Tuesday, January 8, 2008

Video Vigilantism in Santa Ana

It seems as if there is someone in the Floral Park area who is as fed up with graffiti in Santa Ana as yours truly. Instead of chasing taggers down the street with a screwdriver in hand, this person has taken a more subtle and creative approach to keeping their neighborhood clean.



If you recall in an earlier post, the city of Montebello was working on installing cameras that begin recording when triggered by the sound emitted from aerosol spray cans.

I hate to keep sounding like a proponent of the Big Brother system, but it might be what this troubled city needs to keep the kiddies from writing on the walls.

Keep up the great work!

5 comments :

Anonymous said...

It would seem like knowing that you'll be made famous on youtube would encourage more tagging. Isn't that what taggers want? The signs shouldn't say it'll appear on youtube--it should say that the videos will make their way to SAPD.

Ben Dayhoe said...

Agreed. I'm guilty of the same action. I too need to go back and blur out the graffiti pics that I've posted on this site.

Nonetheless, it's nice to see someone in the community taking action against vandalism.

Anonymous said...

It would be great if they could capture the license plate of that truck or other vehicles that import those vandals.

Nice looking truck. Maybe the occupants have lots of $$$ to pay for the grafitti removal.

Anonymous said...

Excellent...I agree, it should say they will be arrested and prosecuted.

Also, there have been videos that picked up license plates, and the subjects were tracked down and arrested. Probably an expensive camera though.

Anonymous said...

Scott Kutner, from Santa Ana's community development department just sent out a newsletter with a bunch of opportunities, information, events, etc. available through that department.

One of the items is a grant opportunity from the Helping Hands organization that can be used for a number of community benefit and safety things.
Maybe some funds could be gotten for cameras for the recurring problem areas. It might also be used to fund supplies for residents to regularly paint out grafitti or grafitti-proof protective coatings that make cleanup easy.
The West End Community Oriented Policing organization will likely be applying for a grant for some grafitti-proof polymer coating material that you can clean up with a little citrus based cleaner without even power washing the surface. Good stuff!

If anyone is interested in pursuing the grant application, I'll send the links to Ben.