learned his lesson, he sees fresh evidence that tagging is still a late-night activity on the Market.
"I've seen some new ones popping up here and there," he said.
LENGTH: Long : 144 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: ERIC BRADY/Staff The writing is on the wall thatby CNBgraffiti is on the rise in downtown Roanoke. These "tags" were
painted on a building at Wall Street and Kirk Avenue in City
Market.