"A student was photographed tagging a bus carrying Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and other dignitaries." Anne Cusack/Los Angeles Times
Posted on 02/27/2007 4:36:21 PM PST by BenLurkin
LOS ANGELES Officials say a high school student scribbled graffiti on a bus that Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and other dignitaries were riding while promoting a school safety plan.
Witnesses say the boy tagged the rear exit of the bus with a marker as the officials rode around a South Los Angeles school to showcase efforts to improve student safety in the gang-plagued neighborhood.
At least one news organization captured the tagger on camera. Villaraigosa was with L.A. Unified Superintendent David Brewer the Third, the school board president and others to announce that a Metropolitan Transportation Authority bus would stop closer to Santee High School. The move was prompted by reports that many students walking to and from the campus had been robbed and assaulted.
"A student was photographed tagging a bus carrying Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and other dignitaries." Anne Cusack/Los Angeles Times
canary in the coal mine. Does not even care.
Nice generation we seem to be raising.
This would be funny if it weren't so PATHETIC...!!!
Grafitti is rampant in Loas Angeles and it has reached epidemiuc proportions. In some areas it's every highway and street sign. The big murals in the downtown on the 101 are covered with taggers excrement. I don't know the solution, but I don't remember this mayor ever making a big deal out of stopping it.
This kid is simply putting the finishing touches on L.A.s social collapse.
I used to drive into L.A. from Whittier....
The closer you got, the deeper, higher and wider the graffiti got.
Nauseating.
Everything under 30' from the ground is soiled...NO respect for private property whatsoever.
They had put up razor wire around some street signs, but the ACLU made them take it down in the 80's, but a judge overruled that and allowed the razor wire back up in the 90's.
But the taggers seemed to have evolved and now spray everywhere including spots requiring someone to navigate over razor wire.
Lining up folks against walls and graffiti-ing the walls with their bullet-spattered blood may be the only solution.
I just drove through there last week (my old home town) down the 5 to and from Disneyland last week. I was amazed at how good of a job they have done in The Valley at keeping down the graffiti, but as you say, how awful it is in the city, especially from Los Feliz to Downtown and at the 101 and 10 interchanges.
It was sad having to explain to my kids who have been raised in Sacramento what all that mess was, and how it wasn't like that when I was growing up there.
Nice generation we seem to be raising.
We're not raising that generation,,Ours say "Yes Mam,,No Sir ",and they got a good aim ,,,also..
How's this for pathetic?
Graffiti mars school media event
Officials didn't seem to see any irony or humor in the timing of the brazen vandalism."It's a cry out for help," said Vince Carbino, Santee's principal. He said he will meet with the youth, together with one of the school's social workers, to "help the student and get him on the right track."
I despise grafitti. If it were up to me, those f*ing taggers would be shot on sight. I'd love to see us do what they do in Singapore - a good public caning for those caught.
A "cry for help" my eye!
I guess the Mayor must have been a member of a rival gang.
Let the business owners defend their property, and the city cops defend the city's property. With deadly force.
Heh-heh.
After this occurred, that dumb cluck Villaraigosa said that the lad should do lots of community service. How about throwing his delinquent posterior in juvie, Antonio?
In agreement with John Jorsett.
Paraphrasing Villariagosa: The student should be given community service. What the student did is called vandalism at the very least. The student does need to appear in juv. court. Buses are very expensive for a school district to maintain and/or purchase.
The parents of a student(s) and student(s) that are found to be tagging should pay for or assist in cleaning up damage done to property.
Santee Principal states it is a "cry for help"..Would not want to damage the self-esteem of the tagger.(sarc.)
I thought you might enjoy a follow-up to this article and the principal's plan to help this poor lad.
L.A. Mayor Offers To Mentor Tagging Suspect
[Principal] Carbino sounded less than bowled over by the mayor's offer. A former police officer who is a licensed counselor, the principal said in an interview that the South Los Angeles school already has a comprehensive team of people ready to help the boy, including"This child is in very good hands," Carbino said. "I think what he needs the most is to be surrounded by people who are going to be — let's say — nonjudgmental and to follow the caveat that we have good students who sometimes make bad decisions."
- three psychiatric social workers,
- one full-time and one part-time psychologist,
- two intensive intervention counselors and
- six regular school counselors.
Who knows -- looking at that lineup maybe that kid is in for a special type of misery.
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