VPD cops wiped off city's anti-graffiti beat

[b0ld]

VPD cops wiped off city's anti-graffiti beat


The Vancouver Police Department is blaming staff shortages for its removal of officers from its two-member anti-graffiti unit.
Formed in the early 2000s, the unit reported a 77 per cent drop in graffiti in its first three years through work with the city's graffiti management program.
The unit created a database of taggers and their profiles, which helped in investigations.

Vancouver Police Department spokesman Const. Tim Fanning said the officers are being pulled from the unit because they were needed on patrol to help with 911 calls. "We're looking at hiring, hopefully many more officers over the next couple of years," he added. "As soon as our strength's up, then we'll be able to have the anti-graffiti unit running again. It's basically on hold. It's not being shut down."
But the decision worries Daniel Paquin, coordinator of the city's anti-graffiti program, which enjoyed a close relationship with the officers in the unit. "They're not saying they're closing the anti-graffiti unit, but having no officers there the result is the same," he said. "No investigations will be made on graffiti issues. We're quite concerned about this because we all work together here and if we cannot have anyone investigating prolific taggers and catching them, then we're in for a big battle here in the city. It's going to be a mess, especially now that 2010's approaching and the culture out there. The word is out--Vancouver is going to get bombed. That means spray bombed."
Paquin suspects taggers will take advantage of the news and vandalize property, photograph it and put it on the Internet. The city's anti-graffiti program staff also work with property-use inspectors, the engineering department and a graffiti removal contractor, Goodbye Graffiti, to manage the graffiti problem.
The city program has worked recently with Burnaby and New Westminster to establish a Metro Vancouver task force. But those efforts might be hurt by the police unit's cuts. "There's nothing we can do here. We do not enforce the laws here. It's the police that does that," Paquin said. "We're hoping that officers working the beat or patrol officers will be a little bit more vigilant and look for these taggers."
Patrol officers have made arrests in the past when they've caught taggers in the act and charged them with mischief. But now they won't be able to transfer case files to a specific unit, which would investigate the incident more deeply.
Paquin pointed to a new tagger, identifying himself as "Joe," who's been hitting the Broadway corridor. His office has a lead on Joe's identity and what school he attends. Paquin would typically pass the information on to the police's anti-graffiti unit, who would pursue it with the school liaison officer. The officer could then prepare a case against the offender with the unit's database of tags.
Vancouver has seen a recent increase in graffiti with the resurgence of hip-hop culture and the popularity of tagging in videogames and advertisements. "There's quite a few people that are disturbed [about the members being removed from the unit]," Paquin said, adding, "Vancouver was the first municipality in Canada to form an anti-graffiti unit, and I get emails from all over the place on the planet... People are interested because graffiti has gone down quite a bit in Vancouver. [This news] is having a big effect on all of us in this business."

[patrik.cure]

2 Person Unit LOOOOOOL! big loss.

[jenai]

i guess the city is too cheap to hire private investigators, most of whom used to be cops and have ties with VPD, NWPD, and the RCMP.