Tacoma’s Park Avenue neighborhood battles gang graffiti
Park Avenue: Volunteers clean up 70 properties
STACEY MULICK; The News Tribune
Published: 08/12/09 12:05 am | Updated: 08/12/09
Residents in the Park Avenue neighborhood in Tacoma’s South End are in a battle. The enemy: gang graffiti.
Last weekend, volunteers gathered to paint over graffiti on more than 70 properties that were tagged Aug. 4, National Night Out.
“Almost all of them were covered,” said Brad Allen, coordinator of the Park Avenue Neighborhood block group.
No new taggings have been spotted since Saturday. The group’s neighborhood patrol has been looking for new graffiti, checking on old tags and noting burned-out street lights.
“We are doing our thing day and night,” Allen said.
Last week’s vandalism was the second time in recent weeks that gang members had spray-painted properties in the neighborhood, which extends from South 56th to 64th streets and from South Yakima to Pacific avenues.
“We’ve never been hit before like these past two weeks,” Allen said.
The first round of gang graffiti appeared in two waves on nearly 50 properties in a 24-hour span July 23.
Between 9 and 10 a.m., taggers hit more than 30 properties. Between 1 and 2 a.m. the next morning, a rival gang crossed out the first batch of graffiti and left its own messages on 15 properties, Allen said.
Crews had painted over most of the graffiti during an emergency cleanup when a second round hit on National Night Out, when neighbors gather to fight crime issues such as this.
The second time, Allen said, the vandals targeted any type of surface – vehicles, garages, garbage cans, sides of homes.
“Anything in their way got hit,” Allen said.
Residents launched another emergency cleanup Saturday. They got help from five other neighborhood groups in the city.
Police suspect rival gangs are battling over turf within the 35-block Park Avenue Neighborhood. Allen said a recent police crackdown on gangs on the East Side also might be pushing the activity into his neighborhood.
“They are pushing this way to see what’s going to give,” Allen said.
Tacoma police announced East Side crackdown in wake of gang violence
The Tacoma Police Department has initiated a crackdown on the East Side in response to a flurry of gang-related violence.
They've added more officers to the East Side after Sunday's homicide and a handful of driveby shootings in this week. Here's the story I've written about the crack down.
Here's the press release sent out this afternoon by the department:
Five shootings, in the span of one week, have prompted the Tacoma Police Department to initiate an aggressive gang suppression strategy. The Tacoma Police Department is sending a clear message that gang violence in our community will not be tolerated.
Tacoma Police will use a two pronged approach in an effort to stop the increase in violence. The first prong will be a short term emphasis that targets the Eastside of Tacoma, the area where the recent incidents have occurred. The second prong will focus on the long term goal on reducing gang related crime in the City of Tacoma.
The short term solution will be to effectively focus resources from the Gang Unit, Community Liaison Officers, the Traffic Section, School Resource Officers, and the Special Investigations Section to suppress and disrupt violent gang activity.
The long term solution is to use suppression, intervention, as well as prevention techniques and strategies to reduce gang violence and the increase of gang recruitment.
The Tacoma Police Department recognizes that we are not the sole solution to stopping youth violence and is relying on cooperation from the community to assist us in solving this problem. Citizens with any information regarding the recent shootings or other gang related crime are asked to call the Tacoma Police Department Tip Line at (253) 594-7867, select option #2.
Makes one want to start a private snipers club.......fantasy.........of course.