The news just never stopped this week:

Los Angeles City Councilwoman Wendy Gruel wants San Fernando Valley residents to help kick-off a “graffiti crackdown.”

Greuel, police and school district officials will declare a “war on graffiti” during a community forum Wednesday night at Grant High School in Valley Glen.

It is part of a plan to eliminate gangs, starting with their symbols and tags, NBC4′s Robert Kovacik reported.

Read the entire article.

Just found this news piece:

Whittier police Detective Lenin Ceja considers himself somewhat of an expert on local gangs and graffiti.

“I know all the players … in this city,” said Ceja, the new gang-graffiti detective for Santa Fe Springs.

Officials selected Ceja as their top choice for the job recently, after the Santa Fe Springs City Council this year designated $135,000 to create the new position, said city police services Director Fernando Tarin.

Read the entire article.

So, these guys accomplish the impossible. They do a complete top-to-bottom set of 10…count ‘em 10, whole train cars painted with the theme “Monopoly” recently in New York. See images below.

 
So, what’s so newsworthy about this you ask? (Other than the obvious.)
These guys totally sold out!
You would think anyone else would just take the fame with stride and that’s that. Should be enough, right? Well, these guys bring a video camera with them and record the whole thing with purposes of producing a DVD of the process so they could earn a few bucks.

 
In an interview at The Streets Are Saying Things shortly after the crimes took place, the MUL crew was asked a question and they replied:

We would love to release the DVD afterwards to the public but realized that by giving exclusive rights to an outside party may yield more money selling 1 copy then selling many copies at $20. Think about it, after someone got his or her hands on the video it would end up all over the Internet anyway, killing the value of the DVD. We’re gambling that this DVD could go for some good money if the media goes after the story.

Well, that said enough about that but I have more up-to-date information to tell you. Really juicy stuff too.
…they stated above that “we’re gambling that this DVD could go for some good money…”, I just hope they didn’t bet the farm because all they made from the auction was $5,201. They did manage to sell 2,860 shirts with an image of their Monopoly themed train cars and MUL NYC printed on them though. (As stated on their website.) Something smells fishy here.

Personally, I think this whole thing is suspect for foul play. Their website is produced to look amateur-ish, but me being a web developer found flaws with their coding…in laymen terms I basically can tell an amateur surely did not make their site. Whoever posted this article at Razor Apple hit it right on the money and without a doubt I think this whole thing is a stunt!

Bottom line, the NYC Vandal Squad gets a half-kudos from us for faking the biggest subway hit since 1986. But then they also should learn some things from this:

1. If the site is to look amateur-ish, make it amateur-ish! No SEO techniques whatsoever! Gah, newbies.
2. An illegal graffiti writers crew is NOT going to use a real domain along with a local host to control their site. They will use a free host somewhere and maybe steal the domain name somehow and point it to the free hosted site. No ifs ands or buts about that one.
3. No true illegal graffiti writer is going to be stupid enough to further incriminate themselves by selling shirts and dvds of their crimes. That’s just stupid.
4. The Internet is NOT an all-knowing entity. Yes, you can find abundant information about almost everything on the net, but you are better off investigating street crimes where they took place, on the streets.

I can’t believe I missed this one! Last week Sohh reported:

Alain “Ket” Maridueña, former publisher of 90′s hip-hop magazine Stress was reportedly arrested yesterday for leaving his mark on subway trains and stations across New York City.

According to New York’s Daily News, 36-year-old Maridueña, who wrote graffiti under the alias Ket, was indicted in Manhattan, Brooklyn and Queens for 11 incidents of felony criminal mischief between 2004 and 2006. Maridueña turned himself in to the Brooklyn district attorney’s office yesterday (March 6).

I will stay on top of this one so stay tuned!

So, I came across a news article from March 13, 2007 and I’m stumped. Is this for real?!? (Laughing hard right now.)

Saif Azzuz, 19, who used the tag name “El Barto” and “Bart”, will be sentenced to three years probation and will perform community service and clean graffiti under an Educational Sentencing Program, Deputy District Attorney Craig Brooks said. Seven counts of vandalism causing more than $50,000 each are to be dismissed at sentencing on April 9, Brooks said. The amount of restitution Azzuz must pay has not been determined, Brooks said.

Original news article can be found here.

Follow Up:
Well, I guess this wasn’t a joke! Posted today (April 9):
Judge Orders Graffiti Tagger ‘Bart’ To Clean Walls

Very soon in Lake Elsinore, California you won’t just be going to jail if you get caught vandalizing…you could also lose your drivers license!

After studying the city’s graffiti problem for eight months, the Public Safety Advisory Commission is on the verge of adopting an ordinance that stiffens penalties for vandals and sets firmer restrictions on retailers who sell materials typically used by vandals.
Yaddah yadda. …The proposed ordinance increases financial penalties to as much as $25,000 for vandals and provides the possibility of their driver’s licenses being suspended. It also increases to $1,000 the amount someone could be rewarded for providing information that leads to the arrest and successful prosecution of vandals.
On the retail end, the ordinance would force businesses to record the names, addresses and driver’s license numbers of anybody who buys three or more cans of spray paint. It calls for the city to revoke the licenses of those businesses that don’t comply with the law.

Just caught this one fresh from the wire.

An investigation was launched today after a £100,000 mural by graffiti artist Banksy was painted over by bungling council workers.

The 25ft painting, sprayed on the side of a row of garages in Bristol, was mistaken as vandalism by a graffiti removal team who covered the wall with thick black paint.

Locals are furious that the 10-year-old artwork, which is believed to be one of Banksy’s earliest free-painted murals, has been lost.

Bristol City Council, which has ordered all Banksy work to be preserved, has launched an investigation.

Read the rest of this article.

Make no mistake about it, the OTR.084 (aka Flowpen) is a professional marker and can be used on pretty much any surface in existence. The OTR.084 is not called the Flowpen for nothing! This marker is hardcore on the drips. You have the control to make it as drippy as you like! The marker is totally transparent, so you can always know your exact ink level. You can refill your Flowpen with the special OTR ink (or really any ink of your choosing, providing that it is light enough to pass through the nibs) and replace your nibs, and to top it off your marker is guaranteed to work for years!

The OTR.084 is available at BombingScience.com for only $6.95!

And don’t forget to pick up a few replacement nibs, because believe me, you will be using this one the most. I’ve also seen the wide nibs somewhere before, keep an eye out for those. The replacement nib featured to the left is only $1.99/each at Bombing Science.com.

 

You read that title right! Local (to me) graffiti vandal WISHM from the crew RUH has been hunted down and incarcerated by local authorities through his YouTube account.

Yesterday was the first time that I caught wind of WISHM being caught by authorities (thanks to the ultra-famous news agency News Corp, aka Fox11) and is in custody and facing felony vandalism charges for crimes committed in San Bernardino County and Los Angeles County. It seems that his accomplice MEEK is still at large though.

Here’s the video which caused his downfall:

UPDATE:
I caught this flick on my way back from the bombest Chinese restaurant this side of China, Capitol Chinese Seafood Restaurant (Diamond Bar, CA):

P.S. Sorry about the quality, we were driving and I caught it out of the side of my sight at the last second, luckily we were stuck in traffic.
And another to prove it was the duo:

For my first real post here I’de like to post a video clip from the Getting Up DVD. This clip features infamous writers JA, Cope2, Skuf, Chino, and Ket giving you the low-down about throw-ups. If you don’t know by now these guys are legendary graffiti artists. Some are now doing nothing but legal graffiti art but most are still bombing illegally all over the United States and the World.

Here’s a list of these artists and what they are up to now:

JA – (NYC); still active on the streets.
Cope2 – Crew: Kings Destroy (NYC); does some legal art works but is still active on the streets.
Skuf – (NYC); still active on the streets.
Chino – Crew: Beyond Your Imagination (NYC); still active on the streets.
Ket – (NYC); still active on the streets.