A Mission Hill man walking out of a Green Line tunnel around 4:30 a.m. today aroused the suspicions of a passing Northeastern University police officer, who started an investigation that ended with the man under arrest for allegedly using spray paint to profess his love for hot sauce inside the tunnel.

Alex Wan, 23, was charged with malicious destruction of property and standing, walking, or riding vehicle on railroad property, according to an MBTA Transit Police report.

According to police, a Northeastern sergeant driving inbound on Huntington stopped Wan when he spotted him walking out of the Green Line portal just past Mass. Ave. Police did not buy his story that he'd gotten off at Symphony and was just using the tunnel as a shortcut home. Wan allegedly told the sergeant he "wrote only one thing" in the tunnel. The report says arriving transit officers noted white paint on his hands and then took their own walk into the tunnel:

Approximately 100 feet into the tunnel there was red graffiti on the left side that stretched approximately 50-75 feet in length. In the stretch of graffiti there was the word "hot" in red lettering along with a word that was not identifiable. Further down from the end of the red graffiti, in black "writing" was the word "SAUCE". A few feet further down from the word "SAUCE" was another unidentifiable word written in red paint. On the opposite side of the tunnel directly across from the word "SAUCE" was the word "HOT" with black "bubble" lettering and filled in with what appeared to be white or silver paint. On the right side of the tunnel next to the word "HOT" was the word "LOVE" written with red paint, which was tacky to the touch and had a strong odor of paint emanating from the wall. Sgt. Rae was advised of the findings and took 16 pictures of the graffiti with a department issued camera.

According to the report, an inventory of his backpack showed:

2 Brown Shoe Polish bottles, 1 White shoe polish bottle, 1 NOKIA cell phone, 1 Sony Cyber-shot camera, 1 red/black bandana, 1 pair of work gloves, 1 business card for KHMER INK, 2 permanent markers, 3 paint markers, 2 spray paint caps, 1 aerosol spray paint can-unknown color, 1 aerosol spray paint can-gloss white, 1 aerosol spray paint can-black and 1 aerosol spray paint can-aluminum, Keys with a sensor tag.

Innocent, etc.