Daniel Bethencourt

Detroit Free Press

For years, the presence of graffiti in Detroit has been unmistakable. But a group of Detroit police and prosecutors have been steadily charging dozens of people in an effort to wipe it out.

Since July 2014, 53 people have been charged with graffiti-related crimes. Twelve of those have gone to jail, and some have had to clean up their own work as a community service. Those numbers are a sharp rise from just a few years ago, when graffiti crimes were not being tracked across the department.

The charges are matched by new efforts from the city: the General Services department has taken down more than 17,000 illegal tags, said John Roach, a Mayor’s Office spokesman. The city also has issued tickets to building owners who leave unsanctioned graffiti on their walls.

“We're no longer turning a blind eye to illegal graffiti,” said Sgt. Rebecca McKay of the Detroit Police Department’s General Assignment Unit, which investigates illegal street art and other quality-of-life crimes. “It's not going ignored any longer.”

The most famous of the unit’s arrests was Shepard Fairey, the internationally known artist who was charged with tagging at least 18 sites with wheat paste posters across the city during a visit in May.

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Fairey was already in town to paint the largest work of his career, an 18-story mural on One Campus Martius for Dan Gilbert’s Bedrock Real Estate Services, and others, but he told the Free Press that he intended to do unauthorized work as well.

Fairey now faces one count of malicious destruction of a building over $20,000 and two counts of malicious destruction of a bridge. The first charge carries a maximum of 10 years, while the second two charges each carry a maximum of four years, said Megan Moslimani, a deputy chief in the City of Detroit Law Department. His next court appearance date has not been set.

Yet several prolific local taggers have been charged, too.

In September, Tyler Clarke, 21, of Detroit but formerly of Grosse Pointe, and William Rundquist, 21, of Grosse Pointe, were charged for illegal artwork at Division and I-75, police said.

One month later, both were charged again – this time for tagging a downtown building on Monroe Street. They were caught partly thanks to video from Bedrock Real Estate Services. Clarke’s tag is “TY313,” while Rundquist’s tag is “REMS.”

“The two men … continued their crime spree even after knowing that the Detroit Police Department had secured felony warrants for their arrest,” McKay said in a statement.

Clarke was sentenced to 30 days in jail plus probation and has been ordered to clean up his work. Rundquist’s sentence has not been released.

McKay pointed out that most of those arrested live in Detroit’s suburbs, not Detroit itself.

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“They're not living among the damage they cause,” McKay said. “The citizens of Detroit have to look at this.”

Another major string of arrests came between August 2014 and Jan. 15, when police say they caught seven members of a “TCK” graffiti gang, whose members have tags like “FOX,” “RIDLE,” “FON,” “ZUER,” “SKAB,” “CUBE” and “SORE.” The seven members who have been sentenced are responsible for more than 100 graffiti works, McKay said.

“There's folklore built around some of these names,” said Sgt. Michael Woody, a Detroit police spokesman. “You can't drive two blocks in the city without seeing one of their names.”

The law enforcement efforts appear to be having a strong effect.

“It’s definitely gotten people to stop,” said W.C. Bevan, a Detroit-based artist who painted a mural in Eastern Market.

When Bevan moved to Detroit two years ago, the city was “caked in graffiti,” he said. He remembers riding around at night on his bicycle and often seeing people illegally tagging buildings.

But since then, he said graffiti artists are more likely to at least try to get permission from a building’s owner. He added of the illegal tagging, “I don’t really see that anymore.”

Bevan has tried to use the new law enforcement attitude to his advantage. He has approached the owners of buildings covered in illegal graffiti and offered to paint their building over with his own work, which he describes as “psychedelic architecture,” for free. Usually they let him go ahead.

Police Commissioner Ricardo Moore applauded the recent police efforts, but hoped the department would keep working to address other city-wide crime issues – like a shortage of officers and a shortage of response times, he added.

“Graffiti is important, but we have real life-and-death issues taking place in Detroit,” he said. “A lot of citizens feel hopeless due to crime and violence. And we have to make sure they feel safe as well.”

Minister Malik Shabazz, a Detroit activist, said he thought the graffiti unit “has made an impact on how the city looks,” but added: “We’ve got a long way to go.”

Those who want to report graffiti can call a city hotline at 313-235-4359.

Contact Daniel Bethencourt: 313-223-4531 or dbethencourt@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @_dbethencourt. Staff writers Ann Zaniewski and Robert Allen contributed to this report.